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President Obama and House Speaker Boehner are said to be closing in on a $3 Trillion dollar deal. [Washington Post] Even an MBA degree from a prestigious university may not protect you from the next round of layoffs looming over the financial sector. [CNBC] Social networking for job-seekers: the next big thing? [Fortune] What makes a great and innovative CEO? Learn from some of the best by reading here. [Forbes] Why investors should be bullish on stock right now. [The Street] On Wednesday, the RP suggested that the budget proposal proposed by the Senate’s “Gang of Six,” was — while not perfect — the best opportunity for the country to escape the debt ceiling crisis with a sound plan to fix the nation’s structural economic problems. He also encouraged you to contact your Congressman and advocate for a bipartisan solution such as the Gang of Six plan. (Click here to be heard.) More details have emerged on the plan, and how it will slash the national debt by $3.7 trillion, through a combination of spending cuts and tax reform. Click here for the latest, greatest summary of the proposal. Beginning next week, The Recovering Politician will add a new feature: regular up-to-the-minute updates of the budget crisis. Our intrepid new Washington, DC staffer, Patrick Derocher, will be providing summaries of the key developments as they occur. So if you are interested in staying on top of the latest news, come back to The Recovering Politician early and often. And if you agree with the RP that it is time to take action, click here and register your support for a bipartisan solution. This morning, the RP appeared as the featured guest on “Wilshire & Washington,” a radio talk show focused on the intersection between politics, entertainment and technology. The RP is questioned about No Labels, and the role it is playing to influence the debate in Washington in favor of a bipartisan deal to solve the current debt ceiling crisis. Tonight, No Labels is hosting an exclusive national telephone town hall with Gang of Six Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) to discuss the Gang of Six’s plan to reduce the federal debt by $3.7 trillion over the next ten years.
You’ll get the chance to hear directly from our leaders about the Gang of Six’s bipartisan budget plan, ask questions and learn what you can do to help get a deal done. With only 12 days left to raise the debt ceiling, it is critical that bipartisan efforts are discussed and supported to avoid fiscal calamity.
RIGHT NOW — until 3:00 PM EDT, the RP is co-hosting No Labels Radio. The discussion will be on the ongoing debt crisis, and his guests include some of the nation’s top political and economic experts. No Labels is a new grassroots movement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what’s best for America. No Labels Radio will offer a weekly dose of news and interviews with the policymakers who are working to find bipartisan answers to the otherwise intractable problems our country faces. As the clock counts down toward a possible national credit default, Washington policymakers are abuzz. The RP has already shared his opinions on resolving the crisis. Today, at 2PM EDT, the RP has the chance to ask some real political and economic experts about the ongoing debate. Join him for No Labels Radio, with his guests including Jennifer Hoelzer, Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, and Rob Shapiro, a top economic advisor to President Bill Clinton. No Labels is a new grassroots movement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what’s best for America. No Labels Radio will offer a weekly dose of news and interviews with the policymakers who are working to find bipartisan answers to the otherwise intractable problems our country faces.
The flood of money will disturb advocates of campaign finance reform. But the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett suggests that there is little even a reform-minded Congress or state legislature could do to stem the tide. Bennett involved a First Amendment challenge to Arizona’s system of public financing for state candidates: under the law, candidates are permitted to opt in or out of a pool that provides public funds for candidates who accept spending limits. For publicly funded candidates who find themselves facing certain expenditure levels by their privately financed opponents, or groups who back them, Arizona’s law furnished extra matching funds. Its principle is that speech by deep pocketed candidates should not be limited but that the public has a major stake in leveling the playing field.
