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The Secret of Our Non-Success by Paul Krugman, The New York Times | October 22, 2012
The U.S. economy finally seems to be recovering in earnest, with housing on the rebound and job creation outpacing growth in the working-age population. But the news is good, not great — it will still take years to restore full employment — and it has been a very long time coming. Why has the slump been so protracted? The answer — backed by overwhelming evidence — is that this is what normally happens after a severe financial crisis. But Mitt Romney’s economic team rejects that evidence. And this denialism bodes ill for policy if Mr. Romney wins next month. read more »Obama's Not-So-Hidden Second-Term Agenda by E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post | October 22, 2012
Everywhere you turn, President Obama is accused of not offering a clear second-term agenda. It’s not surprising that Republicans say it, but you also hear it from quarters sympathetic to the president. But how true is the charge? The president does lack a crisp, here’s-my-plan set of sound bites. What’s less obvious is whether this should matter to anyone. Mitt Romney’s five-point plan sounds good but is quite vague and, upon inspection, looks rather like five-point plans issued by earlier Republican presidential candidates. Moreover, Romney has been resolutely unspecific about his tax plans, leading to the understandable suspicion that he’s hiding something politically unsavory, either in the popular deductions he’d have to slash or in the programs he’d have to get rid of. Obama, by contrast, has been far more straightforward about what he would do about the deficit. read more »Poverty: The Election Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name by Rupert Cornwell, independent.co.uk | October 22, 2012
A presidential election campaign approaches its climax, as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney criss-cross the land in search of the last few votes. But my thoughts have turned to a couple of candidates from long ago, who have been back in the news these past few days. One is recently deceased George McGovern, best known for his landslide defeat at the hands of Richard Nixon 40 years ago.. The other is Robert Kennedy, indirect subject of a new documentary on HBO devoted to his widow Ethel. But the mere names of Bobby Kennedy and George McGovern get you thinking: whatever happened to the old-fashioned American liberalism under whose banner they so proudly fought? Not today's diluted "liberalism" as practised by Obama, and which is little more than a schoolyard taunt hurled by right-wing talk-show hosts, but the liberalism that set out to right the wrongs of American society, first and foremost the scourge of poverty. read more »What We Talk About When We Talk About Poverty by Greg Kauffmann, The Nation | October 19, 2012
Here’s a twist: in the second presidential debate, one candidate used the word “poverty” without saying anything about poverty; the other didn’t use the word at all but managed to speak a fair amount about it. Make sense? Stay with me. Governor Romney used this talking point: “There are 3 1/2 million more women living in poverty today than when the president took office”; and again, “I mentioned 3 1/2 million women more now in poverty than four years ago.” He also used what has become a staple of his campaign as a bludgeon against President Obama’s record: “There are more people in poverty—one out of six people [lives] in poverty.” What he didn’t do was offer any notion as to how a Romney administration would create opportunities for low-income people—people who decidedly aren’t included in his binders. read more »The Danger of Wealth at the Top by Paul R. Pillar, consortiumnews.com | October 19, 2012
America’s growth-inhibiting inequality is making it less able to compete, and less able to serve as an exemplar for others, in the global arena. Ideologically driven myopia, which mistakenly cherishes anything in the private sector status quo, even when it is destructive of free markets and vigorous competition, and disdains anything government does, even when it is necessary for economic growth and the fullest use of human capital, is needlessly weakening the relative as well as absolute position of the United States. read more »Tax Cuts for Job Creators by Laura D'Andrea Tyson and Owen Zidar, economix.blogs.nytimes.com | October 19, 2012
If tax cuts for high-income earners generate substantial real economic activity and job creation, then we should expect to see two things in the data. First, employment growth should be stronger in the years after tax cuts for these earners. Second, parts of the country with a larger share of high-income earners should experience stronger employment growth after national tax cuts for these taxpayers, because the places where they live receive a larger share of the national tax cuts. What do we actually see after combing through a half-century of economic data? Neither of these predictions is borne out. Tax cuts for everyone else are a much more effective path to job creation. Our research found a statistically significant and positive relationship between tax cuts for the bottom 95 percent and job growth at both the national and state levels. read more »Snow Job on Jobs by Paul Krugman, The New York Times | October 19, 2012
