The truth is that on every prominent economic issue of our time, the public overwhelmingly agrees with the progressive position. If 74 percent of voters oppose cuts to Medicare benefits and only 17 percent support them (which is true in New Hampshire), progressives insisting on the 74 percent position is different than the Tea Party insisting on the 17 percent position. One is democracy. The other is fringe incalcitrance. Equating the two is either ignorant or dishonest, but in either case destructive. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee did our homework and hired the No. 1 most-accurate pollster of 2012, Public Policy Polling, to poll New Hampshire voters on these fiscal issues (with more states to come). As the Union Leader’s John DiStaso reported, huge majorities of voters in the “Live Free Or Die” state support taxing the rich, oppose cutting benefits, and support cutting corporate welfare. They also say that President Obama’s mandate is not to compromise for its own sake, but to “stand up for regular families – even if that means fighting.” That’s a mandate – a mandate for “the left.” The only question is whether Democrats will use it to fight for the will of the people.

In a story already making waves across Washington, Politico’s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen reported this morning that a bipartisan “grand bargain” is emerging from talks between the White House and Republicans. The contours of the deal are this: About $1.2 trillion in new tax revenue, most likely from an rate increase on income over $250,000, along with at least $400 billion over 10 years in entitlement cuts “and perhaps a lot more,” mostly from Medicare.

Liberals have drawn a hard line against entitlement cuts and $400 billion is a lot of money, so some progressives are not pleased with the idea….However, there’s an important caveat that’s missing from the deal described by Politico… The details of the cuts in the Politico article were vague, and it’s unclear if they represents real cuts to benefits or not. “That’s a crucial distinction,” said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “What’s worried some about the Politico article is that it kind of tossed in reforms or efficiencies along with talk about raising the Medicare retirement age or adjusting the cost of living adjustment — those two things would essentially start a nuclear war on the left,” Green said. “Those are the two big things. Those are benefit cuts. Those actively hurt seniors.” But Green said he was encouraged by Durbin’s speech yesterday, and he doesn’t think raising the retirement age is a real possibility.

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA)

During the debate over health care reform, Blue Dog Democrat Rep. Jason Altmire (PA) pushed against progressives, voting against one version of the health care bill because it included a wealth tax and also lead opposition to a public option.

Unfortunately, in Washington, siding with big corporations pays. Late last night, Altmire announced that he will be taking a lobbying position with Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Florida. His title will be “Senior Vice President for Public Policy, Government and Community Affairs.”

“Serving the people of Western Pennsylvania in the United States Congress has been the highest honor of my life,” said Altmire in a statement that failed to explain how moving to Florida to lobby for a health insurance company in any way honors the people he was supposed to represent in Pennsylvania.

Join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign.

One of the ways that special interests get privileged access to lawmakers is buying them meals. In many state capitols, there are almost no restrictions on the kinds of fancy dinners lobbyists can treat legislators with.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) has advice for these lawmakers: don’t do it. In an interview this week with a local paper, he told legislators, “Make your own food” and stop going to lunch with lobbyists:

SCHWEITZER: Donai??i??t show up when they (lobbyists) have a free lunch for you. Donai??i??t show up down at Jorgensonai??i??s. Donai??i??t show up down at the Montana Club. Donai??i??t show up. Make your own food at home. Donai??i??t take that drink. Donai??i??t take that food. If you believe that aspersions have been cast upon you because youai??i??re going to these things, then donai??i??t go to them. Make your own meal. But until you do that, the assumption is going to be that your vote has been bought for an old whiskey and a big steak. And in some cases, it has.ai???

It’s going to take a movement to end the corrupting influence of money on our politics. Click here to join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign.

The corporate lobbyists who want to pass the Simpson Bowles plan to lower the corporate tax rate and cut Social Security and Medicare benefits have far too many allies in Washington. But they also have found a powerful ally on TV: the network CNBC.

The station has given repeated positive coverage to the plan, and frequently features corporate CEOs to praise its features. Here’s one measure of just how skewed CNBC’s priorities have become.

