Obama is sitting down with members of the Business Roundtable later today. The White House Press Office has released excerpts of his remarks, and so far, they amount to a full-throated defense of government action delivered to a roomful of corporate chieftains: I have always been a strong believer in the power of the free […]
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein is a former Prospect writer and current editor-in-chief at Vox. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Slate, and The Columbia Journalism Review. He’s been a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and more.
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CASH FOR CLUNKERS!
Adam Smith — yeah, that appears to be his real name — reports on a smart initiative that’s helping Germany kickstart its ailing auto industry. Amid the gruesome headlines generated by the world’s auto industry these days, it almost read like a typo: new car registrations in Germany rose 21% year-on-year in February, the country’s […]
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“A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD.”
When CBO Director Doug Elmendorf testified before the Senate Finance Committee, he was asked whether a public insurance option would “crowd-out” private insurers. “Designing a system where the public plan could compete on a level playing field with private plans is extremely difficult,” he said. “We are wrestling now with how we’d model proposals to […]
Posted inEducation in America
THE PRESIDENT CAN’T MULTITASK, BUT THE BUREAUCRACY CAN.
Fixing the bank system is obviously the One Big Thing in the short-term. If that goes down, so too does our economy. But the articles attacking the Obama administration’s broad ambitions haven’t quite clarified why a fix for the banking system is more likely if Obama declines to address climate change, health care, and education. […]
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HOW DOES MAX BAUCUS PROPOSE TO PAY FOR HEALTH CARE? (WONKY.)
This Montana Standard article reporting that Max Baucus “says he’d prefer funding health care reform by taxing people’s health benefits rather than phasing out tax deductions on the richest Americans” has me a little bit confused. Since when is it a choice? Some quick arithmetic. Obama’s budget procures $634 billion for health care over 10 […]
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IS CITIBANK PLAYING POLITICS WITH EFCA?
In what’s almost certainly the day’s biggest story, Sam Stein at The Huffington Post reports on a conference call co-hosted by Citibank and the Chamber of Commerce to gin up opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. Why is it such a big story? Because the day before the call, Citibank analyst Deborah Weinswig, had […]
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A SECOND STIMULUS?
Given that most economists think the initial package was inadequate to the coming economic shortfall, it’s a good thing that Nancy Pelosi is signaling openness to a second stimulus. But you hope, then, that she’s actually preparing for that possibility. The first stimulus was built in a matter of weeks by a new administration and […]
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IMPORTANT STREAMING HEALTH CARE FORUM NEWS! SIREN!
The White House is holding their first regional health care forum at 2pm today. Gov. Granholm, of Michigan, and Governor Doyle, of Wisconsin, will preside. You can watch it here.
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WHAT HAPPENS ALONGSIDE NATIONALIZATION.
Paul Krugman has a useful post outlining the role that insuring bank liabilities will play in any policy of nationalization. Part of the problem in the nationalization debate is that the policy of taking over failing banks is being considered outside the broader set of policies that would be imposed on the banking system. So […]
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THE VOTERS SUPPORT A PUBLIC INSURANCE OPTION — AND THE GOVERNMENT.
On Tuesday, I linked to reports of a poll showing majority support for a public insurance option in health reform but wrote that I’d feel more confident if I could find the exact language. Happily, a helpful source came through and pointed out that the results were downloadable at the HCAN web site. And indeed […]