Mitt Romney talks a lot about jobs. But does he have a plan to create any? You can defend President Obama’s jobs record — recovery from a severe financial crisis is always difficult, and especially so when the opposition party does its best to block every policy initiative you propose. And things have definitely improved over the past year. Still, unemployment remains high after all these years, and a candidate with a real plan to make things better could make a strong case for his election. But Mr. Romney, it turns out, doesn’t have a plan; he’s just faking it. In saying that, I don’t mean that I disagree with his economic philosophy; I do, but that’s a separate point. I mean, instead, that Mr. Romney’s campaign is telling lies: claiming that its numbers add up when they don’t, claiming that independent studies support its position when those studies do no such thing. read more »What Obama Really Wants To Do In A Second Term by Perry Bacon Jr., thegrio.com | October 19, 2012
Following President Obama’s strong performance in Tuesday’s debate, Republicans, including Mitt Romney, have seized on a new line of attack: the president isn’t being specific enough about his second term agenda. Non-partisan analysts are making the same claim, namely that Obama must provide more details about what he would do in his next four years to win. They’re wrong. Even though he’s not talking about these ideas much on the campaign trail, it’s likely Obama would push for immigration and energy reform and a long-term budget deficit reduction deal in a second term. But perhaps the most important goal of an Obama second term, one he has nodded at himself at times, is preserving the accomplishments of his first term. read more »The Difference Between Equity and Binders Full of Anybody by Rinku Sen, colorlines.com | October 18, 2012
Maybe I have no sense of humor, but when Gov. Mitt Romney said the words “binders full of women” during this week’s debate, it didn’t occur to me to make an Internet joke. I was more struck by the fact that he answered a question about pay equity with a story about diversity hiring. If we had the language as a society to describe this difference, the jokes might have been more pointed. Diversity is about variety, getting bodies with different genders and colors into the room. Equity is about how those bodies get in the door and what they are able to do in their posts. A diversity approach has gotten us to the point where Romney could get a binder full of women’s resumés. An equity approach is what would have forced him to address the pay gap, which I bet all the women in those binders have experienced. read more »Mitt Romney Is Wrong About The Wage Gap by Irin Carmon, salon.com | October 18, 2012
Asked about the gender wage gap last night, Mitt Romney changed the subject. “What we can do to help young women and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers are looking to find good employees and bringing them into their workforce and adapting to a — a flexible work schedule that gives women the opportunities that — that they would otherwise not be able to — to afford,” he said. Sensing that he was going to be forced to actually answer the question, Romney added, “I’m going to help women in America get — get good work by getting a stronger economy and by supporting women in the workforce.” There are so many half-formed assumptions and pseudo-promises here that it’s hard to know where to start, but let’s go to the basic premise: That the wage gap narrows when the economy is strong. That premise, so far as we can see from the data, is wrong. read more »
The Latest
TARP expected to cost U.S. only $25 billion, CBO says, The Washington Post | November 30, 2010
The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which was widely reviled as a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street titans, is now expected to cost the federal government a mere $25 billion - the equivalent of less than six months of emergency jobless benefits. read more »
If GOP wins, Expect More Obstruction, The Washington Post | October 19, 2010
I'm cautious about the conventional wisdom that the Democratic Party is about to get flattened by a Republican steamroller. Pollsters are less certain than they'd like you to believe about who's a "likely voter" and who isn't. read more »
Banks Restart Foreclosures, The Wall Street Journal | October 19, 2010
Bank of America Corp. reopened more than 100,000 foreclosure actions, declaring that it had found no significant problems in its procedures for seizing homes. GMAC Mortgage, a lender and loan servicer, said that it also is pushing ahead with an unspecified number of foreclosures that came under intense pressure.
Geithner Weak Dollar Seen as U.S. Recovery Route Versus BRICs, bloomberg.com | October 19, 2010
Gridlock Sam: The Tea Party’s Bridge to Beyond Nowhere, pbs.org | October 19, 2010
The Tea Party has captured the imagination and spirit of many Americans and may very well turn that into a powerful voting bloc come November. But, that bloc may not have a leg or girder to stand on as our nation’s infrastructure continues to crumble. read more »
Administration Assures Pelosi on Restoration of Renewables Aid, thehill.com | August 11, 2010
The Obama administration has “assured” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that $3.5 billion in renewable energy loan guarantees diverted for other policy priorities will be restored this year. read more »
S. Carolina Takes Stimulus Money, The New York Times | August 11, 2010
State Aid Bill Breezes Into Law, dyn.politico.com | August 11, 2010
Included is $10 billion to preserve teaching jobs in the new school year, and $16.1 billion to help states cover their Medicaid payments for the first six months of 2011. read more »
$26-Billion Aid Package for States Becomes Law, Los Angeles Times | August 11, 2010
House Democrats return from brief recess for unfinished business, thehill.com | August 10, 2010
House Democrats are set to approve $26 billion in emergency state aid, fight off a lame-duck lockout and pass a border-security bill before they wrap up their work period Tuesday and repack their bags for home. read more »
