[NJFAC] Tell Congress: No “fiscal commission” that threatens Social Security and Medicare

Stop Fast Track Cuts to Social Security

Dear Friends,

The National Jobs for All Network is dedicated to the enactment of Franklin Roosevelt's Economic or Second Bill of Rights in which the guarantee of living-wage work is the "first and most fundamental" economic right and "security in old age" is one of the essential components.

 

As Roosevelt stated in his 1945 State of the Union address:

Of these rights the most fundamental, and one on which the fulfillment of the others in large degree depends, is the "right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation." In turn, others of the economic rights of American citizenship, such as the right to a decent home, to a good education, to good medical care, to social security, to reasonable farm income, will, if fulfilled, make major contribution contributions to achieving adequate levels of employment.

Please consider signing the following Action Alert.

Best regards,

Trudy Goldberg, Chair

National Jobs for All Network

We cannot balance the federal budget on the backs of older Americans, people with disabilities, and low-income communities.

The House Budget Committee passed a harmful, so-called "fiscal commission" and now Speaker Johnson is looking to add it to must-pass legislation in the coming weeks. This commission is nothing but a way to fast track cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other key programs behind closed doors so the American people won't know who to blame. If Congress truly wanted to balance the federal budget, they would go after the wealthy and corporate tax cheats who cost our country $1 trillion dollars per year in lost revenue, and not the millions of people who rely on Social Security and Medicare as a lifeline. TELL CONGRESS: No "fiscal commission" Some in Congress are pushing back―and we can add our voices to stop this bad proposal. In January, Reps. John Larson (D-CT) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), along with 116 of their colleagues, sent a letter to House leadership to reject attaching a "fiscal commission" to any must-pass funding bills. We need to remind policymakers that putting our country on the right fiscal path should not come at the cost of meeting urgent public needs or cutting critical programs and services. We cannot balance the federal budget on the backs of older Americans, people with disabilities, and low-income communities. It's time for Congress to listen to 81% of the American public and reject any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other vital programs. ADD YOUR NAME to tell Congress to reject the "fiscal commission." Thanks for all you do, The whole Common Dreams team Share this email with a friend Call 207.775.0488 to donate by phone or mail a check to: Common Dreams · PO Box 443 · Portland, ME 04112-0443 · USA Common Dreams is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your contribution is tax-deductible. EIN: 20-3368194 Add us to your address book

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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[NJFAC] "greedflation" as source of inflation surge

'Greedflation' caused more than half of last year's inflation surge, study finds, as corporate profits remain at all-time highs Irina Ivan, Fortune

"We may be looking at the end of capitalism." Those words, from the pen of the loquacious Albert Edwards of Societe Generale, shocked the Wall Street analyst set last April and set Alberts on his way to becoming a financial press favorite for his witty turns of apocalyptic phrase. He was commenting on the phenomenon of "greedflation," an economic bugbear previously beloved of progressive economists, not quite venerable 160-year-old French investment banks. 

But after falling from its blistering pace in 2022, consumer inflation has gotten stubbornly stuck in the 3% range—rising unexpectedly for the last two months even as wholesalers' prices stay flat or fall. That is greedflation's music, offering a clear bit of evidence that excessive profit-taking is happening above the raw cost of goods. And yet another progressive economic study, this time from the Groundwork Collaborative, sheds light on the problem, arguing that more than half of the consumer price price increases in the middle of last year were due to excessive profits, according to the findings. Corporate profits, by the way, remain at all-time highs.

Corporate profits drove 53% of inflation during the second and third quarters of 2023 and more than one-third since the start of the pandemic, the report found, analyzing Commerce Department data. That's a massive jump from the four decades prior to the pandemic, when profits drove just 11% of price growth. 

"Businesses were really, really quick, when input costs went up, to pass that on to consumers. [But] had they only passed on those increases, inflation would have been maybe one to three points lower," Liz Pancotti, a strategic advisor at Groundwork and one of the report's authors, told Fortune. ....

Another link to the Groundwork report: https://groundworkcollaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/24.01.17-GWC-Corporate-Profits-Report.pdf

A Goodjobs member reports a more than doubling of retail sector profits over 4 years.  jz

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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[NJFAC] Clinton’s Presidency Was a Disaster for Labor --the late Judith Stein is co-author of book reviewed

Bill Clinton's Presidency Was a Disaster for Labor Anne Colamosca, Jacobin

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Today Clinton's presidency wins little respect. Few liberals want to return to the Democratic Party of the 1990s because so many see his presidency as a betrayal of the progressivism that was once the hallmark of the New Deal and the Great Society. According to Lichtenstein and Stein, his presidency was merely an "accommodation to an ideology that privileged trade liberalization, financial deregulation, and privatization of government services, while tolerating the growth of class inequalities."

In addition to servicing longtime Democratic donors, at the heart of the presidency was a growing belief that America's high-tech "new economy" was unlike any other that the nation had witnessed. The Silicon Valley high-tech industry — sustained by four decades of large federal subsidies — would come into its own in the stock market during the 1990s. The economy grew for 116 months, with economic growth averaging 4 percent a year and twenty-two million private sector jobs being created.

But as Lichtenstein and Stein remind readers, much of this was impressive in numbers alone. Most of the job growth was in retail trade, hospitality, care work, and so on. These sorts of jobs — which Clinton had created as Arkansas governor — had no health benefits, pensions, or decent working conditions, and would soon morph into the "gig economy" work blighting the world today, with workers additionally subject to a growing culture of surveillance and workplace spying. The benefactors were companies such as Walmart, McDonald's, Amazon, and FedEx, not the software engineers and new technical specialists that many anticipated.....

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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