I ran a media search on the term “poverty” during all of CNBC’s coverage during the past month. The term was mentioned 31 times, often in the context of international poverty (for example, talking about Mexico’s drug war). I then searched for “Simpson Bowles.” It was mentioned a whopping 116 times — almost 3 times as often.

CNBC is even more tilted than the traditionally right-wing Fox News. On Fox, Simpson Bowles was mentioned 59 times, and poverty was mentioned 100 times over the same period.

Out of all major cable news networks, MSNBC did the best in balancing out mentions of Simpson Bowles (70) with mentions of poverty (124). CNN had 72 mentions of the former and 111 of the latter.

Recall that CNBC stands for “Consumer News and Business Channel.” With its embrace of Simpson Bowles and its downplaying of the concerns of ordinary consumers — like poverty — it is failing to live up to its title, and is slowly simply becoming a channel of Big Business.

The poll gave strong indication that Granite Staters oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid benefits and support higher taxes for the rich. If Shaheen supported cuts to Medicare of Medicaid, 46 percent said they would be less likely to vote for her, while 35 percent said it would not make a difference, 13 percent said they would be more likely to vote for her and 7 percent were not sure, according to the poll. If Shaheen “led the national fight to raise taxes on the rich,” 48 percent said they would be more likely to vote for her, while 31 percent said they would be less likely to vote for her, 19 percent said it would not make a difference and 1 percent said they were not sure.

Generations of racial injustice in the United States have resulted in the life expectancy of African Americans being far below that of whites.

Americans pay into Medicare and Social Security their entire working lives. They expect these programs to there for them when they retire.

But corporate lobbyists and their allies in Washington want to cut benefits for both of these programs. One way they advocate of doing this is raising the retirement age to 70.

Their argument is that Americans are living longer, and therefore it makes sense to raise the retirement age. However most gains in life expectancy have gone to white-collar workers, and blue-collar workers are barely living longer at all. Here’s a chart of life expectancy from the Center for Economic Policy and Research that demonstrates this fact:

When you break down the situation by race, it gets even worse. While some politicians clamor for the retirement age to be raised to 70, the life expectancy of black males is only 70.8, according to the latest data from the U.S. National Vital Statistics System. That’s nearly six years behind non-Hispanic white men, whose life expectancy is 76.2.

Thus, raising the retirement age wouldn’t just disproportionately hurt blue collar workers, it would disproportionately harm African American men. We should not be considering policies that would have such a harmful impact.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Earlier this month, leading Democratic congressman Chris Van Hollen (MD) indicated that he was “open to all ideas” on Medicare and Social Security cuts. Discussing a hike in the Medicare retirement age, he told a group of corporate CEOs, “I think it should be part of the conversation.”

On November 14th, one day after Van Hollen made his original remarks, Progressive Change Campaign Committee members sprung into action, flooding his office with constituent phone calls and asking him to take benefit cuts off the table.

Today on Fox, Van Hollen made his first definitive statement that raising the Medicare age was off the table for him:

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Look at Medicare, what you’reAi??doing by moving it from 65 to 67Ai??is again not reducing costs in Medicare, it’s not reallyAi??reforming the Medicare systemAi??you’re just transferring thoseAi??costs and risks onto people whoAi??may be 66 years old.

ANCHOR: You are reforming the Medicare system because it’sAi??going to go bust in severalAi??years, so if you prolong theAi??program and make the age later,Ai??people are living longer, soAi??isn’t that age sort of outmodedAi??and isn’t that a good thing toAi??address long term?

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: There are a lot better waysAi??of doing it.

ANCHOR: That’s a no I’mAi??hearing. You’re not willing to change theAi??age.

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN:Ai?? No, because there are muchAi??better ways of dealing with Medicare costs. Let’s look at ways we can reduceAi??the cost of withoutAi??transferring rising healthcareAi??costs.

Watch it:

Our polling showsAi??that, by huge margins, voters oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.

