Dave Johnson

Following is the talk I gave to the Take Back the American Dream conference panel that I moderated, Making It In America: Reviving and Strengthening U.S. Manufacturing. Also on the panel were Rep. John Garamendi, (D-CA); Yvette Pena Lopes, Director of Legislation and Intergovernmental Affairs at Blue Green Alliance...

Last week at Netroots Nation we talked about the problem of Apple (and all the others) manufacturing in China, costing our country jobs and dollars. Next week at the Take Back the American Dream Conference we will talk about what can be done to fix things.

Last week...

As much as conservatives want to pretend otherwise, you can't have strong, healthy, prospering businesses without a big, strong government. The kinds of businesses that don't want a big, strong government are exactly the kinds of businesses that We, the People don't want.

Government Provides The Soil For Businesses To...

Combine a too-optimistic administration with a Republican Party that is sabotaging the economy as a campaign strategy and what do you get? You get today's terrible jobs report. First, though, remember that the economy lost 818,000 jobs in the last month of the Bush presidency. The stimulus at...

Democracy properly applied brings widespread prosperity because when people have a say what they say is give everyone good wages, benefits and a share of the pie. They say reinvest some of the profits in infrastructure and education to keep the good times rolling. Last but not least, they demand...

At today's Amazon shareholder meeting in Seattle the company announced that it is dropping support for ALEC, while fudging questions about its taxes and voting down proposals to report its efforts to address climate change and to disclose its political spending.

The Meeting

Amazon's annual...

Which is better for an economy: millions of future jobs and trillions of future dollars, or a few people making a quick buck today by selling out their country? For decades America's 1 percent-backed conservatives have chosen the latter course, and we can see the results all around us. Now...

There is a news report that yet another right-wing billionaire is going to spend even more millions to run even more poisonous, divisive, racist, degrading, insulting, lying, character-assassination ads designed to turn people against government and democracy. And an added bonus (for Republicans) will be turning people away from even...

Deficit theater is coming to D.C. tomorrow, with a well-funded "fiscal summit." The plot summary is that we have Deficit Trouble -- Right Here In River City! so to fix it we need to cut Social Security and Medicare and the things democracy does for We, the People...

Is this guy a Presidential candidate from a major party, or a fringe nut? He sounds like Rush Limbaugh. HuffPost: "Mitt Romney: Obama 'Takes Marching Orders From Union Bosses",

Speaking to a crowd at a campaign stop in Lansing, Mich.,...

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of corporate greed than Verizon, a company making billions and tripling its CEO's pay while demanding givebacks from its workers. Today the 99% Spring movement let Verizon know that 99% of us are trying to bring big corporations back...

President Obama spoke Monday at the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department Legislative Conference in Washington, asking Republicans to stop blocking infrastructure and transportation projects. (See transcript here.) These projects would immediately create jobs, which would immediately start reducing the country's deficit -- which is probably why Republicans are...

In today's Progressive Breakfast: Republicans say student-loan interest rates are high because of "Obamacare." House Republicans are trying to block the Violence Against Women act, using a ruse. They oppose the Dream Act and offer a false compromise to make it look like they support the concept. And that's...

I'm in Michigan to cover the GE shareholder meeting tomorrow. I grew up in Michigan and have to say that Mitt Romney was exactly right that the trees here really are the right size. The look of the houses, the layout of the roads, the birds, everything feels...

President Obama and many Democrats spent much of 2011 talking about deficits instead of doing something about jobs. Now, a too-close election is on the horizon (too-close because of spending 2011 talking about deficits instead of doing something about jobs) and we're being forced back to talking about deficits instead...

Some companies are learning that supporting hyper-partisan groups can backfire when their customers find out about it. In recent weeks a number of companies are trying to distance themselves from the partisan, right-wing group ALEC before their brands become as damaged as Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

ALEC, The...

President Obama has been pushing policies to boost American manufacturing. Democrats in Congress are pushing a package of bills under the label "Make It In America." The Obama administration's Gene Sperling gave a big speech recently describing the vital importance of a healthy manufacturing sector to our economy....

This week there was another big attack on Social Security by another elite. This time the attack comes from an elite columnist; other times it comes from Wall Street types, wealthy CEOs or the kind of politicians that have been in D.C. way too long. These attacks never come from...

River City faces a terrible deficit, and if we don't cut spending on the things We, the People do for each other right now, there will be trouble. We gotta do some austerity! We gotta eat that seed corn. We gotta stop taxing the 1% and stop paying for things...

The "independent" audit of working conditions at Apple's Chinese manufacturing supply chain is out, and it is not good. Workers are being exploited in ways that violate human rights standards and laws, and letting them get away with this is costing us our own jobs. Apple's suppliers promise...