House Speaker John Boehner speaks to reporters after a House GOP meeting on the debt ceiling in July 2011. (Chet Susslin)

By Billy House

Updated: March 1, 2013 | 6:04 p.m. 
March 1, 2013 | 12:53 p.m.

Who really birthed the sequester? To hear Republicans tell it, the White House all but single-handedly spawned the huge across-the-board cuts to defense and domestic programs, the enforcement “trigger” of the summer 2011 debt-ceiling deal.

But is there really any “Rosebud” moment to be recollected from that year's agonizing fiscal negotiations to illustrate that Obama or any other individual, or party, was solely responsible for conceiving this idea?

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other Republicans keep insisting that there is, even while there can be no dispute that they had to collaborate with Democrats in seeing the sequester become law. Yet Republicans still see some gain in saying it was Obama who came up with the idea for the sequester, explaining that the president didn’t want the debt limit to get in the way of his 2012 presidential campaign. Lately, they have sought to brand the cuts the "Obamaquester."

Support for this Republican mantra gained momentum with the release in September of the book The Price of Politics, by Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward. In it, Woodward asserts that the sequester was the idea of then-Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew and White House Director of Legislative Affairs Rob Nabors. The debate got fresh fodder last weekend when Woodward wrote an op-ed article on the same topic for The Post.

But Democrats and senior administration officials have said that is not the complete picture and that Boehner and other Republicans have been engaging in revisionist history by disingenuously trying to downplay their contributing roles. For instance, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, has told National Journal: “I find it curious that the speaker is now disavowing the deal [the final 2011 Budget Control Act, including the sequestration], considering he had said he got 98 percent of what he wanted.” He was referring to Boehner saying during an interview aired Aug. 1, 2011, on the CBS Evening News that “when you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.”

And on the House floor Thursday, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland pushed back on the GOP effort to blame the White House for the sequester.

In fact, Hoyer noted, six days before Republicans claimed Nabors first presented the sequester idea to them on Capitol Hill during a July 25, 2011, meeting, a House Republican bill had been passed to limit government spending — known as the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” — that “had as its fallback a sequester if the objectives of that bill were not reached.”

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel responded: “The idea of a sequester dates back to Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in the 1980s. No one is saying President Obama—or Jack Lew—invented it. The point is that they insisted it be included in the Budget Control Act, because they didn’t want to face another debate over the debt limit before the president's reelection.”

With $85 billion in first-year sequestration cuts set to kick in on Friday, it’s worth looking back on how the idea came to be—if for no other reason than to offer a lesson in how Republicans and Democrats, Congress and the White House make policy when there’s a gun to their heads, as was the case in the summer of 2011 when the debt-limit crisis loomed over Washington.

Senior congressional Republican aides claim that the first time a sequester plan was broached was during a visit to the Capitol on July 25, 2011, from Nabors, who met with Boehner’s then-chief of staff, Barry Jackson, and the speaker’s policy director, Brett Loper. 

What Nabors had to deliver at that meeting was a sequester concept devised at the White House by Lew and others as a way to end months of haggling over raising the debt ceiling.

At that time, Republicans and Democrats deadlocked over rival approaches to extend the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. There were just 10 days left before the Aug. 2 deadline by which the Treasury Department said the nation would lose the ability to pay all of its bills.

Nabors is described as putting forth to Jackson and Loper during that closed-door meeting a “sequester” plan as the White House’s latest compromise. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also got a similar rundown. The idea was not novel or plucked out of thin air; such an enforcement process dated from at least the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985—better known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act—which set deficit targets and called for a sequester to go into effect if they were not met.

In this case, the idea was pitched as a way to address what had been a key issue: how to accommodate congressional Republicans’ demands for dollar-for-dollar spending cuts in return for Obama’s request to raise the borrowing authority by $2.1 trillion—and to authorize that entire amount in a single vote so that another debt-ceiling crisis would not have to be addressed during the 2012 election year.

The two sides were seen as fast agreeing on about $900 billion in cuts, some identified in earlier bipartisan negotiations. But the rub against doing what Obama wanted was the question of how to ensure Congress would follow through with the remaining roughly $1.2 trillion in cuts once the full amount of the debt ceiling he was requesting was already approved. The White House’s proposed sequester would compel Congress to follow through with the further reductions by November or face unappealing automatic cuts, split between domestic and defense spending.

In response, Boehner aides Jackson and Loper expressed reluctance and skepticism, suggesting to Nabors that this “sequester” was not as good a plan as one the House Republicans already had. The Republican strategy had come to involve voting on about $1 trillion in cuts right away and allowing a smaller debt-limit increase, then working on more cuts and tax and entitlement reform before voting on another debt-limit increase in 2012.

But Obama was ruling that out, even threatening to veto it, arguing that a shorter-term debt-limit increase could create uncertainty by risking another bitter partisan fight and a default within only a matter of months.

“The only bottom line that I have is that we have to extend this debt ceiling through the next election, into 2013. And the reason for it is we’ve now seen how difficult it is to get any kind of deal done,” Obama said during a July 22, 2011, news conference.