We applaud Congressman Van Hollen for listening to his constituents and taking this much-discussed Medicare benefit cut off the table. Today, PCCC members in his district will be calling to thank Van Hollen for his bold statement — and we’ll urge him to firmly …

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC)

Earlier this year, journalist Lee Fang and I talked to Rep. Health Shuler (D-NC), a leading pro-corporate, Blue Dog Democrat, about his plans following his retirement from Congress this year.

We explicitly asked him if he would consider becoming a lobbyist or some other kind of influence peddler. He told us no. Then he insulted us by telling us he’d get a better job than we had:

FANG: [There are press reports that] you’re already negotiating for a lobby job…

SHULER: (laughs) No. I’m going home with my wife.

FANG: You’re not negotiating with the Majority Group or any of these other lobbying firms on K Street?

SHULER: No, you read it wrong buddy. […]
FANG: Are you planning on becoming a lobbyist?

SHULER: No! […]

JILANI: What do you plan to do after you retire?

SHULER: Have a better job than you have, that’s for sure.

Watch the video:

Today, North Carolina’s Duke Energy announced that it would be bringing Shuler on as its “senior vice president of federal affairs,” essentially one of its top officials that lobbies the federal government.

Note that it would be illegal for Shuler to actually register as a lobbyist, because federal law requires a cooling down period before members of the House can become registered lobbyists. But he will still be able to influence peddle without registration, much like Newt Gingrich and others have done.

As a leader in the conservative Blue Dog Democrats, Shuler has been positioning himself for months to push for a debt deal that includes cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits and a lowering of the corporate tax rate that big corporations are seeking. Recall that Duke Energy paid a negative 3.8 percent tax rate between 2008 and 2010 — with Shuler already accepting this new position …

A new Democratic poll set to be released later Tuesday shows one way that lawmakers can start sketching out a so-called “balanced approach” to averting the fiscal cliff that could gain the support of voters. Proposals to reduce spending on the military, cut some agriculture subsidies, and eliminate subsidies to oil companies would all win public backing by large margins, according to the poll conducted for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, obtained by POLITICO. More specifically, the poll found that 53 percent of voters would support defense cuts, 79 percent would back cutting subsidies to agriculture corporations and 80 percent would favor getting rid of the oil subsidies. It surveyed voters in New Hampshire, a key swing state. Those policy measures polled by the PCCC came in part from Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator-elect from Massachusetts. During her campaign, Warren called for a “balanced approach” that would include trimming agriculture subsidies and cutting the budget to the Pentagon, as well higher taxes on the wealthy.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

A Roll Call article published late last week titled “Tales Of Hoyer’s ‘Liberal Problem’ Are Exaggerated” sought to downplay the conservative views of Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who serves as the House Minority Whip and would likely become the leader of House Democrats if Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA) ever stepped down from her role as Minority Leader.

To do this, it cites applause from many of his more progressive House Democratic colleagues, and also references Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress (CAP). “On every major battle, Hoyer has been in the trenches with progressives,” said Tanden.

CAP makes some good contributions to the progressive community — especially their blog, ThinkProgress. (Disclosure: I once worked there.) But on this matter, it is incorrect.

On many critical issues, Hoyer has simply not stood with progressives. Here are a few examples:

Abandoning The Public Option: While Hoyer did voice support for the public option during the health care reform debate, he was saying in August of 2009 — not too long after a New York Times poll was released that showed 72 percent of the country supported a public plan — that it may have to be jettisoned. Keep in mind that progressives in Congress and their allies around the country were rallying for the public option as late as February 2010 — but Hoyer and his pro-corporate allies took the wind out of their sails.
Helping Hide Money In Politics: When President Obama proposed a plan by which he could unilaterallyAi?? require federal contractors to disclose their political contributions, Hoyer — whose district is packed with many of these contractors — attacked the plan, saying that “there are some serious questions as to what implications there are …

Grover Norquist’s influence is decreasing in the Republican Party, but even worse ideas are on the rise.

The media has been abuzz with a spree of high-level Republicans rebuking Washington lobbyist Grover Norquist’s tax pledge in recent days. What has not been explained is why they are breaking with this pledge.

As we explained earlier, the goal of these Republicans is to secure a deal with Democrats that lowers corporate tax rates while cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits.

