The G-8 Announcement: Great Expectations Betrayed
Africa Action also rejected as inadequate the $25 billion annual increase in aid to Africa by 2010. The complete failure to make progress on trade reforms and climate change, as well as the absence of a plan to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan, made this year’s G-8 Summit an ineffective response to Africa’s challenges.
Social Security: Bush Plan Cuts Survivors’ Benefits
President Bush’s Social Security privatization plan isn’t just aimed at retirees. Millions of beneficiaries of the program are the surviving family members of workers who are disabled or die before they reach retirement age. From the outset, Bush’s plans calls for deep cuts in survivors’ benefits in order to pay for his risky scheme.
Supreme Court Nomination: Democrats Can Succeed Without the Filibuster
Since the resignation announcement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, various reporters and pundits have concluded that whomever President Bush nominates will win confirmation. Last week, a reporter for The Washington Post told listeners of National Public Radio that since Republicans control the Senate, Mr. Bush’s nomination would be essentially guaranteed. However, if history is any indication, this is far from certain.
Risking Social Security on the Dubious Success of Chile’s Economic Strategy
Once again on the road early this month to attract popular support for his plan to privatize social security, President George W. Bush has proposed a model for pension reform based in part on the formula adopted in 1981 by the regime of Chilean military dictator General Augusto Pinochet.
Will the G8 debt write off help Africa?
On 12 June Gordon Brown announced that he had persuaded the G8 leaders to cancel £32 billion of debt for twenty seven of the world’s poorest nations. BUT what does it say in the small print?
G8 Summit: Free trade no panacea
IT IS vital, in the run-up to the G8 summit, that anti-poverty campaigners are able to tread a path between wide-eyed idealism and abject cynicism.
Energy Adviser Who Solicited Enron Input Named FERC Chair
The latest example of chutzpah from Bush and co. is the announcement that Joseph Kelliher, a former policy adviser with the Department of Energy who currently serves as a commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that controls the country's natural gas industry, hydroelectric projects, electric utilities, and oil pipelines and has played a critical role in the deregulation of those industries, will be named by the White House Thursday to chair FERC.