The sequester plan that Nabors outlined at the Capitol was refined, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden both weighing in. As part of a final, negotiated deal, called the Budget Control Act, there was agreement on $900 billion in spending cuts and the creation of a bipartisan Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which would negotiate the $1.2 trillion more in cuts. If that so-called super committee failed, or if Congress did not follow through with its recommendation, automatic cuts would begin on Jan. 2, 2013.

Administration officials do not deny that a sequester plan was discussed at the July 25, 2011, meeting between Nabors and Jackson and Loper. But they say that was not the first time the discussion of such an enforcement mechanism—a la Gramm-Rudman-Hollings—had been brought up in various negotiations, dating from bipartisan talks with House and Senate members led by Biden earlier in the year. “It was always in the air,” a senior White House aide told National Journal.

In fact, there is some outside evidence that this is true, beyond the fact House Republicans had passed a bill only six days earlier containing its own sequester back-up plan. News accounts of even earlier talks involving congressional leaders and Obama at the White House mention the notion of a deal involving “triggers” that would force Congress to follow through with agreed cuts. 

Democrats also note that even a plan offered by McConnell which would have given the president authority to raise the ceiling in several steps would, by its own nature, have had to also involve a kind of trigger mechanism. Under McConnell’s plan, the president would have been granted the authority to raise the ceiling to the full amount requested by the White House in two subsequent tranches, both of which could be blocked through congressional resolutions of disapproval that required a two-thirds majority. That gave the White House the opportunity to raise the debt ceiling while also giving Republicans a chance to vote against it.

But there was a part missing in that equation: How do you ensure that $1.2 trillion would be cut? According to one senior Senate Democratic aide, “That’s where the sequester came in, but it was a pretty obvious solution since there needed to be some kind of enforceable mechanism if Republicans were going to go along with the McConnell plan. They [Republicans] would not accept a plan where they voted against the second tranches of the ceiling, but were left with no guarantee that the cuts would actually happen.”

The aide said that is what Democrats mean when they argue that the sequester came about at the Republicans’ behest. “We obviously would have been OK with just the $900 billion in cuts, and some kind of an agreement to seek more. But because Republicans demanded dollar-for-dollar, we were forced to find a way to get from $900 billion to $2 trillion. It is really ridiculous for them to try to wriggle out now. If they had not insisted on dollar-for-dollar or had been open to revenues, the sequester would not exist.”

Van Hollen also noted that an offer had been made to have revenues, such as closing special-interest tax loopholes, incorporated into the plan instead. But he said that Republicans dismissed that, and that they are the ones who decided to leave the defense cuts in the plan. Those military cuts are the ones House Republicans now spew the most anger about, and they have even since passed once-chamber legislation to soften them through deeper cuts to social and safety-net programs.

All the while, Democrats reiterated that the final deal—ultimately supported by majorities in both chambers—was later depicted by Boehner as “98 percent of what I wanted.”

But a senior GOP congressional aide has told National Journal it is simply not fair to refer to that remark by Boehner without also noting the context in which it was made—that is, that it was made months before the super committee failed, and after what the aide said had been personal commitments to Boehner from Reid and Obama that the panel would get its work done.

Based on those assurances, the aide said, Boehner truly felt that the Budget Control Act would result in the $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending caps and a package of entitlement and tax reforms that were being promised, and so he went along with the agreement, including its sequester trigger. “Obviously, the second part didn’t happen,” the aide said.

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'Big Government' Isn't the Problem, Big Money Is

Robert Reich 

March 21, 2012   |    This article appeared in the April 9, 2012 edition of The Nation.

  Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney responds to cheers from the crowd as he speaks at a campaign rally at West Hills Elementary School in Knoxville, Tenn., Sunday, March 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Conservatives love to rail against “big government.” But the surge of cynicism engulfing the nation isn’t about government’s size. It flows from a growing perception that government doesn’t work for average people but for big business, Wall Street and the very rich—who, in effect, have bought it. In a recent Pew poll, 77 percent of respondents said too much power is in the hands of a few rich people and corporations.

Robert Reich

Robert Reich, a former secretary of labor, is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of...

Surging inequality, not Wall Street banditry, is the underlying cause of the Great Recession.

That view is understandable. Wall Street got bailed out by taxpayers, but one out of every three homeowners with a mortgage is underwater, caught in the tsunami caused by the Street’s excesses. The bailout wasn’t conditioned on the banks helping these homeowners, and subsequent help has been meager. The recent settlement of claims against the banks is tiny compared with how much homeowners have lost. Millions of people are losing their homes or simply walking away from mortgage payments they can no longer afford.

Homeowners can’t use bankruptcy to reorganize their mortgage loans because the banks have engineered laws to prohibit this. Banks have also made it extremely difficult for young people to use bankruptcy to reorganize their student loans. Yet corporations routinely use bankruptcy to renege on contracts. American Airlines, which is in bankruptcy, plans to fire 13,000 people—
16 percent of its workforce—while cutting back health benefits for current employees. It also intended to terminate its underfunded pension plans, until the government agency charged with picking up the tab screamed so loudly that American backed off and proposed to freeze the plans.

