Dave Johnson Posts

The litany of ways Republicans have harmed the American economy is long, seemingly endless. Obstructionism, austerity, and the politics of fear have driven the party of Lincoln to new depths, causing untold billions in losses.

Remember how Republicans “won” the 2000 election? Remember how they tricked the country into going to war in Iraq? They used non-democratic means to get what they couldn’t get legitimately, and it worked, so they did it more. They got used to getting their way using bullying, so they did it more. Now it’s flat-out hostage-taking. And they’re doing it more.

Again and again, Republicans take a hostage and demand something th

It finally came time for Republicans to put up or shut up. Instead they’re shutting down. If you want to understand how we got to the point of a government shutdown, ask any Republican exactly what they would cut from the budget, and ask them to give actual dollar amounts of how much money that would “save.” They won't have an answer, just like they didn't have an answer to stave off shutdown.

As the Trans-Pacific Partnership gets rammed through Congress, greased by backroom dealings, promises of jobs, jobs, jobs are being proffered exponentially. However, the U.S. has a long history of global trade deals and the evidence of job growth isn't exactly promising. So what do NAFTA and deals with China and Korea have to teach us about TPP's promises?

While our government is laying off hundreds of thousands and cutting services in the name of cutting deficits, a new report exposes that taxpayers are handing more than $1 trillion a year to the wealthiest.

Texas Governor Rick Perry is trying to poach jobs from yet another state, offering businesses low taxes and wages. At the same time, budget cuts are forcing Texas to convert paved roads to gravel and deep cuts to education continue. What does Texas’ job-poaching do to other states, our country and our economy?

The Economic Policy Institute did some calculations last week and reported that “Repealing Sequestration Would Create 900,000 New Jobs in a Year.” What's worse is that the cuts aren't even saving the American public money.

People who say we should not develop nuclear power because of the risk are severely underestimating the impact that global warming will have on climate and humanity. Combining the Fukishima Daiichi and Chernobyl disasters would only amount to a fraction of the death and destruction caused by just a 2-degree jump in temperature, a jump scientists see on the horizon.

Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor was caught in an outright falsehood about the country’s deficit, and how PolitiFact backed him up. Fact: the deficit is down more than 50% from where Bush left it. Fact: the deficit is falling at the fastest rate since the end of WWII.

Koch Oil founded the Tea Party, but the Georgia Tea Party now supports free market alternatives to oil monopolies. The Koch brothers are none too pleased with their errant offspring. Georgia Power wants to expand its use of solar energy as the price of solar goes down. Georgia's Tea Party likes the idea because it means consumers will get free-market choices. Koch Oil hates it because it cuts into their bottom line.

The trade deficit is a measure of how much money and how many jobs we are transferring in or out of the country. The May trade deficit was just reported, and at 12 percent, the jump was a sharp one. As a result, the U.S. is losing trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, entire industries and, perhaps, our future.

After years of obstructing any progress from the Obama administration, Republican leaders are taking things a step further in efforts to cloud information surrounding the Affordable Care Act. If a law passes in the woods and no one is around to understand it, does it actually make any difference?

A new study shows that the big U.S. companies paid only 12.6 percent in taxes on their reported worldwide profits in 2010. Corporate taxes have gone from 5-6 percent of GDP down to only a third of that. The corporate share of all taxes paid has gone from 28 percent to a third of that, too. And these lower taxes have hurt — not helped — our economy and country.

You may have heard that Republicans are forcing (even more) cuts in programs like Meals On Wheels. Big deal, another “budget cut” to reduce the dreaded “government spending.” But what does all of this this mean to actual, real people? What really happens to real Americans isn’t real pretty.

Since April, North Carolina citizens have gathered at the state capital in Raleigh for “Moral Monday” rallies and acts of civil disobedience to protest the the cruel things Republican legislators are doing to the people of the state. Nearly 400 people have been arrested and now their elected representation is labeling the Gandhi and Dr. King inspired protests as a "circus" of "morons."

The U.S. deficit is down more than 50 percent from what President Bush left behind, projections of the rise in medical costs that drove future deficits are way down, the “intellectual foundation” that justified the push for cutting government has collapsed, and the European experiment has shown that budget cuts really just make things worse. Meanwhile, we have two real problems to worry about: unemployment and crumbling infrastructure. Can we finally hire people to fix things?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, as it stands, would keep Congress and individual states from regulating giant multinational corporations. Naturally, it's being negotiated by the giant multinational corporations themselves (and only them) with hopes of getting it Fast Tracked through Congress — a tactic that hurries votes, disallows filibusters, veils transparency and happened to expire years ago.

U.S. worker compensation posted its biggest drop since 1947 during the last quarter. The year 1947 is when the Labor Department began tracking the statistic. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released data today showing a 3.8 percent drop in the first quarter.

The deficit is now down 60 percent as a percent of gross domestic product. It is down more than deficit hawks Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles asked for. This rapid reduction is seriously hurting the economy and jobs, but demands for cuts continue. It is time for Congress and the President to “pivot” to focusing on our real problems: the jobs gap, the wage gap and the trade gap.

Apple has avoided billions and billions of dollars in taxes they owe to the country by setting up foreign subsidiaries in tax-haven countries, all while moving jobs and profit centers out of the country. Now they want a special tax break to reward them for doing that.