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Economists are warning that the upcoming sequester could severely harm the economy as government agencies at the federal, state, and local level will see sharp spending cuts.

The sequester’s cuts this year will amount to $85.3 billion. Around half of this spending will be cut from the waste-ridden defense budget, but much of the rest of it will come out of necessary investments in the country’s public infrastructure.

But there’s another area of the budget where almost as much money is spent — subsidies to Big Banks. In an editorial published last week, Bloomberg noted that the ten biggest banks get an effective annual subsidy of $83 billion from taxpayers, and that almost all their recent profits are subsidized by the federal government.

That’s only $2.3 billion short of the amount of money that the sequester cuts. It would therefore be logical if the government were to instead look at cutting these subsidies to Wall Street instead of investments in Main Street America.

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With the sequester looming, many progressive economists have made the argument that these across-the-board cuts would be damaging to the economy and that there should instead be more targeted cuts focused on defense, corporate welfare, Big Agribusiness, and other wasteful areas.

But with half of the sequester’s cuts set to fall upon the Pentagon, the defense industry is making a self-interested argument against the sequester, claiming that it would hurt military readiness (a false claim, as military expertsAi??recommendAi??twice the level of defense cuts as are in the sequester).

Here’s one example. Defense giant Northrup Grumman has set upAi??StopSequestration.com. This website asks you to petition your lawmakers to demand that they stop the sequestration, which it says would cost jobs and hurt U.S. security.

But while asking that the government not enact the sequester and sizeable cuts to defense spending, the site also fearmongers about the U.S. debt:

Government spending continues to exceed government revenues, which means that the national debt keeps growing. Without a change in spending and taxation plans, the national debt will soon reach unprecedented levels. Such debt levels risk triggering a financial crisis.

There is no evidence that the levels of U.S. debt is anywhere near close to “triggering a financial crisis.” As economist Paul Krugman points out, as “long as the economy recovers, which is an assumption built into….projections, the debt ratio will more or less stabilize soon.”

The message this defense contractor is therefore positing is this: there should be major budget cuts for Americans, but not for waste-riddled defense contractors.

Click hereAi??to pledge to hold any Democrat who agrees to a deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits accountable.

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With the budget sequester looming, some lawmakers are compiling alternative to the across-the-board cuts, and some conservatives want to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits as part of a deal.

A new poll out today from The Hill finds that this would put them out of step with the American public and even with self-identified Republicans.

In the poll, 62 percent of Republicans and 82 percent of Democrats opposed cutting Social Security and Medicare, while 49 percent of overall respondents said they favored cutting back on defense spending. Even among Republicans, 56 percent said they would oppose defense cuts while a larger 62 percent said they would oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Click hereAi??to pledge to hold any Democrat who agrees to a deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits accountable.

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Rising tides threaten polar bears today, they may threaten the entire state of Louisiana soon.

In new research about to be released by the NationalAi??Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency concludes that the state of Louisiana will face the highest sea-level rise “on the planet.”

This sea-level rise is largely due to the effects of man-made global warming. But as Louisiana faces looming catastrophe over the next few decades, much of its congressional delegation continues to drag its feet on climate action or deny the phenomena altogether. Here’s a rundown:

Sen. David Vitter (R): Vitter warned that global warming studies are often “ridiculous psuedo-science.”
Rep. Steve Scalise (R): Scalise has said that the science “is not settled” and that there “is dispute” over man-made climate change.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D): While she has not engaged in global warming denialism, she has worked to stop the Obama administration from combating the threat of climate change.
Rep. John Fleming (R): Fleming has signed the Koch Brothers front group’s Americans For Prosperity’s pledge to block a tax designed to rein in carbon emissions.
Rep. Rodney Alexander (R): Alexander co-sponsored a resolution saying that the Ai??”impacts of climate change and proposed resolutions, tainted by the recent uncovering of climategate, are not universally accepted.”
Rep. Bill Cassidy (R): Cassidy denies global warming outright, saying it could just be a “shift in the axis” of the planet.
Rep. Charles Boustany (R): Boustany has voted against letting the Environmental Protection Agency work to stop global warming and defends subsidies for oil and gas companies.

Out of all of the delegation, only Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond has taken actions to protect the environment and battle climate change.

With a persistently poor economy, one uphill battle unemployed Americans have to face is job discrimination. Many employers explicitly discriminate against jobless Americans, warning them not to even apply.