Not a day goes by without Republicans decrying the budget deficit. But its biggest driver is Big Money’s corruption of Washington. One of the federal budget’s largest and fastest-growing programs is Medicare, whose costs would be far lower if drug companies reduced their prices. It hasn’t happened because Big Pharma won’t allow it. Medicare’s administrative costs are only 3 percent, far below the 10 percent average of private insurers. So it would be logical to tame rising healthcare costs by allowing any family to opt in. That was the idea behind the “public option.” But health insurers stopped it in its tracks.

The other big budget expense is defense. The US spends more on its military than China, Russia, Britain, France, Japan and Germany combined. The “basic” military budget (the annual cost of paying troops and buying planes, ships and tanks—not including the costs of actually fighting wars) keeps growing. With the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the cost of fighting wars is projected to drop—but the base budget is scheduled to rise. It’s already about 25 percent higher than it was a decade ago, adjusted for inflation. One big reason is that it’s almost impossible to terminate large military contracts. Defense contractors have cultivated sponsors on Capitol Hill and located their facilities in politically important districts. Lockheed, Raytheon and others have made national defense America’s biggest jobs program.

“Big government” isn’t the problem. The problem is the Big Money that’s taking over government. Government is doing fewer of the things most of us want it to do—providing good public schools and affordable access to college, improving infrastructure, maintaining safety nets and protecting the public from dangers—and more of the things big corporations, Wall Street and wealthy plutocrats want it to do.

Some conservatives argue that we wouldn’t have to worry about this if we had a smaller government to begin with, because big government attracts Big Money. On ABC’s This Week a few months ago, Congressman Paul Ryan told me that “if the power and money are going to be here in Washington…that’s where the powerful are going to go to influence it.” Ryan has it upside down. A smaller government that’s still dominated by money would continue to do the bidding of Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, oil companies, agribusiness, big insurance, military contractors and rich individuals. It just wouldn’t do anything else.

Millionaires and billionaires aren’t donating to politicians out of generosity. They consider these expenditures to be investments, and they expect a good return on them. Experts say the 2012 elections are likely to be the priciest ever, costing an estimated $6 billion. “It is far worse than it has ever been,” says Senator John McCain. And all restraints on spending are off now that the Supreme Court has determined that money is “speech” and corporations are “people.”

I don’t know where the Occupy movement is heading, but I do know there’s more grassroots energy for progressive change than I’ve seen in decades. The question is how to channel it into a sustainable movement. If you believe as I do that Obama and the Democrats didn’t push hard enough in the president’s first term for the things we believe in, we must push harder next term.

We also must engage with people who may disagree. Reach across to independents, even to Republicans and self-styled Tea Partiers. Find people who are open to arguments and ideas, regardless of the label they apply to themselves. We must also get out of our issue cocoons. It’s fine to fight against climate change, or to push for gay rights or a single-payer health system. But we can’t be so mesmerized by any single issue that we fail to take on the stuff that makes it harder for average Americans to be heard on these issues and more: the growing concentration of income, wealth and political power at the top; the increasing clout of global corporations and Wall Street; and the corruption of our democracy.

Don’t focus solely on Washington or entirely on elections. Corporate campaigns—consumer boycotts of companies behind the largest political contributions, media attention to those that award top executives the fattest compensation packages while laying off the most workers—can play an important role. And when candidates are the targets, don’t wait for them to emerge with agendas and policy positions. Take an active role in creating those agendas—and get candidates to run on them.

We should demand, for example, that the marginal income tax on the top 1 percent return to what it was before 1981—at least 70 percent; that a transactions tax be imposed on all Wall Street deals; that distressed homeowners be allowed to reorganize their mortgages under bankruptcy; that Medicare be available to all; that the basic military budget be cut by at least 25 percent over the next decade; that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected and Wall Street’s biggest banks be broken up; and that all political contributions be disclosed, public financing be made available to candidates in general elections and a constitutional amendment be enacted to reverse Citizens United.

Tell incumbents you’ll work your heart out to get them re-elected on condition they campaign on such an agenda. If and when they’re elected, keep up the heat and the support. Too many of us think political activism begins a few months before election day and ends when winners are announced.

The day after election day is the real beginning. Newly elected officials must know that we will continue to mobilize support for a progressive agenda, reward them for pushing it and hold them accountable in the next election cycle if they don’t. We will even go so far as to run candidates against them in their next primary—candidates who will run on that agenda.

Progressives must take back our economy and our democracy from a regressive right backed by a plutocracy that has taken over both. The stakes are especially high. It will not be easy to accomplish. But it must be done. And it is within your power—our power—to do it.

Robert Reich 

March 21, 2012   |    This article appeared in the April 9, 2012 edition of The Nation.

