Portside

Of the 43% of households owing no federal income tax this year, about half simply earned too little income to qualify, including many retired workers who live on Social Security. The remaining households likely qualify for breaks via the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

Activists remain heavily mobilized against Social Security cuts. Progressive groups collected over two million signatures opposing them. Tens of thousands of people signed an anti-cut “birthday card” to Social Security last week on the 78th anniversary of its creation.

Chicago-area trading alone would pay the entire federal education bill.

There is no conceivable benchmark—in our past, or in comparison to our international peers—by which one could sustain the argument that we are taxed too much, or “taxed enough already.”

Gas prices are down nearly 35 cents from last year, yet this has had virtually no impact on this year’s first quarter profits of the big oil companies.