Robert L. Borosage is the president of the Institute for America’s Future and co-director of its sister organization, the Campaign for America’s Future. The organizations were launched by 100 prominent Americans to challenge the rightward drift in US politics, and to develop the policies, message and issue campaigns to help forge an enduring majority for progressive change in America. Most recently, Borosage spearheaded the Campaign’s 2002 issues book, StraightTalk 2002, providing activists and candidates with distilled messages on kitchen table concerns, from jobs to affordable health care. Borosage also helped to found and chairs the Progressive Majority Political Action Committee, developing a national base of small donors and skilled activists. Progressive Majority recruits, staffs, and funds progressive candidates for political office.


Mr. Borosage writes widely on political, economic and national security issues for a range of publications including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is a contributing editor at The Nation magazine, and a regular contributor to The American Prospect magazine. He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including Fox Morning News, RadioNation, National Public Radio, C-SPAN and Pacifica Radio. He teaches on presidential power and national security as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington School of Law.


A graduate of Yale Law School, with a graduate degree in International Affairs from George Washington University, Borosage left the practice of law to found the Center for National Security Studies in 1974. The Center focused on the tension between civil rights and the national security powers and prerogatives of the executive branch. It played a leading role in the efforts to investigate the intelligence agencies in the 1970s, curb their abuses, and hold them accountable in the future. At the center, he helped to write and edit two books, "The CIA File" and "The Lawless State."


In 1979, Borosage became director of the Institute for Policy Studies, a research institute that drew its inspiration and fellowship from the major democratic movements of our time – anti-war, women’s, environmental and civil rights movements. He guided the Institute through the Reagan years, and spearheaded its challenge to the renewed Cold War, the revived nuclear arms race, and the assault on Central America. Borosage helped to found and guide Countdown 88, which succeeded in winning the congressional ban on covert action against Nicaragua. Under Borosage’s direction, the Institute expanded its fellowship, launched a successful publications program, and developed a new Washington School for congressional aides and public interest advocates.


In 1988, Borosage left the Institute to serve as senior issues advisor to the presidential campaign of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He traveled the country with Jackson, writing speeches, framing policy responses, and providing debate preparation and assistance. He went on to advise a range of progressive political campaigns, including those of Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, Barbara Boxer and Paul Wellstone.


In 1989, Borosage founded the Campaign for New Priorities, enlisting over 100 national organizations in the call to reinvest in America in the post-Cold War era. The Campaign sponsored analyses of the military budget and of America’s unmet needs, and provided member organizations with crisp materials for publications, speeches, opinion pieces, and ads. It contributed to accelerating the cuts in military spending during the Bush presidency.

Blog Entries by Robert L. Borosage

In The Fed We Trust? Will The Senate Reward The Architect Of The Wall Street Bailout?

24 Comments | Posted November 25, 2009 | 08:31 AM (EST)


Will the Senate vote another term for Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve? Should it?

Two months ago, Bernanke looked like a lock. But now unemployment is over 10% and rising, while Wall Street bankers are stocking up on vintage champagne, ready to celebrate the highest bonuses...

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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs -- Finally

212 Comments | Posted November 17, 2009 | 06:57 PM (EST)


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gets it. No wonder she drives the wingnuts batty. With the Senate befuddled by the antics of Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus on health care and the White House Clintonistas lobbying the President to devote his January State of the Union address to deficit reduction, Pelosi...

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Tripping in China: Barack Obama's Challenge

36 Comments | Posted November 11, 2009 | 10:28 AM (EST)


This week, Barack Obama trips to China -- as part of an 8 day trip to Asia. The White House paints a full agenda -- Afghanistan, human rights, North Korean nukes, climate change, trade relations, and the economy. But it's really just the economy, stupid.

For decades during the...

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Obama's First Year: It Ain't No Crystal Staircase

358 Comments | Posted November 4, 2009 | 05:30 PM (EST)


Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,

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The New Red Ink Scare

337 Comments | Posted October 27, 2009 | 11:35 PM (EST)


We've got a new red scare. Forget Glenn Beck, the fear isn't that America is going red, it's that it is in the red. Conservatives in both parties are raising alarms about deficits and government spending. Well, get over it. If we are going to generate growth and shared prosperity...

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Where Will the Jobs Come From?

504 Comments | Posted October 20, 2009 | 10:52 PM (EST)


They are popping the bubbly on Wall Street. Million dollar bonuses; the Dow at 10,000; the casino is open again. Forget President Obama who says we can't go back to an economy where finance pockets 40% of the profits. We're already headed there.

The current account deficit is down as...

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Will We Curb Wall Street's Casino?

