On Thursday, President Trump sent a letter to Congress making clear he wants to freeze federal employees’ pay for 2019. Here’s what his letter said: Under current law, locality pay increases averaging 25.70 percent, costing $25 billion, would go into effect in January 2019, in addition to a 2.1 percent across-the-board increase for the base […]
Blog: TAPPED
Posted inLaw and Justice
Law Professors Denounce Sessions’s Push for Case Quotas for Immigration Judges
In a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, more than 120 law professors denounced the Justice Department’s new performance metrics for immigration judges as a danger to due process and an infringement on judicial independence. Administrative and immigration law professors from at least 30 states warned that, while the current backlog of […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Capitalism? Democrats Say, Pfoo!
The biennial Gallup poll on Americans’ sentiments toward capitalism and socialism came out this week, and the numbers tell us a lot, particularly about today’s Democrats. As in the 2016 poll, the share of Democrats who have a favorable view of socialism remains both high and essentially unchanged: 58 percent two years ago, 57 percent […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Federal Employee Union Begins ‘Shame on HHS’ Campaign
The Trump administration’s targeting of federal employee unions is unsurprising, considering its transparent disdain for labor. But this Friday, a major federal union plans to fight back with a union-wide campaign. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 federal workers in 31 agencies, recently filed a grievance against the Department of Health and Human […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Michael Brown’s Body, Struggle, and Progress
On August 9, 2014, Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown dead in Ferguson, Missouri. In a final act of white supremacy, the police could not be bothered to cover up his mortal remains. As his body lay in the hot Missouri sun, a new civil rights movement erupted. Because Michael Brown died that day, Wesley Brown […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
$2 Trillion Here, $2 Trillion There, and Soon We’re Talking Real Money
I know you know that Republicans throw money at the rich. Doctrines may shift, Russia may go from bad guy to BFF, NATO may defend the free world one day and dilute our sovereignty the next, but tax cuts for the rich are the one True North of Republican cosmology. Without it, the party perishes, […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Labor’s Astonishing Missouri Win — and the Opening It Portends
Ohio’s razor-thin vote for an open House seat got most of the headlines, but the bigger story was the defeat of a right-to-work ballot proposition in supposedly right-wing Missouri. The bill to make Missouri America’s 28th state with a “right to work” law was passed by the legislature in 2017 and signed by then–Republican Governor […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
FCC’s Proposed Lifeline Restructuring Only Exacerbates the Digital Divide
At a House hearing regarding expanding broadband internet access across the country on July 25, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that closing the “digital divide” was a “top priority” during his tenure as chairman. If that’s the case, then he certainly has a surprising approach to doing so. In November 2017, the Republican-dominated […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Why Dems Should Make a $15 Wage Their First Order of Business
Let’s make the increasingly likely assumption that Democrats take back the House in November. Nothing symbolizes concern for working people better than a higher minimum wage. And nothing jams Republicans quite as starkly as making them take a vote on this. Do you doubt that? Here is a true fact. In the election of 2004—that’s […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Tax Act’s Unfinished Business
The wealthiest Americans were already pretty happy with the 2017 Republican Tax Act. It bequeaths corporations with $1.7 trillion in tax cuts at the expense of funding for social programs, and 83 percent of the law’s benefits will go to the top 1 percent by 2027, when most of the individual income changes will have […]