Meet the Twenty-eight Lawmakers Who Have Quit ALEC This Month

Zaid Jilani 

April 26, 2012  

Editor's Note: This article was first published by RepublicReport.org.

The exodus of major corporations from the corporate front group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has made headlines nationwide as the group’s agenda has been increasingly scrutinized by the general public.

Zaid Jilani

Zaid Jilani is Communications and Outreach Coordinator for United Republic. He is the former Senior Reporter-Blogger for...

Editor Greg Cromer Major NAN ORROCK

But as these corporations have fled ALEC, there has also been one other little-noticed exodus from the group: that of legislators. Source Watch and Keystone Progress have been tracking the defections of lawmakers. Here are 28 who have left so far:

- Sen. Nan Orrock (D-GA): “As a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council for several years, having joined ALEC with the primary goal of better understanding the corporate-dominated organization, I know first-hand that ALEC is not the innocuous organization it claims to be.” [4/17/12]

- Sen. Greg Cromer (R-LA): “‘It has been brought to my attention that there have been meetings and/or activities with ALEC staff members within the state of Louisiana that I have not been privy to,’ Cromer wrote in his resignation letter that went out as an email to key lawmakers and staffers.” [4/17/12]

- Sen. Mike Colona (D-MO): “‘Their agenda is radical and wrong for Missouri. I was a member and saw firsthand the sort of extreme legislation they push on state legislators around the country,’ Cromer said in a statement to the organization “Progress Missouri.” [4/12/12]

- Pennsylvania Reps. Kate Harper (R), Sandra Major (R), Mark Mustio (R), Harry Readshaw (D), and Sen. John Pippy (R) [4/26/12]

- Sen. George Muñoz (D-NM) [4/20/12]

- Rep. Ted Vick (D-SC): “Recent revelations concerning ALEC’s funding sources from radical elements have proven to be the final straw for me. ALEC has become too partisan and too extreme.” [4/24/12]

- Nebraska Senators Danielle Conrad (D), Tony Fulton (R), Health Mello (D), and Jeremy Norquist (D)[4/26/12]

- Texas Democratic Party Reps. Alma Allen, Armando Martinez, Dawnna Dukes, Hubert Vo, Harold Dutton, Chente, Quintanilla, Eddie Rodriguez, José Menéndez, Ruth Jones McClendon, Eric Johnson, Tracy King, Ryan Guillen [4/2012]

- Rep. Jennifer Selig (D-UT) [4/9/12]

- Rep. Kevin Van De Wege (D-WA): “My membership status is increasingly becoming a divisive issue this year, and I prefer to put my time and energy into efforts that unite our district rather than divide it.” [4/11/12]

We applaud these legislators for leaving the corporate front group, which has been responsible for pushing destructive special interest legislation, from climate change denial in schools, to anti-union and anti-consumer bills, to the controversial Voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws.

Zaid Jilani 

April 26, 2012  

Robert Reich

Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; Author, 'Beyond Outrage'

The Answer Isn't Socialism; It's Capitalism That Better Spreads the Benefits of the Productivity Revolution

Posted: 05/06/2012 5:28 pm

Francois Hollande's victory doesn't and shouldn't mean a movement toward socialism in Europe or elsewhere. Socialism isn't the answer to the basic problem haunting all rich nations.

The answer is to reform capitalism. The world's productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is widening inequality coupled with slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment.

In the United States, almost all the gains from productivity growth have been going to the top 1 percent, and the percent of the working-age population with jobs is now lower than it's been in more than thirty years (before the vast majority of women moved into paid work).

Inequality is also growing in Europe, along with chronic joblessness. Europe is finding it can no longer afford generous safety nets to catch everyone who has fallen out of the working economy.

Consumers in China are gaining ground but consumption continues to shrink as a share of China's increasingly productive economy, while inequality in China is soaring. China's wealthy elites are emulating the most conspicuous consumption of the rich in the West.

At the heart of the productivity revolution are the computers, software, and the Internet that have found their way into the production of almost everything a modern economy creates. Factory workers are being replaced by computerized machine tools and robotics; office workers, by software applications; professionals, by ever more specialized apps; communications and transportation workers, by the Internet.

Some work continues to be outsourced abroad to very low-wage workers in developing nations but this is not the major cause of the present trend. This work now comprises such a tiny fraction of the costs of production that it's becoming cheaper for companies to do more of it at home with computers and software, and even bring back some of it ("in-source") from abroad.

Consumers in rich nations are reaping some of the benefits of the productivity revolution in the form of lower prices or more value for the money -- consider the cost of color TVs, international phone calls, or cross-country flights compared to what they were before.

But most of the gains are going to the shareholders who own the companies, and to the relatively small number of very talented (or very lucky and well-connected) managers, engineers, designers, and legal or financial specialists on whom the companies depend for strategic decisions about what to produce and how.

Increasingly, via stock options and bonuses, the owners and the "talent" are one and the same. While many other people indirectly own shares of stock through their pensions and 401-K plans, 90 percent of the value of all financial assets in the U.S. belongs to the richest 10 percent of the American population.

