Charts

As year-end approaches, the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts is getting messy and harder to tolerate. Part of the reason is that there are more than just the usual suspects trying to advance clearly terrible proposals.

Sarabeth Guthberg at 1115.org had me squinting at her blistering critique of claims made by political advisor/economist Mark Zandi. (He had it coming.) As a key advisor to House Speaker Pelosi, Zandi is trying to rally support for permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts benefiting the "middle class," and a one-year-but-not-really extension of the tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000 per year (roughly the top 2%). He says it's necessary because the recovery is still too fragile, and that even the richest Americans "may be sensitive." (And, we wouldn't wanna make anyone cry, right?)

Experts from different sides of the board, including Paul Krugman and Alan Greenspan, have sounded off, saying the Republican proposal to permanently extend all of the Bush tax cuts is a bad idea. The tab for such a move would run up to around $3.7 trillion over 10 years. Read more >>

As the debate rages in Congress between deficit hawks and legislators who want to invest money to create jobs, one important point of common ground is being overlooked. The two sides should be able to come together to responsibly downsize America’s bloated defense budget.

Conservative estimates of savings is $1 trillion between 2011-2020. Some of the savings could go to deficit reduction and some towards job creation. Best of all, it's a values-based reprioritization of America’s investments away from guns and back to butter.

Chart h/t Campaign for America's Future

UFE's seventh annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day report has finally arrived! State of the Dream 2010: Drained - Jobless and Foreclosed in Communities of Color explores the U.S. racial economic divide in the wake of the Great Recession and spotlights a targeted policy approach as the best way to close that divide and rebuild our economy. Read the report now!

The Growing Divide

At UFE, we believe that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial wealth divide, and tear communities apart.  We support and help build social movements for greater equality.

Closing today's growing economic divide is UFE's main objective.

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These charts are part on our report Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008. Find more charts here.

These charts are part of our report Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008. Find links to more charts at the bottom of the page.