In exchange, they are basically offering Mitt Romney’s tax plan of closing some minor deductions and loopholes (some of which are widely used by the middle class).Ai?? Here is how The Maddow Blog’s Steve Benen explains Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) latest offer:

In other words, Graham — being singled out for praise today for being so “reasonable” — would demand that Bush-era tax rates be left in place for everyone, including the very wealthy, but he’d consider a cap on deductions. As a practical matter, his “concession” is being open to adopting Romney’s revenue proposal.

Needless to say, Americans rejected Romney’s tax plan when they rejected Romney. Additionally, we just commissioned a poll in New Hampshire that found that “clear majority” of people in the state “oppose making significant changes to benefits given to seniors who receive Social Security or Medicare. Sixty-six percent supported raising taxes for those earning more than $250,000 a year, with 29 percent opposed to it.”

Whether Norquist likes the plan or not, it is certainly not worth trading for significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits.

Seniors on Medicare and Social Security did not cause the Great Recession, Wall Street did. And they should not be asked to pay for the resulting debt.

We should look instead to Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren …

Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln is a hit at the box office, and it is widely anticipated to be a strong contender at this year’s Oscars.

The film focuses mostly on Lincoln’s most famous feat: re-uniting a nation that had been through a civil war and ending the abomination of slavery.

But as moviegoers enjoy this Lincoln biopic, they should remember one other important detail about Lincoln’s career: his struggle to stop big corporations from taking over the American economy and the resulting skyrocketing of economic inequality.
Here’s an except from a letter Lincoln wrote to Col. William F. Elkins November 1st, 1864. In it, Lincoln warns of the dangers of allowing all of the nation’s wealth to be “aggregated in a few hands”:

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

Indeed, in his December 3rd, 1861 address to Congress, Lincoln warned of how the growing business class must respect its workers:

Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of the community exists within that relation.

The former president also was distrustful of the rise of modern capitalism that would subvert …

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made headlines yesterday when he publicly rebuked lobbyist Grover Norquist, saying that he was willing to violate his pledge against increasing any taxes. (Graham actually broke with Norquist’s pledge back in June.)

What the news coverage of Graham’s remarks missed was why this staunchly right-wing senator was breaking Norquists pledge.

For months, Graham has been working with a group of senators who want to implement the Bowles-Simpson plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits and lower corporate tax rates. This plan does end some tax deductions and loopholes, which is why Norquist opposes it, and, by extension, Graham.

Like Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) before him, Graham thinks it’s more important to gut our social insurance programs than it is to uphold Norquists’s pledge. That is not cause for celebration among progressives.

In fact, Graham is asking for cuts in Medicare benefits that are even more severe than what Bowles-Simpson proposed. Here’s what he said on ABC’s This Week:

GRAHAM: It goes to 66, 67 here pretty soon for Social Security. Let it float up another year or so over the next 30 years, adjust Medicare from 65 to 67 over the next 30 years, means test benefits for people in our income level. I donai??i??t expect Democrats to go for premium support or a voucher plan, but I do expect them to adjust these entitlement programs before they bankrupt the country and run out of money themselves.

Watch it:

Graham explicitly said on the show that he is only willing to violate the Norquist pledge if Democrats agree to “entitlement reform” — code for cutting benefits. “I think Grover is wrong,” he said. “When you are $16 trillion in debt the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming …

A left-leaning poll of New Hampshire voters offers some advice to the next person in New Hampshire’s political cross hairs: Jeanne Shaheen. Shaheen, a Democrat, has to defend her U.S. Senate seat in 2014. Trying to unseat her will no doubt be the top priority of New Hampshire Republican leaders as they try to recover from disappointment at the polls earlier this month. The Progressive Campaign Change Committee surveyed Granite Staters on issues that sprang from the 2012 campaign… The findings confirm the group’s belief that a majority of New Hampshire voters clearly want Shaheen to continue to support ending the Bush tax cuts for wealthy individuals and small-business owners on Jan. 1. A clear majority also said they would oppose making significant changes to benefits given to seniors who receive Social Security or Medicare. Sixty-six percent supported raising taxes for those earning more than $250,000 a year, with 29 percent opposed to it. Only 13 percent wanted to cut spending on Social Security, and 17 percent had the stomach for reducing Medicare obligations.