Meanwhile, a large number of low-paid service workers sell personalized comfort and attention -- something software can't do -- in the retail, restaurant, hotel, and hospital sectors (most U.S. job growth since 2009 has occurred here.) Others -- temps, contract workers, the under- and partially-employed, fill in where they can. A growing number are not working.

The problem is not that the productivity revolution has caused unemployment or under-employment. The problem is its fruits haven't been widely shared. Less work isn't a bad thing. Most people prefer leisure. A productivity revolution such as we are experiencing should enable people to spend less time at work and have more time to do whatever they'd rather do.

The problem comes in the distribution of the benefits of the productivity revolution. A large portion of the population no longer earns the money it needs to live nearly as well as the productivity revolution would otherwise allow. It can't afford the "leisure" its now experiencing involuntarily.

Not only is this a problem for them; it's also a problem for the overall economy. It means that a growing portion of the population lacks the purchasing power to keep the economy going. In the United States, consumers account for 70 percent of economic activity. If they as a whole cannot afford to buy all the goods and services the productivity revolution is generating, the economy becomes stymied. Growth is anemic; unemployment remains high.

That's why "supply-side" tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are perverse. Corporations and the rich don't need more tax cuts; they're swimming in money as it is. The reason they don't invest in additional productive capacity and hire more people is they don't see a sufficient market for the added goods and services, which means an inadequate return on such investment.

But more Keynesian stimulus won't help solve the more fundamental problem. Although added government spending has gone some way toward filling the gap in demand caused by consumers whose jobs and incomes are disappearing, it can't be a permanent solution. Even if the wealthy paid their fair share of taxes, deficits would soon get out of control. Additional public investments in infrastructure and basic research and development can make the economy more productive - but more productivity doesn't necessarily help if a growing portion of the population can't absorb it.

What to do? Learn from our own history.

The last great surge in productivity occurred between 1870 and 1928, when the technologies of the first industrial revolution were combined with steam power and electricity, mass produced in giant companies enjoying vast economies of scale, and supplied and distributed over a widening system of rails. That ended abruptly in the Great Crash of 1929, when income and wealth had become so concentrated at the top (the owners and financiers of these vast combines) that most people couldn't pay for all these new products and services without going deeply and hopelessly into debt -- resulting in a bubble that loudly and inevitably popped.

If that sounds familiar, it should. A similar thing happened between 1980 and 2007, when productivity revolution of computers, software, and, eventually, the Internet spawned a new economy along with great fortunes. (It's not coincidental that 1928 and 2007 mark the two peaks of income concentration in America over the last hundred years, in which the top 1 percent raked in over 23 percent of total income.)

But here's the big difference. During the Depression decade of the 1930s, the nation reorganized itself so that the gains from growth were far more broadly distributed. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 recognized unions' rights to collectively bargain, and imposed a duty on employers to bargain in good faith. By the 1950s, a third of all workers in the United States were unionized, giving them the power to demand some of the gains from growth. Meanwhile, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and worker's compensation spread a broad safety net. The forty-hour workweek with time-and-a-half for overtime also helped share the work and spread the gains, as did a minimum wage. In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid broadened access to health care. And a progressive income tax, reaching well over 70 percent on the highest incomes, also helped ensure that the gains were spread fairly.

This time, though, the nation has taken no similar steps. Quite the contrary: A resurgent right insists on even more tax breaks for corporations and the rich, massive cuts in public spending that will destroy what's left of our safety nets, including Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, fewer rights for organized labor, more deregulation of labor markets, and a lower (or no) minimum wage.

This is, quite simply, nuts.

And this is why a second Obama administration, should there be one, must focus its attention on more broadly distributing the gains from growth. This doesn't mean "redistributing" from rich to poor, as in a zero-sum game. To the contrary, the rich will do far better with a smaller share of a robust, growing economy than they're doing with a large share of an economy that's barely moving forward.

This will require real tax reform -- not just a "Buffett" minimal tax but substantially higher marginal rates and more brackets at the top, with a capital gains rate matching the income-tax rate. It also means a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, whose benefits extend high into the middle class. That will enable many Americans to move to a 35-hour workweek without losing ground -- thereby making room for more jobs.

It means Medicare for all rather than an absurdly-costly system that relies on private for-profit insurers and providers.

It will require limiting executive salaries and empowering workers to get a larger share of corporate profits. The Employee Free Choice Act should be an explicit part of the second-term agenda.

It will require strict limits on the voracious, irresponsible behavior of Wall Street, from which we've all suffered. The Glass-Steagall Act must be resurrected (the so-called Volcker Rule is more ridden with holes than cheese), and the big banks broken up.

And it will necessitate a public educational system - including early child education - second to none, and available to all our young people.

We don't need socialism. We need a capitalism that works for the vast majority. The productivity revolution should be making our lives better -- not poorer and more insecure. And it will do that when we have the political will to spread its benefits.

