Category: Economic Security

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

U.S. Senate passes $1.1 trillion, giveaway-stuffed “cromnibus” bill in late night vote

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er this evening, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate passed the mas­sive appro­pri­a­tions bill that has become known as the CRom­nibus, send­ing the leg­is­la­tion to Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who is pre­pared to sign it with­out delay. The final vote was fifty-six to forty; four sen­a­tors did not vote. The […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

U.S. House passes massive appropriations bill laden with gifts for Wall Street and K Street

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A short time ago, the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives nar­row­ly vot­ed to pass a mam­­moth-sized, Repub­­li­­can-engi­neered appro­pri­a­tions bill loaded with good­ies and gifts for Wall Street and K Street. Nick­named the CRomin­bus (con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion + omnibus appro­pri­a­tions bill), it would keep most of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open till Sep­tem­ber, but at an unac­cept­ably high cost. […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman once again goes fishing for media coverage, using an obscene image as bait

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Tim Eyman may not have an ini­tia­tive on the bal­lot this year, but he has no inten­tion of keep­ing a low pro­file this autumn, as he demon­strat­ed yes­ter­day when he went fish­ing for media cov­er­age using an obscene image for sto­ry bait. In an email to reporters sent yes­ter­day after­noon, Eyman engaged in quite a show […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman wants $2.2 million for statewide initiative to repeal $15/hour minimum wage

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Remem­ber back in June when Tim Eyman filed a statewide ini­tia­tive to pre­vent cities like Seat­tle from rais­ing the min­i­mum wage above the lev­el set by state law? Sev­er­al media out­lets, includ­ing the Puget Sound Busi­ness Jour­nal, erro­neous­ly assumed — and then wrong­ful­ly report­ed — that Eyman was already col­lect­ing sig­na­tures for the mea­sure, when in […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

State’s editorial boards continue to call on lawmakers to make “difficult choices” — without saying what those choices should be

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, while doing some week­end read­ing with the help of Pacif­ic NW Por­tal, I came across an edi­to­r­i­al by the Spokesman-Review which remind­ed me of at least a dozen dif­fer­ent plat­i­­tude-laden Seat­tle Times edi­to­ri­als I’ve read over the years that attempt­ed to pass for insight­ful com­men­tary on the state’s fis­cal sit­u­a­tion. This edi­to­r­i­al, “State’s fiscal […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Economic Security, Education, Events, Live Coverage

LIVE from Detroit: Turn on the water! Panel addresses city’s unconscionable shutoffs

by Rennie Sawade

Peter Ham­mer, a law pro­fes­sor from Wayne State Uni­ver­si­ty opens the dis­cus­sion. He began by intro­duc­ing the con­cept of the “three R’s of Detroit” which include “Race, Region­al­ism, and Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.” He spoke most about “Spa­cial Racism” and demon­strat­ed by show­ing a map of Detroit areas col­or cod­ed to indi­cate vary­ing lev­el of eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties. Areas […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Events, Live Coverage

Live from Detroit: Detroit, Rocked City: How the Bankruptcy Led to Retirement Attacks that Could Spread Nationwide

by Rennie Sawade

This pan­el is mod­er­at­ed by David Siro­ta. Pan­elists include Gwen­dolyn Beasley, Reesa Kos­soff, and Diane Oak­ley. Pub­lic pen­sion attacks are hap­pen­ing nation­al­ly and are being dri­ven by the Koch Broth­ers. 401k plans have not proven to save tax pay­er mon­ey over a Defined Ben­e­fit plan, in fact there are cas­es where state lia­bil­i­ty has increased. […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Events, Live Coverage

LIVE from Detroit: The Rise of Janet Yellen: Why the Fed Matters

by Rennie Sawade

The Fed­er­al Reserve wields great eco­nom­ic pow­er; it is often said that the Chair­man of the Fed­er­al Reserve is the sec­ond most pow­er­ful per­son in Amer­i­ca. In 2013, a rag­tag coali­tion came togeth­er to fight for eco­nom­ic jus­tice and work on an unprece­dent­ed cam­paign: to influ­ence who would become the Chair of the Fed­er­al Reserve. […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Events, Live Coverage

LIVE from Detroit: Corporate Welfare and Tax Loopholes vs. Public Services: Who’s Winning?

by Rennie Sawade

This ses­sion is mod­er­at­ed by Mesha Williams, social media coor­di­na­tor for the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Fire Fight­ers. Panelist/speaker is Greg LeRoy from Good Jobs First. About $70 Bil­lion is spent per year on sub­si­diz­ing busi­ness devel­op­ment. Tax­es amount to only about 2% of the cost of doing busi­ness on aver­age, so tax breaks have min­i­mal effect […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Economic Security, Healthcare, Litigation, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Roberts Court’s logic: Corporations are people, so they’re entitled to religious liberty

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The Roberts Court has done it again. Deter­mined to make the ter­ri­ble impli­ca­tions of the Cor­po­ra­tions Unit­ed and McCutcheon deci­sions look tame by com­par­i­son, the Supreme Court ruled this morn­ing that because it believes cor­po­ra­tions to be peo­ple, an arti­fi­cial for-prof­it enti­ty like Hob­by Lob­by is enti­tled to reli­gious lib­er­ty, and so it does not have […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Policy Topics

Republicans (predictably) filibuster Elizabeth Warren’s bill to ease student loan debt

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A bill spon­sored by Mass­a­chu­setts Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren to ease stu­dent loan debt has sad­ly become the lat­est wor­thy piece of leg­is­la­tion to be stalled in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate by the Repub­li­can Par­ty, which might as well offi­cial­ly rename itself the Par­ty of No (because that is its answer to just about every good idea). […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman’s latest slew of initiatives includes scheme to end Seattle’s new $15/hour wage

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Hav­ing appar­ent­ly decid­ed that it’s been too long since his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry received any media cov­er­age, Tim Eyman yes­ter­day used a tried and test­ed gam­bit for drum­ming up pub­lic­i­ty: He filed a slew of ini­tia­tives to the Leg­is­la­ture and then fired  off a pro­mo­tion­al email to what’s left of the state’s polit­i­cal press corps. Two of […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

An in-depth look at the April 22nd special election: Results from across the state

by Patrick Stickney

Although the demise of King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion 1 was the most note­wor­thy out­come of last night’s spe­cial elec­tion, it’s impor­tant to remem­ber there were oth­er mea­sures on the bal­lot as well.  Accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State’s office, there were thir­­ty-five bal­lot mea­sure on the bal­lot across the state. Turnout was depressed this April, which […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics

U.S. Senate breaks Ted Cruz’s filibuster, joins House in voting to pay nation’s bills into 2015

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Well, that was fast. Less than a day after the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed to give the Depart­ment of the Trea­sury the author­i­ty to con­tin­ue pay­ing the nation’s bills into March 2015, the Sen­ate fol­lowed suit, in the process break­ing a fil­i­buster staged by Tea Par­ty dar­ling Ted Cruz of Texas, who is upset […]