Tag Archives: ohio

Against Regressive Taxation

By  Fadhel Kaboub

I was recently asked to testify before the Ohio House of Representative’s Tax Reform Legislative Study Committee. I urged the committee to carefully consider the long-term negative consequences of the regressive tax policy for the State of Ohio and its residents. What follows is the gist of my testimony along with some of the data that I presented to the committee.

Working class families continue to suffer from real income growth stagnation since the 1980s despite a steady rise in productivity (Figure 1). However, in order to continue supporting the growth of the U.S. economy, household consumption (the engine of GDP growth in the U.S.) became increasingly dependent on access to credit (credit card debt, student loans, car loans, home equity lines of credit, subprime loans, reverse mortgage loans, etc.). That is why household debt as a percent of disposable income has peaked at almost 140% in 2007 (Figure 2). The proper response to this problem is an increase in disposable income rather than easier access to credit.

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Populist Revolution? How a Bold New Voter Coalition Can Reshape the Nation

By Marshall Auerback
Cross-Posted from AlterNet.org

Minorities, independent women, gays, working-class white voters, and younger people overcame through high turnout a fierce social conservative block.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Tuesday’s election will be regarded as a pivotal one in US history. For 30 years the top 1 percent has manipulated the masses to vote against their own interests. It was able to do that because the feelings of the white middle and lower classes about social issues overwhelmed their economic considerations.

But something interesting happened this year: high levels of minority and young voter turnout, together with an increased Obama-tilt among all voters earning less than $50,000 a year, routed the GOP. In one sense, the election represents the triumph of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and his “Rainbow Coalition.” The Reverend Jackson was the first serious challenge of a black man for the presidency, and with his Rainbow Coalition, he ran for the Democratic nomination in 1984 and in 1988, with a platform that represented an anthology of progressive ideas from the 1960s. He attracted a large number of supporters, many of them from the white working-class. Each time his movement looked like it was gaining electoral traction, the Democratic Party establishment would invariably mobilize against him and elect feeble white liberals – Mondale and Dukakis – who plummeted to defeat by Reagan and George Bush Sr. Continue reading