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

Harper Cried at News of Romney Loss

Nov. 09, 2012

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reportedly broke down in tears upon hearing the news Tuesday night that intellectual soul-mate Mitt Romney had lost the U.S. presidential election.

The Conservative Albertan had anticipated a Romney victory and was emotionally crushed by the prospect of not being able to work with the Republican standard-bearer for the next four years of his premiership. 

Witnesses at his official residence in Ottawa say that Harper immediately retreated to his bedroom after seeing the results on Sun News Network, whereupon he began to softly cry into a pillow.

After composing himself he returned to his living quarters and issued a press release congratulating President Obama on his victory.

From Sea to Shining Sea

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Currant Harper explains that without a Republican governing the United States, achieving his aim of re-inventing Canada in America's image will be more difficult;

"Obviously without a Republican president, it is unlikely the proposed Keystone Pipeline will be built. This will harm Canada's economy."

"But more importantly, this makes it harder for me to privatize Canada's healthcare system. If even the Americans are moving towards single-payer universal coverage, how can I move away from it?"

"I wanted to dismantle Canada's universal healthcare system by 2015. Now it might take a bit longer. I'm not going to lie, it’s frustrating."

Harper was also looking forward to a Romney foreign policy, hoping to join in an America's next big adventure in the Muslim world:

"We were gonna invade Iran together. It was gonna be beautiful."

WATCH: Harper call for a private health care system in Canada:

Comments From Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Foreign Leaders

Barack Obama now prepares for his second term as the President of the United States. Though the race was tight, especially in states like Florida and Virginia, Obama won by more than 2 million popular votes at last count, and had at least 303 electoral votes to Mitt Romney's 206. (Florida was still too close to call as of midday Wednesday.)

Check out some of the reactions to last night's election results:

Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

Mitt Romney

"I have just called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory. His supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters.

Speaker of the House John Boehner

"The American people re-elected the president, and re-elected our majority in the House. If there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs, which is critical to solving our debt. I offer sincere congratulations to President and Mrs. Obama and to Vice President and Dr. Biden. I wish Mitt, Ann, Paul, Janna and their families well, and thank them for having carried the banner of our party and our principles with strength, grace, and courage."

Sarah Palin

"I just cannot believe that the majority of Americans believe that incurring more debt is good for the economy, for our children's future, for job creators. I just cannot believe that the majority of Americans believe that it's OK to ignore the constitution and not have a budget."

French President Francois Hollande

"Your re-election is a clear choice in favor of an America that is open, unified, completely engaged in the international scene and conscious of the challenges facing our planet: peace, the economy and the environment."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

"I extend my sincere congratulations to President Obama and Vice President Biden on their hard-fought victory, and I would like to thank Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for running a great campaign based on concrete solutions to the tremendous economic challenges we continue to face. "The American people did two things: they gave President Obama a second chance to fix the problems that even he admits he failed to solve during his first four years in office, and they preserved Republican control of the House of Representatives. "The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term, they have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together with a Congress that restored balance to Washington after two years of one-party control. "Now it's time for the president to propose solutions that actually have a chance of passing the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a closely-divided Senate, step up to the plate on the challenges of the moment, and deliver in a way that he did not in his first four years in office. "To the extent he wants to move to the political center, which is where the work gets done in a divided government, we'll be there to meet him half way. "That begins by proposing a way for both parties to work together in avoiding the 'fiscal cliff' without harming a weak and fragile economy, and when that is behind us work with us to reform the tax code and our broken entitlement system. Republicans are eager to hear the president's proposals on these and many other pressing issues going forward and to do the work the people sent us here to do."

Prime Minister David Cameron

"I would like to congratulate Barack Obama on his re-election. I have really enjoyed working with him over the last few years and I look forward to working with him again over the next four years. "There are so many things that we need to do: we need to kick start the world economy and I want to see an EU-US trade deal. Right here in Jordan I am hearing appalling stories about what has happened inside Syria so one of the first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and solve this crisis. "Above all, congratulations to Barack. I've enjoyed working with him, I think he's a very successful US president and I look forward to working with him in the future."

Herman Cain

Cain tweeted, "Obama won on Popularity rather than substance. I predict higher unemp & higher taxes."

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

"The strategic alliance between Israel and the U.S. is stronger than ever. I will continue to work with President Obama in order to assure the interests that are vital to the security of the citizens of Israel."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

"We hope that the positive beginnings that have taken hold in Russian-US relations on the world arena will grow in the interests of international security and stability."

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak

"As a moderate Muslim nation, Malaysia stands ready to help the United States as it seeks to better engage with those of Islamic faith."

Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley

"First, Michael and I want to offer our congratulations to Mitt and Ann Romney – two wonderful people filled with grace, strength and love of country, and two people we are proud to call our friends. They ran a campaign that offered a vision of America that is strong, prosperous and free, and inspired millions of Americans in the process. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for their service. "Second, we congratulate President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama on their hard-fought and hard-earned re-election. Since the day he was sworn into office back in 2009, we have hoped and prayed for President Obama's success as, more than anything, we want to raise our children in an America that's thriving and that offers our children the same blessings and opportunities it has offered the generations that preceded them. Those hopes and prayers continue today. "Although South Carolina cast a majority of its votes in the other direction, our country has spoken. As Americans, we must respect this outcome, and, as governor, I will work together with President Obama wherever I can for the betterment of our state and country."

