Op-Ed
By Rep. Sander Levin
During the three days I spent in Bangladesh in late August, workers there described to me the terror and despair they confronted during and since the building collapse in April and the garment factory fire several months earlier — events that together killed more than 1,200 workers. They had jumped from buildings and watched family members die in the rubble next to them.
By Elijah E. Cummings and Sander M. Levin
The writers are, respectively, the ranking Democrats on the House committees on Oversight and Government Reform and Ways and Means.
For nearly three months, Republicans have engaged in a sustained and orchestrated campaign to accuse the White House and the Obama administration of using the IRS to target the president's political enemies — without any evidence to support their claims.
For two-plus years, House Republicans have defaulted on their obligations to the American public. This week's vote to prioritize debt payments is the clearest and most bewildering signal to the nation that they'll continue to do so, ensuring that holders of government bonds -- half of whom are foreign nationals -- are paid in the event of default while providing no such gu
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/21/health-care-obamacare-reform-column/2005701/
A year ago, the Affordable Care Act's outlook appeared uncertain, with the Supreme Court decision on the law's legality and a contentious election fight over its merits still on the horizon. Today, with both of those events unfolding in favor of the landmark law, ObamaCare continues to take effect, having already achieved so much, yet with so much more to come later this year.
Children, the unemployed most harmed by federal spending cuts going into effect today
The effects of the sequestration may not reveal themselves in a matter of hours, or even days. But make no mistake: Inaction has consequences. Washington is frozen in place because of the unwillingness of Republicans in Congress to even discuss a balanced replacement. For them, it is cuts and nothing else.
What lies before us is not the defeat of Speaker Boehner's so-called Plan B — a dead on arrival proposal on the impending fiscal cliff with no bipartisan support — but instead the culmination of the radicalization of the Republican Party.
What is the evidence?
The economic crisis four years ago hit the American middle class as it was already reeling from three decades of stagnant wage growth.
The worst was yet to come. The Great Recession saw poverty soar, home values plummet and retirement savings sharply decline. It's little wonder that the Pew Research Center labeled the 2000s the worst decade for the American middle class in modern history.
All the while, income inequality worsened. By 2010, 93% of income growth went to the top 1% of Americans.