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Talks To Rep. Earl Blumenauer
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4.9.2010 |
American Prospect |
| The Oregon progressive thinks it's time to cut the budget. Wait, what? |
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Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Policy]
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Stimulus counterfactuals
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3.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| Jon Cohn asked some lefty economists to imagine a world in which we'd passed a $1.5 trillion stimulus. What, he wondered, would be different? How much better off would the economy really be?
It's a good question, and I think one of the political problems right now is that the Obama administration didn't get the counterfactual into the conversation early enough: They decided to call $800 billion pretty much what they wanted rather than a downpayment on what they needed.
So it's left to the blogs. Cohn gets two economists on the record. Dean Baker, president of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says that a rough calculation would just multiply the impact of the actual stimulus by two: "The Congressional Budge Office estimates that ... |
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July jobs report: 54,000 jobs lost; unemployment rate hits 9.6 percent
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3.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| Another month, another grim jobs report . We lot 54,000 jobs in July. Most of those -- in fact, 114,000 of them -- were expiring census jobs. The private sector added jobs slowly but steadily, posting 67,000 in gains. This report doesn't really tell a story of recovery nor of recession. It's just stagnation: We're not falling back into the hole, but nor are we getting out of it. No wonder the White House is looking for further stimulus measures . ... |
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Notes on the filibuster
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3.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| If you happen to be near C-SPAN 2 at 10 a.m. Eastern today, you can catch me and a couple of other folks talking about the filibuster at the American Political Science Association. The moderator, Gregory Koger, is author of the book " Filibustering ," which presents a bit of a problem for his panelists: We're actually going to have to know what we're talking about. Luckily, he's sent out his questions beforehand. Here's what I'm planning to say:
1) The 111th Congress has passed several landmark bills, including the stimulus act, health-care reform and financial regulation reform. Has Senate obstruction really had much influence on the legislative process?
You can answer this a few different ways, though all of them begin with the word ... |
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Mini-mes
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3.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| My recent writings against the expansion of intellectual protection laws to new domains have led to a few e-mails like this one: "I recently read your article on fashion copyright and have to totally agree, i also think it should apply to every aspect of life.
So in [the] future I will copy every word you ever write and reprint it in another publication or format without giving you any credit or paying for your creativity in anyway."
Touche! Sadly, copying blogs posts without credit or compensation is a crowded market. Take Bullfax.com, whatever it is. They do just copy my posts . They don't link them back to me, or attach my name to them. But what do I care? I find it hard to believe that there's anyone who has chosen to read my blog on ... |
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Republican deficit cutting rhetoric | Sahil Kapur
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3.9.2010 |
The Guardian -- World Latest |
| The GOP posture as fiscal hawks, but the reality of cutting taxes and repealing healthcare would blow out the budget
"I'm not afraid to tell you there's no money left. In fact, we're broke. Our debt is now on track to the exceed size of our entire economy in the next two years." So declared house Republican leader John Boehner last week, making the case that Americans should trust his party when it comes to "bringing down the deficits that threaten our economy".
The party that added $4tn to the national debt under the Bush administration has relentlessly hammered President Obama for the growth of the deficit under his watch. Republicans have made deficit reduction a central thrust of their post-Bush persona, invoking it to weaken or kill ... |
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Also found in: [+]
[newstrust :: Housing]
[newstrust :: Jobs]
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Pawlenty Likens D.C. To 'Drug Dealer'
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3.9.2010 |
WCCO: National |
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is likening the federal government to a drug dealer.
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Also found in: [+]
[nwct :: Healthcare_US]
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Wonkbook: White House considers payroll tax holiday; House libs against Social Security cuts; 25% were unemployed during recession
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3.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| The White House is considering a push for hundreds of billions of dollars in new stimulative spending, focusing on business tax cuts including a temporary cut in payroll taxes. In part, this is good policy. In part, it's necessary policy. Anne Kornblut and Lori Montgomery quote an unnamed Democratic strategist complaining that the White House has let the issues get away from them in advance of November's election. "'We did the mosque, Katrina, Iraq, and now Middle East peace?' said a Democratic strategist who works closely with multiple candidates and spoke on the condition of anonymity. 'And in between you redo the Oval Office? It has become a joke.'"
