‘The Ed Show’ Heads to Madison
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MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” will air from Madison, Wis., tonight, where Ed Shultz will cover what he calls “the most important story in our country right now….I intend to stand up for American workers.”
He will talk with the men and women who have been in the streets and inside the state Capitol opposing Gov. Scott Walker’s (R ) attempt to bash middle-class workers and eliminate collective bargaining rights for state workers. Shultz says he’ll also “report on the people who are interfering with the opportunity for these men and women to earn a decent wage and enjoy their liberties.”
Tune in to MSNBC tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern.
Deficit Commission Report Buries Outsourcing Tax Break
Yesterday when the federal deficit commission issued its proposal, most of the media attention focused on the call for cuts in Social Security and Medicare, ending long-standing middle class tax breaks and lowering taxes on the wealthy. But a proposal that could encourage corporations to ship American jobs overseas was little noticed.
The proposal would change the way corporate taxes are levied and, in effect, exempt a corporation’s foreign profits from domestic taxation. AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee told Sam Stein at The Huffington Post:
There is no question that this incentivizes outsourcing, and that’s the opposite direction from the one we want to be going in. It’s directly contrary to how we should change our tax system. We need to change our tax code to remove incentives for offshoring. This changes the tax code to greatly enhance the corporate tax incentive.
On last night’s The Ed Show, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard called the outsourcing tax break tax “absolute financial insanity.” Read the rest of this entry »
Biden: ‘We Can’t Achieve a Middle Class Without a Strong Labor Movement’
Unions and their members will be a “gigantic part of the solution” to rebuilding the middle class, Vice President Joe Biden told the 3,000 delegates to the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department’s (BCTD) legislative conference.
Biden, speaking via videotape yesterday, told representatives of the 13 BCTD unions:
Welcome back to the table, it’s about time after eight years….We now have people on the Hill, we now have people in the White House who care a lot about you and respect you….For too many years we had a leadership in this country that dealt the middle class out of the American dream. We’re going to change that. We’re going to deal the middle class back in and you’re a big, big reason why….We can’t achieve a strong middle class without a strong labor movement. In this administration we know you are not the problem. You are a gigantic part of the solution.
Pelosi: Congress Committed to Passing Employee Free Choice
Congress is “committed to passing the Employee Free Choice Act” and President Obama is “ready to sign it into law,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today told more than 3,000 union members and leaders from 13 unions at the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) in Washington, D.C.
According to The Hill blog, Pelosi told delegates to the BCTD’s 2009 Legislative Conference:
Our work in Congress is based on two truths: America’s economy is only as strong as America’s middle class; America’s middle class is only as strong as America’s unions.
Ed Schultz Kicks off New MSNBC Show with USW’s Gerard
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Popular progressive radio show host Ed Schultz, who now anchors ”The Ed Show“ on MSNBC television, hosted Leo Gerard, president of the Steelworkers (USW), on the program’s first installment Monday night.
Gerard told viewers: “We cannot put this country back on its feet by continuing to worship at the knees of the financial community that put us in this mess. We’ve got to go back to start to make things in America; we’ve got to put people back to work; we’ve got to save the auto industry.”
Gerard discussed the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States and what the demise of our auto industry would mean to other sectors. He stressed the need to reform health care and fix our trade policies with China. (Click here for the full interview.)