This past week, hundreds of Wal-Mart employees and thousands of their supporters took part in historic walk-outs and demonstrations to protest the chain’s low wages and intimidation of its workers. As we told you earlier, congressman-elect Alan Grayson joined a striking employee at a Florida Wal-Mart.

Over at Democratic Underground, Grayson has written about his experience at the Florida Wal-Mart. “WalMart accounts for more than ten percent of all of the retail sales in the United States. It is the largest private employer in the world, with more than two million employees. And even though those employees comprise barely ten percent of its cost of doing business, WalMart exploits them mercilessly,” writes Grayson. “Now WalMart employees are starting to organize, starting to fight back.”

We appreciate Grayson’s support and encourage other Members of Congress to continue to speak out against Wal-Mart’s practices.

We’ve posted Grayson’s letter in its entirety below:

My Thanksgiving ai??i?? A Turkey Sandwich at WalMart

I did not spend Thanksgiving evening with my wife and my five children. I spent it, instead, handing out turkey sandwiches to workers in WalMart. And showing my support for one brave soul who walked off the job in protest against exploitation.WalMart ai???associatesai??? make an average of just more than $10 an hour. That means that if they manage to get a full 40 hours a week ai??i?? and many donai??i??t ai??i?? they get paid $1,700 a month, before taxes. Somehow, that is supposed to pay for their food, shelter, clothing and medical care, and that of their children. Quite a trick.

In state after state, the largest group of Medicaid recipients is WalMart employees. Iai??i??m sure that the same thing is true of food stamp recipients. Each WalMart ai???associateai??? costs the taxpayers an average of more than $1,000 in …

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)

There has been much fanfare about Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss’s (GA) break from Washington Lobbyist Grover Norquist. On a local television station, Chambliss spoke of breaking with Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes under any situation, saying, “I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.”

Many progressives have been celebrating Chambliss’s rebuke of Norquist. While Norquist is indeed a powerful lobbyist who should not have so much influence over the Republican Party, progressives should not be fooled by Chambliss’s rhetoric. The senator is not breaking from Norquist because he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy or big corporations. Rather, he’s doing it because it will make it easier to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Here’s why. For more than a year, Chambliss has been involved with a group of senators who support the Bowles-Simpson plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while lowering the corporate tax rate. This Bowles-Simpson plan closes a few token tax loopholes, and also reduces the popular mortgage interest deduction. Norquist is opposed to closing even the tiny loopholes that the Bowles-Simpson plan closes, so he staunchly opposes the plan altogether — which also means opposing Chambliss.

Chambliss is willing to deal with closing small loopholes in the tax code in order to get to the wider goals of the Bowles-Simpson plan: cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age, cutting Medicare benefits by capping overall spending, and dramatically lowering corporate tax rates.

The Senator is likely trying to curry favor with Democrats in order to pass such a plan. Publicly denouncing Norquist is one way to do that. Some in the press have suggested that his feud with Norquist …

The great Wal-Mart strikes of Black Friday 2012 have begun. Workers across the nation are walking out, and thousands of Americans are expected in demonstrate in solidarity today and tomorrow.

In Orlando, Congressman-elect Alan Grayson joined the strikers. Here’s a photo of him walking Lisa Lopez off the job tonight (thanks to United for Respect at Walmart for the photo):

The bulk of walk-outs and demonstrations are expected to occur tomorrow. Click here to find one near you.

Decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, it appears that conservatives are ready to embrace Communism.

What else could explain the spree of leading conservatives — reacting to historic strikes by fed up workers — pledging to shop at Wal-Mart?

The company gets a large share of the goods it sells to consumers from the Chinese. In fact, one estimate finds that Wal-Mart alone is responsible for 11 percent of the U.S. trade deficit with China.

