Last Friday, three Democrats joined forces with Republicans in the Washington Senate to force through a version of the state budget that cuts education and services for the state’s most vulnerable residents. Much has already been said about passage of a major bill without one word of public testimony. It may now take a special…

‘Reform” is usually considered a good thing — but some education advocates talk as if a handful of charter schools and firing teachers based on their students’ test scores are the magic bullets that will “fix” our schools. Their efforts may be well-intentioned, but they don’t actually address the real problems. First, it’s important to…

There’s no other way to say it: Health coverage for new employees is dismal in Washington. Barely half of Washington employers actually offer health coverage to full-time employees. Then there is the traditional waiting period until you qualify, the employee share of the health costs … and it’s probably best to not even calculate the…

We’ve had a lot of talk about the privilege of the top 1 percent, and how they are grabbing more and more of our national income. Once, productivity increases were proportionally shared between corporations and workers. Now they’re mostly grabbed by companies and their top executives, while workers are left with decreased retirement savings, increased…

Years ago there was a comic strip named “Pogo.” One of the most insightful strips was a distilled discussion of human foibles, in which Pogo announced, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” When it comes to the national debate over the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent, we may not like the…

If there’s a single lesson to be drawn from the events of 2011, it’s this: Democracy is based on acting and doing, not sitting and watching. The actions of a sole protestor in Algeria, magnified by thousands of others, toppled dictators in Algeria, Egypt and Libya. People did not just watch — they marched, they…

So who are the job creators? The accepted wisdom is that the wealthy, banks and the biggest corporations are job creators. But in fact, too many are job-taker-away-ers. They suck money, our money, out of the economy and hoard it or spend it outside the country. That slows down economic activity right here in our…

Occupy Wall Street has turned the national conversation to corporate privilege vs. the 99 percent. The mainstream media has “discovered” the yawning chasm in income, privilege and well-being between Main Street and Wall Street. No surprise — it is the same thing that we have all understood in the back of our brains for the…

I rode to work in the dark this morning, and I will probably ride home in the dark this evening. It’s that time of year, the sun rising later and setting earlier, Halloween right around the corner, and winter and darkness impending. The nation’s mood is equally darkening, and things are not much better here…

It used to be that working hard and playing by the rules earned most people economic security and the ability to retire with dignity. But jobs are being outsourced, the jobs that remain offer lower wages and fewer benefits, and the retirement savings of most Americans has been decimated by the stock market — if…