Author: Robert Borosage

The appointment of Jason Furman as economic policy director for the Barack Obama presidential campaign has caused a stir. Furman was executive director of the Hamilton Project, a project created by Citibank chair and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, largely to explore how to sustain support for corporate trade policies. Furman himself is criticized for…

Monday in Raleigh, North Carolina, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama opened the general election fight, taking the gloves off against the \”tired and misguided [economic] philosophy that has dominated Washington for too long,\” and offering a clear challenge to the Bush-McCain economic misrule. In Washington before the National Federation of Independent Business, McCain counterpunched, suggesting the…

Oil companies report record profits. Gas is headed towards $4 a gallon. A caravan of more than 100 truckers rallied in Washington Monday to protest diesel fuel prices already over that mark. Across the country, Americans are getting pinched by rising fuel and food prices. So politicians, as Rev. Jeremiah Wright would say, \”do what…

David Broder’s April 24 Washington Post column on Arizona Sen. John McCain, entitled “The Democrats’ Worst Nightmare,” concludes with this little nugget: “Yet, in pointing to those vulnerabilities in her rival, Clinton has heightened the most obvious liability she would carry into a fight against McCain. In an age of deep cynicism about politicians of…

These are excerpts of remarks delivered April 9 at the Conference on a New New Deal in Washington, sponsored by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Let me offer a simple set of propositions.   1. Conservatism has failed—and conservatives, while they cannot admit it, understand that. You’ve heard this before, but it is important…

The economy is tanking. Gas is headed to $4 a gallon. One in ten homes are “under water,” worth less than their mortgages. The International Monetary Fund predicts up to $1 trillion in financial losses, meaning banks and securities firms that have written off abut $230 billion are still staring at the abyss. The war…

By Rob Johnson and Robert Borosage The world has changed.  The market fundamentalism that has dominated our economics over last three decades has been unmasked as a sham, deemed useless by the guardian of the integrity of finance itself, the Federal Reserve.  Without a vote of the Congress or a public debate, the Bush administration…

One in ten homes is “under water” – worth less than their mortgages. 2 million homeowners are headed to foreclosure. The shadow banking system verges on collapse. Banks across world are shaken. The world fears global recession. Fearful of a catastrophic unraveling, the Federal Reserve has slashed interest rates. The Federal not only ponied up…

President Bush addressed the Conservative Political Action Committee gathering in Washington today, and, according to the White House, he told the group that our \”peace and prosperity\” are at stake in the upcoming election. Eerily Orwellian, Mr. President. For a country at war and in a recession, \”peace and prosperity\” aren\’t at stake; they have…

The old routines don’t work anymore. The presidential smirk seems sheepish. The threats seem like bluster. No one really listens anymore. Even George W. Bush seemed almost giddy that he wouldn’t have to go through this again. The president appears as tired of us as we are of him. Monday’s State of the Union speech…