TEXAS LONE STAR FORUM
By Don Baylor and Chuck Stokes
This week, Texas is one of many states celebrating America Saves Week, a national week to promote personal savings and encourage individuals to take financial action. American Saves Week couldn't come at a better time, with so many Texan families struggling. To strengthen our communities, Texas needs to adopt a new blueprint for helping families save.
As noted in Why Thrift Matters: 20 Propositions, a report recently released by the Institute for American Values, Americans are rediscovering the thrift of our forefathers and mothers, who worked hard, saved their money and shared their wealth with those in need. The recipe for building financially strong families and communities remains the same today. Texas Saves Week reminds us that we need only look back to find a wiser way forward. We need to work together, not just for individual change, but to create a culture that values hard work, planning ahead and the importance of community.
Creating a college-going culture is widely acknowledged as the best way to secure a better future by increasing the earning potential of tomorrow's labor force. In Texas, we need to direct similar energy to creating a savings culture. Like a good education, household savings - regardless of family income - is a sound predictor of whether a child who grows up poor will become part of the middle class. The association between savings and future financial security is even more pronounced when savings are targeted toward college. Academic research has found that a child with a dedicated savings account is seven times more likely to attend college than a similar child without such an account, even when controlling for race or income. In essence, savings represent hope and opportunity.
Click here to read the full article.
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
AMERICAN FORUM
By Brian McGregor
A guy walks into a bar and says, “ouch.”
Now, you might be thinking that’s a really bad one-liner. Actually, I was just recounting the start of my day.
I walk into the Silver Dollar Saloon – the bar I own in Butte – every day, and I’ve been saying “ouch” a lot lately. My business may be more recession-proof than many others, but we’re still hurting in this down economy.
Click here to read the full article.
Click here to read the full article.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
 |
| Riane Eisler |
By Riane Eisler and Rene Redwood
A financial debt can be paid back. But the debt we’ll owe our children if investments in health, nutrition and education are slashed is irreparable. Investment in human infrastructure – providing the human capacity development for optimal economic productivity and innovation through both government and business investments – is essential for success in the post-industrial economy, and this should be our policymakers’ guiding economic principle.
 |
| Rene Redwood |
Why are we told that cutting social programs is the road to prosperity, when our past prosperity was the result of the very opposite?
Click here to read the full article.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
By Susan Shaer
As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” It costs money to make this country hum. Anyone can see that it would be impossible to have roads crisscrossing the country, federal jails and courts, national parks and monuments, environmental protection that has no boundaries, and a whole raft of other essential services without a nationwide system in which we all have a stake.
Right now, our debt, the deficit and the spectacle of a narrowly averted government shutdown have focused attention on federal spending of tax dollars. To that, I say hooray. I hate looking at my own spending budget, but I know what my priorities are, and what money I have to use, save or borrow against. When we examine our personal finances, we recognize our personal values. Such a magnifying glass aimed at the federal budget will expose priorities of our “civilized” society.
So what are our federal values? We have two sides to the spending budget; one non-discretionary (required spending by law or interest on the debt), and the other discretionary. The discretionary side is where our priorities are displayed full frontal. The current budget allows for 56 percent on the Pentagon, wars and nuclear weapons.
Click here to read the full article.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
By Frank Knapp, Jr.
Economic reports show that most job growth in our country this year has come from small- and medium-size businesses. That trend will only accelerate, according to the recently released Small Business Index from the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Nearly 3.8 million new jobs will be created by small businesses with fewer than 100 employees in 2011, says the report. That will be enough alone to lower the U.S. unemployment rate by 2.4 percent. The survey, conducted in January, also found that only 2 percent of small businesses planned to lay off workers.
Major health insurance companies nationwide are reporting dramatic increases in small businesses offering health insurance to employees. This reverses a trend for small businesses dropping insurance because of affordability.
Click here to read the full article.