The newest member of the Court, Elena Kagan, was almost caustic in her dissent. Justice Kagan’s point was that Arizona hardly restricts the speech of big spending candidates; what it does instead is to thwart their ability to dominate the field. Challenging the majority’s viewpoint that Arizona can’t impose its own view of fairness over the speech rights of certain candidates, Kagan recites the familiar rationale that too much private money in politics is corrupting and governments have a compelling interest in countering that influence. Read the rest of… The time is now. Please act today. Our country stands less than two weeks away from the brink of an economic disaster. For the first time in the more than 230-year history of our republic, we could potentially default on our credit obligations. Indeed, it would be the first time in global history that a country voluntarily chose to default on its credit. What does this mean? In the short term, we’d likely see a dramatic stock market crash, akin to the fall of 2008 when the first TARP proposal was rejected. The credit market could freeze again, making it even more difficult to borrow to buy a home or car, or to start or even run a small business. In the long run, there’s no question that our country would have to borrow money at significantly higher rates, meaning we’d have to find many billions of more dollars of budget cuts and/or tax hikes to balance future budgets. And this potential fiscal insanity is the result of the disease that is infecting our democracy at its core; in fact, the very reason we launched The Recovering Politician: Hyper-partisanship in American politics. Indeed, many of the solutions that have been offered to the debt ceiling crisis have been strictly focused to meet partisan ends. Yesterday, the House Republicans passed a “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan that cuts trillions from the budget; but, in the opinion of many (inlcuding me), strips the nation of much of the safety net that preserves our democracy. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell offered a plan to raise the debt ceiling while providing political cover for fellow Republicans — which is certainly more responsible than the Tea Party/credit default approach — but both sides of the partisan divide have criticized it as too ineffectual: simply kicking the can down the road for a few more years. But yesterday, there was a glimmer of hope. The “Gang of Six” — three Democratic Senators and 3 GOP Senators — reconstituted after a brief “sabbatical” to offer a bi-partisan proposal that would slash $3.7 trillion from the national debt through a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes, many of which were recommended by The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, co-chaired by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson. Here is the best summary to date on the “Gang of Six” budget plan. I’m confident — particularly as details of the Gang of Six plan begins to be defined more clearly — that everyone will find things in it that they dislike, even despise. But it is the country’s best chance both to emerge from the current debt ceiling crisis, as well as to make enormous reforms of the structural debt problems our nation is facing. If you agree with me, the time to act is now. The extremes and special interests wil be placing extraordinary pressure on Congressmen — as they always do — to forego bipartisan compromise. It is essential that they hear from those of us from both parties who understand that it is sometimes necessary to reach across the aisle to have our voices heard. We need to reverse the current political dynamic — so that Members of Congress are afraid of the political impact should they act solely in the interests of their party, to the exclusion of the interests of their nation. So, the time is now to contact your Congressman — by phone, email, mail, tweet, Facebook, Google Plus, homing pigeon, smoke signal, etc., etc. Let them know that you will have their backs should they make the tough political vote to support a bipartisan compromise such as the Gang of Six’s proposal. Let them know that you want a representative who serves you, not the special interests that dominate Washington.
We are not a third party movement. Instead, we are proud Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — liberals, progressives, centrists, and conservatives — all of whom recognize that sometimes we must put aside our labels to do what’s right for the nation that we love. We cannot afford to remain divded as a country. As Benjamin Franklin famously said on the eve of revolution, “We will either hang together, or we will most surely hang separately.” The time is now. Please act today. As the debt ceiling deadline approaches, a last minute reconstitution of and proposal from the Senate’s “Gang of Six” (3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) has stirred up homes of a bipartisan compromise that addresses the nation’s long-term debt problems. The RP was interviewed by Michael Castner of Wall Street Journal’s “Daily Wrap” about the ongoing negotiations. Listen in:
And these are some of the milder passages. These probably aren’t the ones that got him fired from his job at the Department of the Interior and charged with “that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians.”
These events–especially the New York decision–are victories in the fight for gay and lesbian equality. New York has joined a handful of other states where people who love each other can make a legal commitment in a public ceremony and announce to the world at large: We are men and women with hopes and dreams. The promise of freedom, equality, and happiness in the Declaration of Independence applies to us, just as it applies to you. Read the rest of… |
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