Who is Influencing Obama’s Budget Proposal? Follow the Funders

President Obama is a smart man. When Gallup surveys suggest that unemployment is around 10 percent — and that unemployment plus underemployment is 19 percent of the workforce — then it’s clear that the best way to raise revenues and close the deficit is to put people back to work. President Obama surely knows this. But his actions don’t seem to follow this obvious logic. Why is that?

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The Obama Budget: And Why the Coming Debate Over Spending Cuts Has Nothing to Do With Reviving the Economy

Republicans want America to believe the economy is still lousy because government is too big, and the way to revive the economy is to cut federal spending. Yesterday, Republican Speaker John Boehner even refused to rule out a government shut-down if Republicans don’t get the spending cuts they want.

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For Democracy in Egypt

The popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, which have sent reverberations throughout the Arab world, reveal some uncomfortable truths about US foreign policy. The contortions of the Obama administration, caught between its desire to stand by a dictator in Cairo who has been a loyal ally and its desire to channel a revolution that could define the future of the region, are replays we have seen over and over. Rhetorically, America trumpets democracy and human rights. In reality, we ally ourselves with repressive dictatorships: Cuba’s Batista, Nicaragua’s Somoza, Chile’s Pinochet, South Africa’s apartheid regime, Iran’s shah, Indonesia’s Suharto and many more. When the people finally revolt, Washington flounders, usually concerned more about shoring up the regime than about supporting democracy.

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Can we swap Obama for Chavez?

On Monday, while Barack Obama was hob-nobbing with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hugo Chavez was busy handing out laptop computers to second graders at a school in Caracas. After that, the Venezuelan president rushed off to a meeting at a food distribution plant which is providing $110 million in prepared meals for Venezuela's poor. Finally, he ended his afternoon by making an appearance at one of the many construction sites where new homes are being built for the victims of January's massive floods.

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Why Another Financial Crash is Certain

On August 9, 2007, an incident took place at a bank in France that touched-off a financial crisis that that would eventually wipe out more than $30 trillion in capital and thrust the world into the deepest slump since the Great Depression. The event was recounted in a speech by Pimco's managing director Paul McCulley, at the 19th Annual Hyman Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies. Here's an excerpt from McCulley's speech:

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Obama's Scary Budget: Why the Neediest People Should Be the Most Afraid

President Obama will unveil his budget for 2012 on February 14. The administration has so far been guarded about detailing how deeply the budget ax will slice. What is certain, however, is that the cuts will be painful, and that the neediest Americans will feel the worst of that pain. More than 44 million Americans are living in poverty—a fact that Obama barely referenced in his State of the Union speech. Yet a huge chunk of federal spending goes directly and indirectly for programs and services that provide for the needs of the poor.

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Obama Must Reject Neocon 'Freedom Agenda'

Could Obama have handled the uprising in Egypt better? Yes. Should Obama call for the ouster of Mubarak? No. And does it matter? No. The era of American domination of the Middle East has unraveled, and neither the Egyptian military nor the protesters look to the United States to carry their banner.

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Hey Obama, Read WikiLeaks

After a good start, the Obama administration’s response to the democratic revolution in Egypt has begun to exude the odor of betrayal. Now distancing itself from the essential demand of the protesters that the dictator must go, the administration has fallen back on the sordid option of backing a new and improved dictatorship. Predictably, it is one guided by a local strongman long entrusted by the CIA, Vice President Omar Suleiman, described by U.S. officials in the WikiLeaks cables as a “Mubarak consigliere.” The script is out of an all-too-familiar playbook: Pick this longtime chief of Egyptian intelligence who has consistently done our bidding in matters of torture and retrofit him as a modern democratic leader. But this time the Egyptian street will not meekly go along.

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Why Did the President Cross the Road? To Kneel Before the Corporate Throne of the Chamber of Commerce

Why did the President cross the road? To kneel before the corporate throne of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And here's what he had to say there on Monday. President Obama again stressed that he wanted to freeze non-war/military spending well into the next president's tenure: "That's why I've proposed that we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. Understand what this means. This would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and bring this spending -- domestic discretionary spending -- down to the lowest share of our economy since Eisenhower was president. That was a long time ago."

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Global Climate Change: Missing in Action

Despite the fact that 2010 tied for the warmest year on record, President Obama made no mention of Global Climate Change in his January 25th State of the Union remarks. That wasn't a surprise; last summer an attempt to fashion a bipartisan Climate Change bill floundered in the Senate and since then prospects for Congressional action have dwindled. Global Climate Change hasn't gone away, but the political will to take action has disappeared. Why? What can you and I do about this tragic situation?

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