Also keep an eye on the increasing mobilization around Social Security. Whatever else the ... |
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POLITICAL INSIDER: Pawlenty: DC like 'drug dealer'
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3.9.2010 |
Boston Globe: Latest |
| POLITICAL INSIDER: Pawlenty: DC like 'drug dealer' |
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Also found in: [+]
[nwct :: Healthcare_US]
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Workers said to pay 14% more for health insurance in 2010
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3.9.2010 |
Boston Globe: Business |
| Workers said to pay 14% more for health insurance in 2010 |
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Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Health System]
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Mercury News editorial: California making health care progress
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3.9.2010 |
San Jose Mercury News: Editorials |
| Twenty-two states are suing the federal government hoping to overturn President Barack Obama's health care reforms. |
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Also found in: [+]
[newstrust :: Insurance Industry]
[nwct :: Healthcare_US]
[flenvcenter :: Health System]
[flenvcenter :: Toxics]
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POLITICAL INSIDER: Pawlenty: DC like 'drug dealer'
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3.9.2010 |
Star Tribune: Politics |
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Also found in: [+]
[nwct :: Healthcare_US]
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POLITICAL INSIDER: Pawlenty: DC like 'drug dealer'
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3.9.2010 |
AP Politics |
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
2010-09-03T08:28:11Z
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is likening the federal government to a drug dealer....
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Also found in: [+]
[nwct :: Healthcare_US]
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Health Law Myths: Outside The Realm Of Reality
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3.9.2010 |
NPR News |
| Are you really going to have to have a computer chip implanted in your head as part of the new health law? Will the law allow President Obama to create his own private army? While there are outrageous rumors circulating about the health law, some claims are grounded in truth. |
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Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Policy]
[flenvcenter :: Health System]
[newstrust :: Public Option]
[demo :: Affordable Housing]
[nwct :: Healthcare_US]
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In good company: Welfare capitalism
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3.9.2010 |
Boston Globe: Opinion |
| In good company: Welfare capitalism |
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Also found in: [+]
[demo :: Housing]
[flenvcenter :: Unions]
[newstrust :: Housing]
[newstrust :: Jobs]
[nwct :: Healthcare_US]
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Health Care and Stimulus
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3.9.2010 |
The Atlantic - Matthew Ygblesias |
| I’m 100 percent on board with Jon Chait’s argument that there’s no reason to think that abandoning the Affordable Care Act would have improved Democrats’ political standing heading into the midterms. Insofar as ACA is unpopular, that’s largely a consequence of the general decline in public esteem for the party currently overseeing a grinding recession. [...] |
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Also found in: [+]
[newstrust :: Recession]
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Bad blogger
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3.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| Sorry for the slow blogging this afternoon, I was crashing on a column and then I had to run to a panel at the American Political Science Association's conference, and both took longer than I'd thought. So I'm going back to column writing, and more normal blogging will resume tomorrow. ... |
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Village narrative sets in: It's the liberal overreach
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3.9.2010 |
Daily Kos |
| Via Armando , TIME magazine's Michael Scherer fires the first real salvo in the "it's the progressives fault" for the looming Dem disaster in November. In the section subtitled "The Overreach" (you didn't see that coming, right?) he says:
After a meeting in December 2008 about the severity of the economic crisis, Axelrod pulled Obama aside. He recalls saying, "Enjoy these great poll numbers you have, because two years from now, they are not going to look anything like this." But even as Obama aides were aware of a growing disconnect, it didn't seem to worry their boss. Instead, the ambitious legislative goals usually trumped other priorities. Both in the original stimulus package and then in the health care and energy measures, the White House ... |
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Our lost decade in one graph
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2.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| And note that the graph ends in 2007 -- before the Great Recession had actually begun.
Source . ... |
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Vacation cont'd
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2.9.2010 |
Ezra Klein |
| "It’s true that American[s] have fewer paid vacations and paid holidays," writes Reihan Salam. "But the top 80 to 90 percent of U.S. households have more disposable income than their counterparts in the vast majority of OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] economies. Paid vacation is best understood as a form of non-cash compensation. It’s not obvious that we should collectively choose more paid vacation over more pay, and the lack of mandatory paid-vacation gives employers and employees more flexibility to choose an arrangement that works for them."
There are a couple of things wrong with this paragraph. For one thing, the top 80 percent or 90 percent of households -- the ones that Salam identifies as making us richer -- ... |