By Jackie Rodríguez
I am not to blame for the unemployment crisis in Florida. Yes, I have been unemployed. And yes, I have collected unemployment to support myself and my family. After two years since I was last laid-off, I finally found a new opportunity just a month ago. It was not easy, and I do not blame myself. But I do point my finger at the economy and the greed of our current economic system that only looks out for those on top.
The news is all a flurry with the idea that unemployed people, like I was just a few days ago, are the ones to blame for the situation we find ourselves in. This round of “blame the victim” is nothing less than despicable, shameful and downright dishonest. Let’s look at the facts behind the blame game.
In Florida, for every job created last year there are 25 people who still need a job. Our state has a whopping 12 percent unemployment rate. While there are one million unemployed people in our state, less than half are receiving unemployment insurance. Nationally, profits have more than recovered from the worst of the economic crisis, raising 12 percent since 2007, but unemployment continues to grow.
Click here to read the full article.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
By Charles H. Kuck
From the perspective of a lifelong Republican, I am always troubled when the State Legislature starts looking at ways to “fix” a problem by getting the government more involved in the lives of its citizens, rather than less involved. That is absolutely the case with the currently pending legislation on immigration. A detailed review of HB 87 and SB 40 reveals that these bills do not reform illegal immigration nor do they enforce laws related to illegal immigration. What they do is increase taxes on every citizen of Georgia by increasing government regulation, create unfunded mandates for every county, city, town, and village in Georgia, and create new private rights of action against every Georgia polity that will result in hundreds of lawsuits that will drain taxpayer coffers and result in little, if any real change on the issue of illegal immigration.
This type of legislation is popular because it gives the perception that the state is doing something, which the federal government is purportedly not doing—enforcing federal laws on illegal immigration. The problem with this notion is two-fold. First, the federal government is doing more than it has EVER done in enforcing the laws on undocumented immigration. The Obama Administration is spending literally billions of taxpayer dollars building fences, hiring border patrol agents, detaining undocumented immigrants and actually deported 400,000 people last year—a record. Second, these proposals do not create any greater degree of enforcement than already exists under current state and federal law.
By September 30, 2013, everyone arrested in Georgia is going to be run through the Secure Communities program, and if they are unlawfully present in the United States they are being held for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to pick up within 48 hours.
Click here to read the full article.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
By Susan Shaer
Are you clued in to the current slashing and burning going on in Washington, DC? The new Congress is trying to settle on a federal budget that should have been voted on last fall. President Obama unveiled his idea for the next budget on Monday. How do you think they are setting priorities? After all, our federal budget shows what we value, doesn’t it? What we care about as a country? So what does our president’s budget care about?
President Obama’s federal budget for our next fiscal year revealed that almost all of Secretary of Defense Gates’ recommended Pentagon “cuts” (really restructuring and a reduction in the rate of increase) will be consumed by increased war spending. The total Pentagon budget planned for 2012-2016 shows virtually no change between this year and last year's projections.
This year, President Obama does face an incredibly steep challenge –growing deficits and debt. The fall election made it clear that fiscal conservatives, Tea Party candidates, and backers demand deep spending cuts to address this. Despite promises from President Obama that everything would be considered for cuts – this is not true for the Pentagon.
Click here to read the full article.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
By Nicole C. Lee, Esq.
When a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, 2010 the world community came to its aid. Millions of private citizens in this country and around the world reached into their household budgets and gave generously to the Haitian people who were grappling with the devastation.
We sat in front of our televisions and watched men digging for their families. We gave more. We heard doctors lament the lack of supplies. We gave more. In March, the United Nations member states and international partners met in New York and passionately pledged more than $5 billion over the next 18 months to help Haiti recover.
Despite the billions of dollars pledged from private citizens and world governments, a serious health scare has arisen. With poor sanitation, malnutrition, little safe drinking water and no sewage systems, the over-crowded temporary housing tent communities provide an ideal breeding ground for cholera.
Click here to read the full article.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
By Steve Boyce
Many Kentuckians share a frustration with the lack of legislative will to pass real tax reform which has resulted in a decade of annual revenue shortfalls, cuts in essential programs, one-time stop gap measures and a failure to make investments that will move Kentucky forward.