Joining New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., the New York City council recently passed a bill to ban this discrimination. But Mayor Michael Bloomberg just vetoed it. He had previously called the bill “misguided” and claimed that it would “hurt small businesses.”

Recall that New York City’s unemployment rate is 9.4 percent. The council is expected to try to override Bloomberg’s veto.

Erskine Bowles

Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have released yet another austerity plan that lowers taxes on corporations while proposing Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts.

But in a surprising statistic released from Alan Grayson’s office, it appears that there’s one deficit-enlarging tax break that Bowles personally benefits from that he is refusing to touch.

According to the SEC, Bowles owns 20,000 restricted stock units in Facebook. Thanks to Facebook’s ability to claim tax deductions worth $16 billion — what the company raised in its recent IPO — it is able to collect a $500 million tax refund, which would zero out its 2012 taxes.

As a result of this tax loophole, the value of Erskine Bowlesai??i?? share of the company increased by $114,000.

Click hereAi??to pledge to hold any Democrat who agrees to a deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits accountable.

Call on New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to bring a paid sick days bill to a vote.

New York City Council speaker Christine Quinn is considered a front-runner for that city’s mayoral race, but her bid has been dragged down by the factthat she refuses to allow a vote on a proposal that would give residents of the city guaranteed paid sick days.

One of her leading supporters — author Gloria Steinem — just announced that she will withdraw her support from Quinn unless she allows a vote on the sick days proposal. “Making life fairer for all women seems more important than breaking a barrier for one woman,” said Steinem about Quinn’s bid to be the first female mayor without helping guarantee that women in the city get paid sick days.

Join with PCCC to ask New York City Council Speaker Speaker Christine Quinn to hold a vote on a city-wide paid sick leave.

In Georgia, both progressive groups like Common Cause and conservative organizations like the Tea Party have joined hands to demand restrictions on the gifts that lobbyists can give to lawmakers.

Many in the legislature are considering a gift limit of $100 per gift, and others want to ban gifts outright. Polling shows that 72% of Georgians want to see gifts to lawmakers capped.

Under the watchful eyes of this new bipartisan reform movement, lobbyist gift spending has actually plummeted. While lobbyists spent aAi??sizableAi??sum on gifts in January 2013 — $240,000 — this is actually a 35% decline from January 2012.

This is evidence that an engaged public tackling the issue of corruption can make an impact even before it passes actual reform laws.

Click here to join our Take Back Democracy campaign to help stop the influence of money in our politics.

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Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX)

As Congress gears up to craft immigration reform legislation, some LGBT advocates are demanding that it include equal rights for same-sex binational couples, who currently face a mountain of legal hurdles in the system.

At a Stonewall Democrats meeting on Tuesday, freshman congressman Marc Veasey (D-TX) demanded that this equality be in the legislation.

VEASEY: Comprehensive immigration reform to me means including same-sex families. Same-sex families that want to have their loved ones reuinted with them hear in the United States, that has to be covered, that has to be included. Any bill we pass does not go far enough if same-sex language is not included.

Watch it (relevant section begins at 4:21):

Prominent gay Americans have faced drastic circumstances due to the lack of equality for LGBT partners in U.S. immigration law. For example, prolific civil liberties writer Glenn Greenwald was forced to live in Brazil part time because he could not live alongside his partner in New York City, where he studied law.

Wisconsin was the site over an epic struggle in 2011 to defend public employees’ collective bargaining rights. Backed by Koch brothers cash, Republicans were successful in rolling back public employee rights. In doing so, Republicans claimed that they were just concerned with budget matters and did not want to target unions specifically.

But a year and a half later, Republicans are now advancing a bill that has nothing to do with Wisconsin’s budget but everything to do with crushing unions.

House Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow private businesses to cut back on hours unilaterally, without having to talk to the unions or negotiate with their workers. As the Chippewa Herald notes, this law would be “in contrast to almost all similar laws in other states.”

Republicans are fast-tracking the bill, and it may get a committee vote as soon as Thursday. “It’s one more step toward their goal of ending the right of Wisconsin citizens to have their voice heard in the workplace,” said Democratic state senatorAi??Julie Lassa in a statement.

Recall that Republican Governor Scott Walker told a billionaire donor that he is pursuing a “divide and conquer” strategy with respect to unions — going after public ones first to take on private ones later. His strategy seems to be in action here.