Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reichis an American political commentator, professor, and author. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth24 June 1946
CountryUnited States of America
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Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn't reduce the size of government.
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Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers and are available to all.
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The curious thing is Americans don't mind individual mandates when they come in the form of payroll taxes to buy mandatory public insurance. In fact, that's the system we call Social Security and Medicare, and both are so popular politicians dare not touch them.
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As long as the big banks are allowed to remain big, their political leverage over Washington will remain big. And as long as their political leverage remains big, the taxpayer and economic tab for the next mess they create will be big.
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It's a terrific legacy, and if he hadn't supported those stupid tax cuts - it's beyond stupid: regressive and unwise - his reputation would be untarnished.
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Government subsidies to elite private universities take the form of tax deductions for people who make charitable contributions to them.
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Employers have to understand that if they want to attract and keep good people, they've got to treat those people as whole people who have lives outside work,
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Even if there's no way to stop U.S. corporations from shedding their U.S. identities and becoming foreign corporations, there's no reason they should retain the privileges of U.S. citizenship.
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Bill Bradley wants to get democracy back for the American people. There has never been any question about his integrity or trustworthiness.
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The only way back toward a democracy and economy that work for the majority is for most of us to get politically active once again, becoming organized and mobilized.
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Some argue shareholder capitalism has proven more efficient. It has moved economic resources to where they're most productive, and thereby enabled the economy to grow faster.
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Political scientists after World War II hypothesized that even though the voices of individual Americans counted for little, most people belonged to a variety of interest groups and membership organizations - clubs, associations, political parties, unions - to which politicians were responsive.
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No company can be expected to build a nuclear reactor, an oil well, a coal mine, or anything else that's one hundred percent safe under all circumstances. The costs would be prohibitive. It's unreasonable to expect corporations to totally guard against small chances of every potential accident.
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Instead of worrying about who's American and who's not, here's a better idea: Create incentives for any global company to do what we'd like it to do in the United States.