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski

"Americans want us to work together to solve the difficult problems facing our nation." "In his second term, I am hopeful that President Obama will see the value of pragmatism over partisanship," she said. "Both parties created the challenges we face today, and the solutions can only be found through collaborative efforts — good ideas don't come with a party label. "I encourage President Obama and his administration to work with Congress, represent all of America and make a better tomorrow for our nation."

Election 2012

Buchanan: ‘White America’ Died Last Night

Nov. 07, 2012

Conservative political pundit Pat Buchanan stoked controversy today by claiming that Barack Obama's reelection has 'killed White America'.

The paleo conservative nativist is no stranger to racial controversy, having previously been accused of writing books with racist and anti-semitic undertones.

But the former Nixon advisor was more explicit on the G. Gordon Liddy Show this morning. When asked for his reaction to Obama's victory, Buchanan replied brazenly:

"White America died last night. Obama's reelection killed it. Our 200 plus year history as a Western nation is over. We're a Socialist Latin American country now. Venezuela without the oil." Stunned by his clear racisim, Liddy tried to walk his guest back from the ledge:

"With what you just said right there...You seem to imply that white people are better than other people. That's not really what you're saying is it?" "Of course that's what I'm saying," Buchanan replied "Isn't it obvious? Anything worth doing on this Earth was done first by white people."

"Who landed on the moon? White people. Who climbed Mount Everest? White people.  Who invented the transistor? White people. Who invented paper? White people. Who discovered algebra? White people."

"And don't give me all this nonsense about Martin Luther King and civil rights and all that. Who do you think freed the slaves? Abraham Lincoln. A white guy!"

Carte Blanche

"But we're not led by Lincoln anymore, we're led by an affirmative-action mulatto who can't physically understand how great America once was."

"I cried last night G. I cried for hours. It's over for all of us. The great White nation will never survive another 4 years of Obama's leadership"

Liddy tried to reason with Buchanan, reminding him that he shares similar positions with the President on Afghanistan, Iraq, and relations with Russia:

"Of course I agree with half of what he does," Buchanan answered, "He's half white! That's not the half I'm worried about."

Buchanan served as a speechwriter in the Nixon White House. He was fired as an MSNBC analyst this year following the publication of a book many considered to be racist.

Romney: ‘I Should Have Offered Them Fried Chicken’

Nov. 16, 2012

Defeated presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed today he could have won last week's election had his campaign offered black voters government-funded fried chicken.

Earlier this week Romney told a group of Republican donors on a conference call that president Obama had won reelection because he offered government "gifts" to young people, Latinos, and blacks.

Today CNN obtained an extended audio recording of that call in which Romney goes even further:

"I've spent the last few days wondering what I should have done differently. Maybe I should have been less hostile to immigration? Maybe I should have embraced fewer anti-woman positions?"

"But after a long reflection, I've decided my most important mistake is not matching the Obama campaign's efforts to give away free stuff to blacks and Latinos."

"I should have made a promise to the Afro-American community, for example. If you vote Republican, your fingers will always be covered in grease. I'm sure a $200 gift certificate to Popeyes or KFC could have won those people over. I don't know why we didn't think of that."

"And we could have done the same thing to Latinos with El Pollo Loco and Taco Bell. If I could have just gotten 35% of the minority vote, I could have won the election."

Believe in (White) America

Romney dismisses the idea that his party should tone down its nativist, racially charged rhetoric on immigration and welfare. Rather, he explains that while white voters must be convinced by a candidate's competence, minority voters are different:

"The Afro-American and Latino communities only understand one thing - handouts. You can't talk to them about issues or policy. Goes right over their heads. They only speak the language of 'gimmie more, gimmie more.' "

Although welfare programs go against his philosophy of self-reliance, Romney wishes he had made more such promises to minorities:

"Aside from my education, my first job, and money to start my own business - no one ever gave me damn thing. So it pains me to see Americans dependent on others."

"But a fried-chicken giveaway could have made me president. I regret not making that happen. It was my failure, and mine alone."

In rebuttal to Obama, Rubio tries to soften Republicans' tone

Richard CowanReuters

12:46 a.m. EST, February 13, 2013

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, seeking to help the Republican Party shed its image as a defender of the rich, stressed his working-class upbringing and the need to save social safety net programs during his response on Tuesday to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.

The back-to-back speeches by Obama and Rubio underscored the differences between Democrats and Republicans that have brought gridlock to Washington for more than two years.

Whereas Obama proclaimed that the United States cannot get on the path to prosperity just by cutting government spending, as Republicans demand, Rubio warned that Washington cannot tax its way to economic growth. The senator indicated that tax increases, even if focused on the wealthy, can wind up affecting middle-class areas such as his neighborhood in Miami because higher taxes can stymie job creation.