As a member of the Kentucky Forward Coalition, I have grown impatient with yet another state tax reform study, especially since it’s not clear that the study will be transparent or guided by Kentuckians’ values.
The Kentucky Forward Coalition proposes that any revision of our tax structure -- whether coming from the commission that Sen. Williams has called for, or any another -- begins by establishing a set of principles that benefit all Kentuckians and move us forward.
Click here to read the full article.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
By Mitchell Gold
As a business owner who has created hundreds of jobs over the past two decades, I understand economic policies that build sustainable growth. Yet the billions in tax cuts for the wealthy just signed into law compromise our shared future.
The promise of “trickle down” economics has failed. When recent studies suggest that 1 in 3 working families are near poverty, it defies common sense that some elected officials have prioritized giveaways to the wealthy. This greed and excess is what got us into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. It defies good business and core American values to pass this burden on to increasingly vulnerable working families, and to our children and grandchildren. How much more damage to the middle class can the country endure?
It’s clear that our political leaders need to shift course in order to build a healthy economy. We need to put aside the myths and rationalizations that excuse the unprecedented greed the last decade has witnessed. We need to have a basic sense of decency and focus on policies that benefit us all.
Click here to read the full article.
Monday, December 20, 2010
By Kenneth Lewis
The national conversation on our fiscal health for the past few months has been about whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for households with incomes over $250,000, or to allow them to expire on December 31st. To my amazement, lost in all this controversy and discussion has been any mention of what this would really mean for high-income people in the context of historical tax rates.
During the 1950s this country was flourishing economically and adding new jobs that moved millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class. What kind of tax policy was in place during this period, those years after World War II when the Baby Boomers were growing up?
What was the top marginal tax rate during all eight years of the Eisenhower Administration? 91%! The increase proposed for today’s rates seems paltry, and the top rate seems very low, in fact too low, and incongruent with the needs of the country for investment right now in education, health and infrastructure.
Click here to read the full article.
By Holly Sklar
Republicans played President Obama in the tax deal like mortgage hustlers played homeowners. Focus on the teaser rates, borrow more than you need and trust us to work with you to refinance later when rates jump.
The teasers are the needed extension of unemployment benefits – always extended before with high unemployment – and continued tax cuts for non-rich Americans. The President folded on more tax cuts for millionaires and doubled down with a renovated estate tax set at the lowest rate since 1931. And a cut in the Social Security payroll tax, which Republicans will use to gut Social Security later.
The tax deal will cost most Americans and our economy much more than it gains.
Click here to read the full article.
Monday, November 29, 2010
By Linda A. Meric
Dear Member of Congress:
You’ve got a lot to consider in this month. You’re scheduled to debate international treaties and internet censorship. There’s talk of military affairs and revamping federal agencies. But this should be at the top of your agenda: extending benefits for unemployed workers and making sure struggling parents can continue to make ends meet.
You must renew unemployment insurance benefits now for the millions of long-term jobless workers in America. And you must allow jobs to continue to be created through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Contingency Fund.
Think like a struggling family and your decision won’t be so hard.
Click here to read the full article.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
By Sally Jones
“Cut My Taxes!” Americans have heard this cry for years -- and we’ve heard it shouted angrily in recent months. We hear that we pay too much in taxes, that government makes poor use of our money, and that our prosperity would rise if only taxes would fall.
But in reality our taxes have fallen steadily in recent years. In 2001 and 2003 Congress passed temporary tax cuts which will expire at the end of 2010. We must now decide what good or bad has come of that experiment and what tax law we want for the future.
Most of us recognize that one size doesn’t really fit all -- and this holds true for income tax rates. Maintaining a lower level of taxation for the vast majority of Americans makes sense in today’s hard times. But why should we do the same for the tiny percentage of citizens -- a minority to which I gratefully belong -- whose annual earnings exceed $250,000? The American people borrowed $700 billion to give people like me a tax cut over the last decade. Why should they borrow an additional $700 billion to extend the tax breaks?
