USA

Fossil Fuel Firms Slashed Nearly 60,000 Jobs In 2020 While Pocketing $8.2 Billion Tax Bailout

04/04/21

Author:

Bailout Watch

Link:

Oil workers faced tens of thousands of layoffs in 2020 while their employers raked in billions in pandemic-related tax benefits

Apr 02, 2021

Last year was $8.2 billion less painful for 77 big fossil fuel companies, thanks to a tax bailout provision in a big pandemic stimulus bill.

The tax-law change did little, however, for nearly 60,000 workers those companies fired, leaving them stretching the $1,200 checks they received under the same law. Individuals were not eligible for the CARES Act loophole, which allows big polluters to reduce past taxes owed based on their recent yearly losses.

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Problem US Fighter Jet Costs Would Finance Biden Infrastructure Plan

04/04/21

Author:

Will Bunch

Link:

The Philadelphia Inquirer

An F-35 fighter at the Vermont Air National Guard base,Wilson Ring / AP File

April 4, 2021

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Social

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War/military

Amazonification Is the Future of Capitalism

04/04/21

Author:

Tatiana Cozzarelli, Maryam Alaniz

Link:

Left Voice

April 4, 2021

Interview with Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, coeditor of The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy

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A Cold Civil War Is Being Waged by Republicans

03/04/21

Author:

David A. Love

Link:

Common Dreams

Let my people vote: Republicans are intent on holding on to power at all costs, like the Afrikaners in apartheid South Africa. (Photo: Phelan M. Ebenhack for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

March 31, 2021

Republicans who failed to overturn the 2020 presidential election are now trying to prevent future electoral defeats through voter suppression.

In the US, the right-wing voter suppression efforts reached a level not seen since the era of segregation, when white supremacists in the South had passed laws to deny Black Americans the right to vote and threatened everyone who dared to resist with violence.

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Social

USA

The Pandemic Revealed That if We Have the Will, the Money Is There

03/04/21

Author:

Jim Hightower

Link:

Common Dreams

Sure, there can be too much debt, but the USA is a resource-rich, sovereign nation, not a fly-by-night corporate huckster. (Photo: Getty/Stock Photo)

March 31, 2021

The only debt problem our government has in this time of immense national need (and extremely low borrowing cost) is that we're not incurring enough of it—for the right purposes.

Usually, the Powers That Be swat away the kind of big-ticket reforms our country needs by haughtily asserting a few hoary economic fables they dress up as immutable "truths."

"We don't have the money."

Category:

Biden's Cloudy Climate Vision

03/04/21

Author:

Mark Schlosberg

Link:

Common Dreams

US President Joe Biden holds a pen as he prepares to sign a series of orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, after being sworn in at the US Capitol on January 20, 2021. (Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

March 31, 2021

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Ocasio-Cortez Says Biden Infrastructure Plan 'Needs To Be Way Bigger'

03/04/21

Author:

Kenny Stancil

Link:

Common Dreams

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), listens during a press conference introducing the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2021 on March 18, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/AFP via Getty Images)

March 31, 2021

"This is not nearly enough," the New York Democrat said of Biden's $2.26 trillion proposal.

With President Joe Biden expected to unveil the first part of his jobs and infrastructure plan from Pittsburgh later on Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is warning that the White House's $2.26 trillion proposal does not come close to meeting the scale of the unemployment, inequality, and climate crises facing the nation and world.

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What If We Actually Taxed the Rich?

03/04/21

Author:

Robert Reich

Link:

Nation of Change

Apr. 2, 2021

Video here.

Income and wealth are now more concentrated at the top than at any time over the last 80 years, and our unjust tax system is a big reason why. The tax code is rigged for the rich, enabling a handful of wealthy individuals to exert undue influence over our economy and democracy.

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Social

USA