Red for Ed: Never Forget

No Republican Should Be Returned To The Arizona Legislature Because of the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ For Public Education That They Purposefully Created

Republicans are anti-public education, what these White Christian Nationalists disparage as secular “government schools.” Their objective is to totally privatize the pubic education system into a for-profit private education system which would allow for religious indoctrination (of the White Christian Nationalist variety, naturally) and not having to comply with non-discrimination provisions in federal law, as the … Read more

AZ School Districts Call For A Special Session To Fix The Fiscal Cliff Crisis Of The Education Aggregate Spending Limit

Earlier this year our anti-public education GQP-controlled Arizona legislature averted a fiscal cliff in public education funding with an eleventh-hour short-term fix that solved the problem only for the last fiscal year, but did not address the current fiscal year school budget. Financial Doomsday for Arizona Schools Averted: Arizona State Senate Joins the House and … Read more

AZ Senate Can’t Find GQP Votes To Override Education Funding Cap, But Expands School Vouchers On A Party-Line Vote

Above: Classic David Fitzsimmons cartoon, still true after all these years. Michael Bryan posted on Tuesday, Arizona House Passes Resolution to Waive the AEL and Prevent the #AZFiscalCliff for AZ’s Schools: Today, 17 Republicans joined all 28 present Democrats to pass HCR 2039. Now the spotlight turns to the AZ Senate to pass the matching … Read more

Of austerity and cookies (video)


Tax-wallstby Pamela Powers Hannley

These days, you can't turn on the TV or radio without hearing a "news" story or pundit "analysis" about the battle over deficit reduction by budget cuts or revenue generation.

Republicans want to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class and the poor by cutting "entitlements" (ie, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, Pel Grants, food stamps, and whatever programs are left of Johnson's War on Poverty). Heaven forbid that they would consider taxing the rich, taxing financial transactions, raising the income cap for Social Security benefits, or anything like that. 

Austerity is their battle cry. After the jump, watch this video featuring John Nichols of The Nation explaining the hoax of austerity.

Is the ‘fiscal cliff’ a manufactured crisis or a real one? (video)

Cliff diveby Pamela Powers Hannley

The mainstream media is abuzz with "news" of the fiscal cliff– a end-of-year deadline when the Bush Era tax cuts expire and other financial maneuvers by the federal government either end or take effect. (It's a really long list– read more about the fiscal cliff here and here.)

The fiscal cliff is a crisis manufactured by Congress because on multiple occasions they put off making decisions. Seriously, makeshift, stop-gap deals is their forte. 

Grassroots activists from Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) have hand-delivered 70 letters to members of Congress, urging them to vote against austerity measures which will hit average Americans and the poor the hardest and vote for measures– like the Robin Hood Tax— which will raise revenues by increasing taxes on the rich. 

Here in Tucson, PDA Tucson members delivered such a letter to newly elected Congressman Ron Barber.

For detailed background on the fiscal cliff, check out the video from The Real News, after the jump.