94 Comments | Posted October 14, 2009 | 11:00 AM (EST)


Even as the health insurance companies draw down on health care reform, another showdown is just beginning in Washington. On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will begin marking up the first legislation to try to curb Wall Street's casino. And if you think the health insurance companies are packing...

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Glenn Beck Isn't Blocking Health Care Reform

291 Comments | Posted October 7, 2009 | 11:25 AM (EST)


Glenn Beck has captured national attention with his caustic poison. The aging right-wing troubadours -- Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly -- still rouse the wingnuts and enforce discipline among Republican legislators. They've peddled the fantasies about ACORN and the all-powerful poverty lobby, and launched a search-and-destroy hunt for targets of...

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Obama and China: Vandalism or Vision

155 Comments | Posted September 29, 2009 | 04:39 PM (EST)


"Vandalism" screams the cover of the Economist, depicting Obama leaving an ice pick in the tire of free trade. (No racial overtones there; after all, as the president explained, he was black before he was elected.) When the president imposed tariffs on Chinese tire imports, following the ruling of...

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The Great Recession: It Ain't Over Til It's Over

79 Comments | Posted September 23, 2009 | 09:49 AM (EST)


The world economy is growing; stock markets are up; talk of recovery, not world depression, fills the business pages. As the leaders of the 20 leading economies gather in Pittsburgh this week, they might well feel the euphoria of someone who has survived a near death experience. (For an insightful...

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The Mugging of the Common Good

194 Comments | Posted September 15, 2009 | 10:49 AM (EST)


Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, ....The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand
-- William Butler Yeats


President Obama traveled to Wall Street on the anniversary of the collapse...

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The President's Speech

577 Comments | Posted September 9, 2009 | 10:15 PM (EST)


The President gives a great speech. He offers reason against hysteria. He summons us to our better angels. He challenges politicians and Americans to do "great things," because that is "who we are." He claims the center by defining himself against left and right, even as he acknowledges merit in...

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Building A New Economy: What Obama's Next Big Speech Should Be

175 Comments | Posted September 9, 2009 | 09:44 AM (EST)


At a delightful dinner party the other night, our host, a cosmopolitan man with interests ranging from water in California to Sufism in India, punctuated a brief complaint about the economy by noting, "and of course, I'm a nut on trade" (meaning an ardent advocate of our corporate "free trade"...

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Obama's September Choice: Charge or Trim?

225 Comments | Posted September 2, 2009 | 10:46 AM (EST)


As Congress returns from its summer recess, President Obama, slipping in the polls, assailed on all sides by the carpers, faces a strategic choice: Lead the charge, rally Democrats, and push forward on his agenda, starting with health care reform or trim his sails and adopt a more cautious course.

...
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Wall Street Rules: The Bernanke Reappointment

31 Comments | Posted August 26, 2009 | 01:47 PM (EST)



The reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve -- cleverly timed to defuse the news of burgeoning federal deficits -- was preordained. The "markets" demanded it, and as James Carville noted, when the markets speak, presidents listen. (Carville, shocked at how Bob Rubin's arguments about...

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A Giant Lost

61 Comments | Posted August 26, 2009 | 07:17 AM (EST)


We have lost a giant. The Senate is a smaller place today -- a special measure of joy, political passion, irrepressible energy has been lost.

Edward Kennedy's words, delivered as his 1980 presidential campaign came to an end at the Democratic Convention in Madison Square Garden, should be played repeatedly...

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Health Care: Let the Majority Be Heard

889 Comments | Posted August 18, 2009 | 11:08 PM (EST)


The editors of the Wall Street Journal say that the public option in health care reform has been "sent to the death panel." Obama "concedes" the public option, reports the Financial Times. Even liberals seem to agree. The public option is "all but gone," writes Bob Herbert...

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Health Care Reform: Time to Go All In

616 Comments | Posted August 5, 2009 | 01:36 PM (EST)


It is time to go all in to support comprehensive health care reform. The stakes have gotten prohibitive. Republicans have essentially bet the House on it. Obama, for all intents and purposes, has wagered the White House agenda. The insurance and drug companies are pouring in dough. This month will...

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The Debtor's Dance: the U.S.-China Exchange

216 Comments | Posted July 29, 2009 | 10:03 AM (EST)


Obama's opening speech set the stakes: "The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world." (emphasis added) The U.S., the world's largest debtor, met this week with the confident leaders of its largest creditor,...

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Making It in America

109 Comments | Posted July 22, 2009 | 10:00 AM (EST)


Washington's special genius is for gridlock. As we're seeing in the health care debate, the entire system is designed to frustrate action -- even when Democrats have a popular president, 60 votes in the Senate and a large majority in the House. Moneyed interests trump party loyalty. Partisan politics trumps...

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