Columns

Republican plans to privatize social security raise two different security questions. One is the impact on the retirement security of workers if they become dependent on the stock market for their basic livelihood in old age. The other concerns the nation’s security if, as news reports indicate, the Republicans decide that rather than raise taxes, […]

Once again, Democrats are “rethinking” what they stand for. After previous defeats, such “rethinkings” resulted in rightward drifts. Democrats courted upscale suburban swing voters and steadily distanced themselves from the party’s working-class roots. They urged tax cuts for the middle class, welfare reform, and fiscal responsibility. After John Kerry’s defeat, though, moving right could take […]

Two days after his re-election, President Bush offered the public some guidance on what he says will be a central goal of his second term: “tax simplification.” Bush said he wants to “encourage people to invest and save,” i.e., he favors still more tax cuts for the rich. He added that he’ll propose a tax […]

The real work for progressives starts November 3, either fighting a newly unleashed George W. Bush or helping a sure-to-be besieged John Kerry. But to be effective, progressives must understand why the right has been so successful at shaping the national debate. The conventional view sees the right’s success as a reaction to the left’s […]

In September, my group, Citizens for Tax Justice, released a major study on corporate tax avoidance. We looked at 275 of the largest and most profitable Fortune 500 companies and found that almost a third managed to pay nothing (or less) in federal income taxes in at least one of the first three years of […]

Why is big business so enthusiastic about another Bush term? Yes, corporations have gotten a few fat tax breaks and regulatory rollbacks, and more face time with the president than do White House security guards. But on the issues that count, the current administration and its allies are undermining the foundations of American business. Consider […]

Read my lips: I’ll raise your taxes — a lot. Thus, paraphrased only slightly, speaks George W. Bush to Middle America. Yet many of his intended middle-class victims don’t seem to hold it against him. Or perhaps they haven’t been listening hard enough. In his speech at the Republican convention, Bush called for a “simpler, […]

Readers of The American Prospect don’t need to hear that Donald Rumsfeld has been an awful defense secretary, that our actions in Iraq are fueling global terrorism, that George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the rich are widening the gap between the rich and everyone else, that our government is now run by corporate America […]

As federal deficits mount to record levels, President Bush now tells us there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Not a bright light, mind you, but he does claim that his new budget plan, despite more huge tax cuts, will get the government’s books halfway to balanced within five years. There are, however, a […]

(February 10, 2004) It’s not clear who should have been celebrating when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in early February that the state has to provide gay couples the right to marry and nothing less. The decision barred the Massachusetts legislature from adopting a law authorizing “civil unions” in which “spouses” would have “all […]