President Obama is hobbling into the final stretch of his re-election run. He has lost credibility with his public base because they feel he did not do what he promised he would. He has lost support elite fiscal base (the wealthy, business owners, and c-suite managers) because he cannot continue to follow their prescriptions which have proven only to exacerbate the gap between them and the poor and working class.

It is important to see clearly what President Obama has done, and done really well. He has made a concerted and highly focused effort to bridge the big divides. He has reached out and tried to work with those across the aisle on a range of issues seeking to achieve compromise focused on common aims. Read more »

100% Scared
How the National Security Complex Grows on Terrorism Fears
By Tom Engelhardt

Here’s a scenario to chill you to the bone:

Without warning, the network -- a set of terrorist super cells -- struck in northern Germany and Germans began to fall by the hundreds, then thousands.  As panic spread, hospitals were overwhelmed with the severely wounded.  More than 20 of the victims died.

No one doubted that it was al-Qaeda, but where the terrorists had come from was unknown.  Initially, German officials accused Spain of harboring them (and the Spanish economy promptly took a hit); then, confusingly, they retracted the charge.  Alerts went off across Europe as fears spread.  Russia closed its borders to the European Union, which its outraged leaders denounced as a “disproportionate” response. Even a small number of Americans visiting Germany ended up hospitalized.

In Washington, there was panic, though no evidence existed that the terrorists were specifically targeting Americans or that any of them had slipped into this country.  Still, at a hastily called news conference, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano raised the new terror alert system for the first time from its always “elevated“ status to “imminent” (that is, “ a credible, specific, and impending threat”).  Soon after, a Pentagon spokesman announced that the U.S. military had been placed on high alert across Europe. Read more »

Crisis of Confidence
How Washington Lost Faith in America’s Courts
By Karen J. Greenberg

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the unexpected extent of the damage Americans have done to themselves and their institutions is coming into better focus.  The event that “changed everything” did turn out to change Washington in ways more startling than most people realize.  On terrorism and national security, to take an obvious (if seldom commented upon) example, the confidence of the U.S. government seems to have been severely, perhaps irreparably, shaken when it comes to that basic and essential American institution: the courts.

If, in fact, we are a “nation of laws,” you wouldn’t know it from Washington’s actions over the past few years. Nothing spoke more strikingly to that loss of faith, to our country’s increasing incapacity for meeting violence with the law, than the widely hailed decision to kill rather than capture Osama bin Laden.

Clearly, a key factor in that decision was a growing belief, widely shared within the national-security establishment, that none of our traditional or even newly created tribunals, civilian or military, could have handled a bin Laden trial.  Washington’s faith went solely to Navy SEALs zooming into another country’s sovereign airspace on a moonless night on a mission to assassinate bin Laden, whether he offered the slightest resistance or not.  It evidently seemed so much easier to the top officials overseeing the operation -- and so much less messy -- than bringing a confessed mass murderer into a courtroom in, or even anywhere near, the United States. Read more »

Taking an approach that focused on the broad needs of our society to maintain a strong working class, The Congressional Progressive Caucus drafted a comprehensive "Peoples Budget" that has been widely ignored by corporate media, President Obama, and both Republican and Democratic representatives in the House and Senate. This budget warrants massive public support and serves as the best presently available vetted solution to our nations fiscal woes. It maintains strong healthcare and social security positions, while balancing the tax burden of working class Americans by requiring the wealthy and corporations to pay a more equitable share. With the Peoples Budget, Americans have a clearly defined alternative proposal they can support that promises a balanced budget within a decade and a stronger America for all Americans. Download the budget. Download the budget analysis.

INTRODUCTION

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has drafted a progressive budget, titled the People’s Budget, as an alternative to the House Republican 2012 budget and President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget request. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has analyzed and scored the specific policy proposals in the People’s Budget and modeled their cumulative impact on the federal budget over the next decade. The policies in the People’s Budget reflect the decisions of the Congressional Progressive Caucus leadership and staff, not that of the Economic Policy Institute.1 The People’s Budget Department of Defense proposals were crafted by Congressional Progressive Caucus staff in conjunction with Congressional Research Service staff; budgetary scores were provided to the Economic Policy Institute but independent verification is beyond our area of expertise. All other policy proposals have been independently analyzed and scored by EPI based on a variety of other sources, notably data from the Congressional Budget Office, Joint Committee on Taxation, Office of Management and Budget, Tax Policy Center, and Citizens for Tax Justice.

Composition of the People’s Budget
The policy options that make up the People’s Budget fall into five broad categories: public investment, Social Security, health care reform, Department of Defense spending, and tax reform. Read more »