Heath, Terrence
Want A Real Recovery? Raise The Minimum Wage
By Terrance Heath
Campaign for America’s Future
Scratch the surface of just about any economic debate this election year, and you'll find one issue that goes all the way to the core: the yawning gap between the 1% and the rest of us, as skyrocketing income inequality. A new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), "Big Business, Corporate Profits, and the Minimum Wage," shows the extremes of that divide, and makes the case for raising the federal minimum wage as a means of closing that gap, and putting the national economy on the road to a real recovery.
The One Percent Won This GOP Debate
By Terrance Heath
Campaign For America’s Future
Make it stop. Please, just make it stop. That's the short version of my reaction to GOP primary debate #20. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe I need more time to recover from my two days at CPAC. (After the debate, I felt the same odd sensation that I swear I felt after finally fleeing CPAC — that tingling sensation one usually feels when an arm or leg that's "fallen asleep" wakes up. Except it was it was my brain coming back to life, after going numb.)
As a progressive, it really shouldn't bother me. After all, in many ways the biggest winner of the Republican debates is President Obama, while the biggest losers are (a) the candidates and (b) the Republican Party. Plus, the debates have supplied an entertaining string of awkward moments. This one had its moments, too. But it's getting painful to watch and listen to these guys. It's like watching someone run headfirst into a brick wall, at full speed, then back up and do it again. And again. And again.
Occupy Wall Street: Demanding Justice
By Terrance Heath
It's been a while since empathy — the uniquely human capacity to recognize and share the feelings experienced by others, that science even suggests is hardwired in us — when President Obama included it in the qualities he sought in a Supreme Court appointee, and conservatives from Glenn Beck to Sen. Jim Sessions. So I was surprised to see columnist David Brooks turn the spotlight on empathy again.
What You Should Know About What Republicans Want To Do To Medicaid
By Terrance Heath
Campaign For America's Future
Stan Collender is right. The NY-26 election special election will change the budget debate. In fact, it already has. Democrat Kath Hochul's victory over Republican Jane Corwin, in a solidly Republican district, in special election that became a referendum on Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal — which Corwin endorsed — turned up the volume on the debate over the Republican plan to "destroy Medicare as we know it." The Medicare rhetoric will only get louder.
