Ezra Klein

Towards the end of last week, Blanche Lincoln and Jon Kyl got a lot of attention for their proposal to lower the estate tax and save the wealthiest 0.28 percent of estate owners about $440 billion over 10 years. Think Progress and others angrily noted the amendment’s victory. “The Senate narrowly passed the bill by […]

My column today looks at what Senator Evan Bayh says about his budget priorities and how he actually votes. There’s also a bonus appearance by long-dead economist Paul Samuelson. If that’s not a draw, what is? Update! Turns out Paul Samuelson is not dead. He’s just very old. He was born in 1915, he published […]

I’m somewhat less worried about the money Larry Summers made during his time in the financial world than the people he met while working there. Summers, after all, would almost certainly prefer to go down in history as the guy who brilliantly coaxed the American economy out of a major financial crisis than the guy […]

In a post entitled “The Simple Calculation on Health Care Reconciliation,” Chris Bowers writes that the choice is fairly simple. It comes down to whether you prefer a “less expensive, more widely available health care delivered through a partisan legislative process that excludes congressional Republicans” to “the health care status quo, and a bi-partisan legislative […]

Seth Meyers’ speech to the National Resources Defense Council isn’t very funny. Which might be why I noticed that a 1:40 or so he offhandedly mentions the dinner — a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser — was vegetarian. This wasn’t always the case. It’s long been a complaint of food-oriented enviros that the movement steadfastly refused to admit […]

Dan Froomkin points us towards the Obama administration’s Friday night document dump, which featured the recent financial histories of many key White House advisers, including one Larry Summers. Summers, you’ll recall, was appointing to a White House position and thus didn’t see his recent financial history combed over by the Senate Finance Committee’s tax lawyers. […]

The National Journal reports that John McCain got a bit testy at a meeting of Hispanic business leaders when the talk turned to immigration. “You people made your choice,” he reportedly spat. “You made your choice during the election.” Keep it classy, Senator. Without McCain, however, it’s unclear where reformers turn. Most of the Bush […]

Matt Yglesias pulls the curtain back a bit on the “beat sweeteners:” [P]art of the peculiar set of institutions that constitutes “journalistic ethics” is the idea of a “beat-sweetener.” This means that when a new set of powerful people is put into place, and most of all when a new presidential administration comes to DC, […]

I’ve really been falling down on the food blogging front recently. Evidence of that is this recipe: It’s from February 5th. The Washington Post called it “Brazilian stew” when they profiled the Internet Food Association. But it’s more widely-known as feijoada, the black bean stew that’s commonly considered Brazil’s national dish. The secret to a […]