"Mr. President, I don't oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors," Rubio said in calling for low taxes and less government spending and regulation - policies he said would boost economic growth. In a speech that was notably more partisan than the president's, Rubio belittled the accomplishments of Obama's first term, including the healthcare overhaul that Republicans derisively call "Obamacare." "His solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more," Rubio said.

For Rubio, 41, the speech represented a potential star-making moment at a time when Republicans are desperate to reach out to the nation's fast-growing Latino population, which voted overwhelmingly for Obama and Democrats in the November elections. The senator is widely viewed as a potential contender for the presidency in 2016.

The stakes of the speech seemed evident at times. Rubio appeared to wipe away sweat from his temples several times during his 15-minute speech, and seemed to struggle with what later became known on Twitter as "dry mouth moments." At one point he made an awkward reach for a water bottle that nearly pulled him out of range of the television camera.

Rubio's emphasis on his modest roots - his Cuban-born father and mother came to the United States in the 1950s and worked as a bartender and hotel maid, respectively - signaled that he and Republicans now are trying to relate to voters in a way that eluded Mitt Romney, the party's 2012 presidential nominee.

Romney, 65, a former Massachusetts governor who made a fortune at his private equity firm, was cast by Democrats as an out-of-touch elitist during the campaign. It was an image that lowered his ratings among voters and was fed by Romney's own comments that "47 percent" of Americans would never vote for him because they were dependent on government programs.

Romney's stance on immigration - he touted a "self-deportation" plan under which the government essentially would make things so miserable for illegal immigrants that they would leave the United States voluntarily - further battered Republicans' image among Latinos. In the November 6 election, Latinos cast more than 70 percent of their votes for Obama.

Since then, Republicans have scrambled to portray their party as more tolerant and more understanding of the concerns of Latinos and the middle class. A big part of that strategy has been to promote Rubio, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement who, at least when it comes to immigration, appears ready to buck the movement's no-compromises approach and work with Democrats on legislation. Rubio presented a different face to America. Instead of talking about self-deportation, he called for "a responsible, permanent solution to the problem of those who are here illegally."

"He's young and Hispanic. This is a party that's just been creamed in terms of appealing to ethnics of any sort," said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Rubio has joined a bipartisan group of eight senators who have called for providing a path to U.S. citizenship for many of the 11 million foreigners who are living in the United States illegally.

Rubio underscored Republicans' outreach effort to Latino voters by delivering a taped version of his speech in Spanish for Spanish-language television networks.

REPUBLICAN 'SAVIOR?'The 2016 elections are nearly four years away, but hopes that Rubio might help Republicans at least cut into Democrats' advantage among Latinos have been such that Time magazine called him a "Republican savior." In an attempt to blunt criticisms that Republicans want to balance budgets by gutting social safety net programs, Rubio noted that the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly and disabled "is especially important to me."

The senator, who won election to the U.S. Congress in 2010 on a wave of Tea Party successes that stressed smaller government, said Medicare "provided my father the care he needed to battle cancer and ultimately die with dignity." But he criticized Obama and Democrats for not seeking savings in such social programs. "Anyone who is in favor of leaving Medicare exactly the way it is right now is in favor of bankrupting it," Rubio said. More broadly, Rubio called for a pared-down federal government, drawing some sharp contrasts with Obama's speech, which called for new government jobs programs and infrastructure investments that the president said would "reignite" the middle class and create new jobs.

While trying to recast his party's image in more moderate terms, Rubio has racked up a voting record that is squarely conservative. On Tuesday, he voted against renewing the "Violence Against Women Act" that passed the Senate 78-22 with only Republicans in opposition. Rubio began the year as one of only eight senators opposing a "fiscal cliff" deal that raised taxes on those households with net incomes above $450,000. And last year, he joined other Republicans in slowing legislation to keep student loan interest rates low. Amid calls for sweeping reforms of the nation's gun laws after December's mass murder of school children in Connecticut, Rubio called for dealing with the rise of violence.

But aligning with gun-rights activists, he warned against "unconstitutionally undermining the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans." Last week Rubio made waves when he questioned whether humans were contributing to climate change, despite overwhelming evidence presented by most mainstream scientists. In his speech late on Tuesday, Rubio made a nod toward clean fuels like solar and wind energy. "But God also blessed America with abundant coal, oil and natural gas," Rubio said, urging more production of those carbon-emitting fuels. Even with his conservative voting record, Rubio has managed to position himself as somewhat of a moderate in his home state of Florida. That could help him appeal to a broad range of voters if he decides to wage a campaign for president in 2016.

Rubio "has done a pretty effective job of convincing many voters that he's not an ideologue," said Christopher Mann, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami.

Instead, Mann said, Rubio has "carved out (himself) as a voice of reason and moderation in the Republican Party." (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by David Lindsey, Eric Beech and Jim Loney)

Copyright © 2013, Reuters