Click here to read the full article.
Friday, November 12, 2010
By Frank Knapp
Whether Americans voted for Republicans or Democrats in the mid-term election, one thing is clear: Voters were demanding that Congress focus intensively on job creation on Main Street -- not lobbyists and campaign donors from big business and Wall Street.
Apparently, many in Congress and President Obama, if recent reports are true, either didn't get the message or simply don't care now that the voting is over.
The top legislative priority of the newly "Tea Party-empowered" during the lame duck session is hardly what Tea Party insurgents had in mind. The proposal is to (1) increase the national debt by borrowing $700 billion to $1 trillion over the next 10 years; (2) spend the money on big, non-job producing tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans; (3) use small business as the excuse.
Click here to read the full article.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
MISSISSIPPI FORUM
By Lynn Evans
For anyone planning to vote in the November elections, “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis should be required reading.
Author of “The Blind Side,” on which the Oscar-winning film was based, Lewis went to Wall Street to try to understand the causes of the great Subprime Mortgage Meltdown of 2007-2008 and the resulting government bail-out that has so angered the American public.
As Lewis makes clear, there were few people who understood what was happening inside the world of mortgage investments, but they were not the people in charge of either the investments themselves or the government and ratings oversight agencies that were supposed to protect ordinary consumers.
Click here to read the full article.
Monday, October 18, 2010
By Bryan Kirschner
When Congress debates whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy or let them expire at the end of the year, I hope our elected officials have the courage to let my tax cuts expire. Sure, I would pay less in taxes if Congress extended my tax cuts, but as a citizen and business executive, I think that would be shortsighted and irresponsible.
My family was not affluent. Growing up, I never worried about middle-class basics like a new pair of shoes every year for school or whether we'd have a roof over our heads next month. But luxuries I take for granted today — like taking vacations in Europe— were outlandish things people like us didn't do.
But my parents, neither of whom went to college, did make one thing clear from as early as I can remember. They were committed to giving their kids the chance to pursue as much education as they wanted at the best possible schools to which they aspired.
Click here to read the full article.
Friday, October 15, 2010
By Rick Poore
A good friend and fellow businessman once told me, “Give me more customers and I’ll be forced to buy equipment and hire people to meet demand. Give me a tax break without more customers and I’ll just go to Aruba.”
Ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers is the right thing to do for small businesses. I’ll say that again: it’s the right move for small business. Let me explain.
I consider myself an example of an average small business owner in Nebraska. I have 30 employees. My business does $2 million plus in annual sales. My personal income as the owner is less than $85,000 a year.
It’s a comfortable living, but ending the Bush-era cuts on the top two brackets won’t come close to impacting me. And it won’t impact the other small business owners I know, either. The top brackets won’t kick in until your taxable income is over $200,000/year for individuals and $250,000/year for couples, and they’ll only apply to the portion of your income above those amounts, not below them. Less than 3 percent of taxpayers reporting any business income (not limited to small business income) earn enough to break into the top two brackets.
Click here to read the full article.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
MINNESOTA EDITORIAL FORUM
By Dan McGrath
Given the dire unemployment crisis, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that new Census Bureau data reveal that a record number of people struggled with poverty last year in the United States.
What may be more striking, however, is just how many of the poor were employed. Recently released state and local poverty data reveal that more than half of the Minnesotans who were below the poverty level were employed during 2009. More than 31,000 of our neighbors who worked full-time for the entire year were still officially poor. Too many jobs in our state pay workers poverty wages and are failing to provide a path to economic recovery for Main Street.
The ranks of the working poor are even larger when we look at the number of working Minnesotans who are working fulltime but are making less than twice the poverty line -- a measure many economists use because the official poverty line is based on an outdated 1960’s formula and considered woefully inadequate. Using this yardstick, a shocking one in 10 workers in our state who worked full-time for the entirety of 2009 was still in poverty.
Click here to read the full article.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
