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Robert Kuttner

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, as well as a distinguished senior fellow of the think tank Demos. He was a longtime columnist for Business Week and continues to write columns in The Boston Globe. He is the author of Obama's Challenge and other books.

Recent Articles

First Round to Romney

Robert KuttnerOct 03, 2012
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

How could Barack Obama have been so feeble a debater? Mitt Romney gave him one opening after another, but Obama stuck closely to prescripted talking points.

Romney’s strategy, as it has been throughout the campaign, was to lie, and for the most part Obama failed to call him on it. Romney essentially disavowed the tax and budget plan he has been running on for eighteen months, claiming that it was possible to cut tax rates and make up the difference by closing loopholes. Obama correctly pointed out that the arithmetic didn’t work. But Obama failed to challenge Romney to identify just which loopholes he would close.

On Social Security and Medicare, Romney gave Obama another opening that the president failed to maximize. Romney said that nobody at or near retirement age needed to fear any changes. The obvious implication is Social Security and Medicare cuts for younger people. Obama had a nice one-liner—"If you are 54 or 55, you might want to pay attention."—but he failed to drive the point home.

Crying Fraud, Then Creating It

Robert KuttnerOct 03, 2012
(AP Photo/The The Hutchinson News, Travis Morisse, File)

For once, the Republicans were right.

They have been obsessively claiming that voter-suppression measures are necessary because of widespread “ballot fraud.” However extensive investigations by the mainstream media have shown that ballot-fraud is a convenient myth.

Good News, Bad News on the Economy

Robert KuttnerSep 28, 2012

The Obama administration got good news and bad news on the economy Thursday.

The bad news: The Commerce Department revised the economic growth rate downward, to just 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012, down from an earlier estimate of 1.7 percent. That’s close to stall speed, not nearly enough to generate enough jobs or income growth. To add to the administration’s bad day, durable-goods orders dropped 13.2 percent in August.

Pain in Spain

Robert KuttnerSep 26, 2012
(AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

The European authorities seem determined to drive the continent into a repeat of the Great Depression.

The European Central Bank keeps playing a cute game designed more to impress the Germans than the financial markets or to provide real relief. Mario Draghi, ECB president, offers to buy unlimited amounts of the bonds of states that are being pummeled by speculators, but then undercuts his own offer by conditioning it on punishing austerity.

The Party That Can't Shoot Straight

Robert KuttnerSep 25, 2012
(Flickr/PBS Newshour)

By all accounts, this was the Republicans’ election to win: an economy stuck at a level insufficient to generate enough jobs or income gains; a somewhat disillusioned Democratic base; and a stunted generation of young adults who supported Barack Obama last time by a margin of 71-29 and are unlikely to do it again.

Yet Obama’s lead keeps widening. It’s worth unpacking why.

The most obvious reason, of course, is the sheer clumsiness of Mitt Romney, God’s gift to the Democrats. If a computer had been asked to generate a candidate guaranteed to alienate independents and divide his own base, it could not have done better.

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