Here’s some of the leading conservatives who are making this de facto pledge to support Communist China:

Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who is ironically serving as the “national chairman for the Save American Jobs Project on the American Solutions team”:

Dan Gainor, theAi??VP of Business and Culture for the Media Research Center and a frequent Fox News.com contributor. (We’re not sure why believing in God is supposed to make progressives angry.):

A Tea Party group in San Diego is urging its members to perform a “buycott” of Wal-Mart and to support the store because unions are “trying to take over” the chain. Posters at the far-right discussion board Free Republic are also pledging solidarity. One writes, “As much as I dislike shopping on any day, if these thugs strike my local walmart I will be forced to shop there on Black Friday in solidarity with freedom loving people.”

One has to wonder how supporting a corporation that gets much of its goods from a country where people are oppressed by a totalitarian government is in any way supporting freedom.

The …

On Black Friday, there are expected to be up to a thousand strikes and protests at Wal-Mart stores — a result of poor wages and benefits and union-busting at the company.

On the Today Show this morning, Wal-Mart Chief Merchandising and Marking Officer Duncan Mac Naughton appeared to discuss the strike. At one point, host Savannah Guthrie asked him if he could guarantee that there would be no retaliation against workers who protested. He dodged the question, and when she followed up, he said they would deal with each case individually:

GUTHRIE: If someone does picket who’s an employee of your store, will they face retaliation, will they be fired, will they see their hours cut down.

DUNCAN MAC NAUGHTON: Savannah, we have a really open culture, it’s all about listening to our associates. It’s based in integrity, with respect to the individual. Our operators and our store managers always want to listen to the concerns of our associates, and we do that all the time, we’ll treat each case —

GUTHRIE: So there’s no ramification if somebody protests?

DUNCAN MAC NAUGHTON: We’ll treat each case individually, Savannah.

Watch it:

Wal-Mart has already been caught telling workers in private meetings that there may be ramifications if any of them go on strike or attend protests.

Click here to find an upcoming Wal-Mart strike or protest near you.

Yesterday, right-wing House Republican Allen West finally conceded in his race against Democrat Patrick Murphy. West had made himself notorious for his anti-Muslim attitude. He argued that Islam is “not a faith” but a “totalitarian theocratic political ideology,” and that terrorism is inherent to Islam. He even said that Muslim congressman Keith Ellison (D) of “represent(ing) the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”

But in an America that grows increasingly progressive and tolerant, bigotry can be a major electoral liability. Murphy’s margin of victory is roughly 1,900 votes. I talked to Imran Siddiqui, who is a Board Member for the organization Empowering Motivating Educating Resourceful Grassroots Entities, which registers Muslim voters in the area. He mentioned that his organization had 2,500 Muslim voters in their database in the district and that they witnessed 80 percent turnout. That means roughly 2,000 Muslim-American votes — a little bit higher than Murphy’s margin of victory.

West’s loss should be a lesson to all those in Congress who would try to use bigotry to their political advantage. Sometimes the targets of your ire get out and vote, and when they do, you lose.

Join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign.

The Republican Party has completely embraced money in politics. Its leaders refuse to even support campaign finance disclosure laws that they once supported.

In an interview with radio network WUIS, incoming Illinois Republican Congressman-elect Rodney Davis indicated that he would be in favor of disclosure of donors to outside electoral groups and even support spending limits:

Rodney Davis is the only Republican among the six men and women who will soon be Illinoisai??i?? newest Congressmen. He also won with the narrowest margin of victory. Even so, Davis says he has something in common with his fellow legislative freshmen.

DAVIS: ai???We all had to withstand a barrage of false and misleading ads.ai???

Thatai??i??s in part because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling (PDF) that allowed unlimited amounts of money, often from secret sources, to flood the airwaves with attack ads. The case was called Citizens United.

DAVIS: ai???I think all us that have been impacted by Citizens United ai??i?? and impacted during this election cycle, by spending that we canai??i??t control ai??i?? weai??i??re all going to have a say in what happens in the future, and I think something needs to be done.ai???

