After years of secret negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is complete and now awaits months of intense scrutiny before being voted on by Congress.  Negotiators of the controversial “free trade” agreement between the United States, Japan, and 10 other pacific rim nations reached a final agreement in Atlanta on Monday.  Given…

  On Wednesday, the Portage School Board unanimously voted to approve a responsible bidding policy for work on school construction projects.  The move follows Portage Mayor James Snyder’s proposal of a similar ordinance citywide, which was passed by council.  The ordinances are considered necessary following the state legislature’s…

  The Teamsters have joined a coalition of 84 investor, public interest, and civil rights groups in an attempt to persuade UPS to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  The so-called think tank has become widely known as a corporate bill mill that pushes a specific agenda throughout the country’s state…

  A shocking new number from the Economic Policy Institute helps explain the stifling income inequality in the United States.  Between 1978 and 2014, inflation-adjusted CEO pay has risen from $1.5 million to $16.3 million, an unfathomable of 997 percent.  Over that same time period, the average private-sector production and non-supervisory…

  When the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) recently met at a resort hotel in Savannah, Geogia, investigative reporters from NBC 11Alive decided to find out what was really going on. They reserved hotel rooms at the resort and attempted to speak to lobbyists and legislators. The resulting news report is almost Daily Show-esque in…

  Boeing’s most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing has revealed that CEO Jim McNerney will be paid $3.9 million a year in pension benefits for each of the next 15 years.  This revelation follows the announcement that he will retire on July 1st but will remain as chairman until February of 2016. The news [&hellip…;

  Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has blamed almost all of the state’s economic woes on unions and pensions, but a look at the numbers shows the real problem may be the small group of workers he is trying to protect.  Creating “Right-to-Work” zones and making drastic changes to the state pension system are cornerstones of [&hellip…;

  Goldman Sachs has told its 2,900 interns to take it easy this summer by limiting themselves to a 17-hour day. Yes, folks, you read that right. Working twice as many hours as a normal person is Goldman Sachs’ idea of not overdoing it.  The announcement of the policy “shift” comes two weeks after The [&hellip…;

A bill proposed by Maine State Sen. Chris Johnson would ensure that companies receiving tax breaks create decent paying jobs and are held accountable for their actions.  Maine LD 1287 was written following the Great Northern Paper Mill debacle, wherein the company received $16 million in tax credits and then closed its doors without repercussion….

  A new report shows that two-thirds of the $68 billion in business grants and special tax credits awarded by the federal government over the past 15 years have gone to large corporations.  In that same 15-year period, hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, loan guarantees, and bailout assistance have been given to the [&hellip…;

  An alarming stat has been released by Capital Economics, citing its own Audit Analytics database and other sources: U.S. companies are now stashing more than $2 trillion overseas.  Looking at the latest Federal Reserve flow of funds tally, corporations currently hold $1.9 trillion on U.S. shores, meaning there is potentially more money…

  Just in case you need a reminder of how lopsided the economy has become, a new paper from economists at the London School of Economics and the University of California at Berkeley shows the bottom ninety percent of American families are no wealthier than they were in 1986.  While the top 10 percent and, [&hellip…;