Bill Daley is the Federal Issues Policy Director at The Alliance for a Just Society.
May was Minority Health Month and a couple of things happened that deserve a bit of attention. And it’s also important to note that not enough happened and more attention is needed. Continue reading
Throughout most of our history the Supreme Court has been accorded a special place as a fair and impartial arbiter of legal issues. Sometimes the Court has failed in this role, but, for the most part it has been an important force in the unity of the nation because seemed to deserved respect.
The current Supreme Court majority has become so partisan that it is systematically undermining the principle of law and injecting in its place a radical corporate elitism that threatens our political stability by undergirding extreme economic inequality.
What if the Supreme Court…..?
On Wednesday, March 28th, three days of argument ended at the Supreme Court over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Given the hostility shown a number of Supreme Court Justices, there is every chance that at least the individual mandate will be invalidated.
There is a whole bunch of hand-wringing that will go on if the mandate is toasted, but let’s take a little look back at just where this mandate came from. Continue reading
The case challenging the Affordable Care Act has a lot in it to think about. Much of the public debate and the stories in the press are about the requirement that everyone have insurance – the individual responsibility requirement. But there also is a challenge to the Medicaid expansion. Continue reading
How about we try a tax idea that curbs unproductive speculation on Wall Street and raises money to pay for the governmental services?
That is exactly what the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) does. It is a very tiny tax on the sale of stocks and other investment instruments.
Some version of the FTT has been endorsed by Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, John Bogle (founder of the Vanguard Group), the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Pope. Even Bob Dole and President Bush the Elder endorsed such a tax after the crash of 1987.
So who’s not with the Pope on this one? Continue reading
Bill Daley is the Federal Issues Policy Director at The Alliance for a Just Society.
On November 21st, the co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee of Deficit Reduction, aka the “Super Committee”, issued this statement: “After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.” What does failure mean? What happens next? Continue reading
A financial transaction tax (FTT) is one proposal being debated by economists as a solution to the national budget deficits both in the US and in Europe. The FTT would place a small tax on stock and commodity trade, and a version of it has been introduced in the Congress by Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). A similar proposal is being considered by the European as well.
Many provisions of the Affordable Care Act are designed to overcome health outcome disparities caused by social factors associated with race, ethnicity, language, and culture. Will they work? Continue reading
What would you think about a rule designed to give translation of important insurance documents to those who do not speak English well, if that rule required this service in nine counties in New Mexico, but excluded the entire City of Albuquerque? Continue reading
As I write, the U.S. Senate has just passed the debt deal that was negotiated with the President over the weekend. It got 269 votes in the House yesterday and 74 votes in the Senate today. It was opposed by both the most progressive and most conservative members.
The immediate effect is a cap on spending that will produce a savings of $1 trillion over the next ten years. There are no new revenues in the deal. There is to be a vote on a balanced budget amendment by the end of the year. Continue reading