Davis, who is from Taylorville, says he thinks the identity of donors should be public. And he says heai??i??d consider supporting limits on the amount of money outside groups can raise or spend. But thatai??i??s just the kind of law the Supreme Court overturned in the Citizens United case.

The question is, will Davis stick to his stated statements to reform the campaign finance system, or will he defer to House Speaker John Boehner, who totally opposes all reforms?

It’s time to reclaim our democracy from Big Money donors. Click here to join our …

A screenshot of the Fix the Debt campaign’s logo.

The so-called “Fix The Debt” campaign is trying to enact the Bowles-Simpson plan to cut Social Security benefits while lowering the corporate tax rate. Even though Social Security doesn’t add anything to the deficit, these austerity hawks say they support this plan in order to battle U.S. debt.

But if this group is just so passionately concerned with the debt, why did it hire public relations and lobbying firms that work for corporations who bilk U.S. taxpayers out of billions? Here’s a rundown of some of the firms the group has hired:

DCI Group: This D.C.-based lobbying shop has had clients that include Microsoft — which has dodged billions in taxes by shifting assets overseas — and Exxon Mobil, which benefits from $600 million in annual special tax breaks.
Glover Park Group: Glover Park offers its services to JP Morgan Chase, which received $94.7 billion as part of the federal government’s bank bailouts. Glover Park also works for the American Bankers Association, which represents bailed-out banks, and defense contractor giant Lockheed Martin. UnitedHealthCare — which fights for its unnecessary share of federal dollars spent on health care — Ai??is another Glover client.
Dewey Square Group: Dewey Square Group has worked for the bailed-out bank Bank of America and various biotech firms that net government contracts.
Burson-Marsteller (B-M):Ai??The force behind Fix The Debt’s “Got Debt” ad campaign, B-M does not publicly disclose its public relations clients, but various trade industry media has reported that its clients include the war profiteer Blackwater USA and numerous other corporations that get rich off of taxpayers.

Keep in mind that this is a small summary of some of the clients …

A series of unprecedented strikes and walk-outs by Wal-Mart workers is expected to culminate in up to a thousand labor actions this week during Black Friday sales.

Although the majority of strikes have yet to occur, these historic protests are already making an impact on the way the company responds to public pressure.

If you go to the corporation’s main public relations Twitter account, @WalmartNewsroom, you’ll find a flurry of tweets from yesterday defending the company against labor criticism:

Here’s what makes this even more interesting. I used the Twitter search services Snap Bird and Socialsearching.info to search for the word “union” among the Wal-Mart account’s 1,361 tweets. The word only appeared once — yesterday, in the series of tweets seen above. Walk-outs by brave Wal-Mart workers have for the first time forced the company to publicly acknowledge unions on Twitter.

This is a small victory, but likely a sign of victories to come. Click here to find an upcoming Wal-Mart strike or protest near you. The more people who attend these events this week, the greater the chance we have of forcing Wal-Mart to treat its workers better.

You’d think that Goldman Sachs — the mega-bank that took $10 billion of taxpayer money — would show a little bit of humility in the wake of the financial crisis. You’d be wrong.

In an interview with CBS News, Lloyd Blankfein, the Goldman CEO who famously said he was doing “God’s work,” said that Social Security benefits must be cut by raising the retirement age and Medicare and Medicaid must be “contained” as well:

PELLEY: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?

BLANKFEIN: You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. … So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised. But in general, entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.

PELLEY: Because we can’t afford them going forward?

BLANKFEIN: Because we can’t afford them.

Let’s get something clear. Blankfein made these comments in the context of what should happen in budget negotiations related to the debt. Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit. And it’s fully solvent until 2033 — it would be fully solvent well into the 22nd century if we simply lifted the payroll tax cap.

Watch it:

Instead of letting banking tycoons guide our public policy,we should look instead to Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren (who Goldman Sachs spent big to try to defeat in the recent election).

Warren has an alternative, truly balanced approach to tackling the deficit. During a campaign debate last month, she laid out a popular, credible vision for dealing with the deficit: cut back on wasteful military and agriculture subsidy spending, and make …