debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Are House Republicans – now summoned back to Washington by Speaker John Boehner — about to succumb to public pressure and save the nation from the fiscal cliff? Don’t bet on it. Even if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cooperates by not mounting a filibuster and allows the Senate to pass a bill extending the [...]
The Ideology of Balancing Budgets With the presidential election in the rearview mirror, a so-called fiscal cliff allegedly threatens disaster for the US economy. The time has come to drive a stake through the ideology of the budget cuts, not only in the United States but also Europe. This ideology draws great support from the [...]
With the election behind us I had hoped we’d get beyond games of chicken. No such luck. But first you need to understand that the game of chicken isn’t about how much or when we cut the budget deficit. Or even whether the upcoming “fiscal cliff” poses a danger to the economy. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office [...]
I’ve spent the past few days debating right-wingers — among them, Grover Norquist and Ann Coulter. This isn’t my idea of fun. I do it because apparently many Americans find these people persuasive, and it seems important to try to show why they’re profoundly wrong. There are two major theories about why Romney is dropping [...]
The political fallout from Mitt Romney’s characterization of 47% of the American electorate as “victims” who are “dependent on government” and refuse to take “personal responsibility” for their lives demonstrates anew that cultural generalizations, particularly in politics, are usually dangerous. In fact, Romney appears to have categorized a large segment of his party’s own voters [...]
Latest Polls: Obama leads Romney in key battleground states – what does it mean? Mitt Romney is now the official presidential nominee for the Republican Party, having been crowned at the GOP convention on Tuesday night along with his running mate Representative Paul Ryan. The US presidential race is heating up, as the Obama and [...]
Mitt Romney is casting the 2012 campaign as “free enterprise on trial” – defining free enterprise as achieving success through “hard work and risking-taking.” Tea-Party favorite Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina says he’s supporting Romney because “we really need someone who understands how risk, taking risk … is the way we create jobs, create [...]
It’s one thing to criticize Mitt Romney for being a businessman with the wrong values. It’s quite another to accuse him and his former company, Bain Capital, of doing bad things. If what Bain Capital did under Romney was bad for society, the burden shifts to Romney’s critics to propose laws that would prevent Bain [...]
What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want? I’ve been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America. They say they want a smaller government but that can’t be it. Most seek a larger national defense and more muscular homeland security. Almost [...]
A fundamental war has been waged in this nation since its founding, between progressive forces pushing us forward and regressive forces pulling us backward. We are going to battle once again. Progressives believe in openness, equal opportunity, and tolerance. Progressives assume we’re all in it together: We all benefit from public investments in schools and [...]
One of the most striking successes of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been the “We are the 99 per cent” idea, and more specifically in the identification of the top 1 per cent as the primary source of economic problems. Thanks to #OWS, the fact that households the top 1 per cent of the [...]
We dodged another shut-down bullet, but only until November 18. That’s when the next temporary bill to keep the government going runs out. House Republicans want more budget cuts as their price for another stopgap spending bill. Among other items, Republicans are demanding major cuts in a nutrition program for low-income women and children. The [...]
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