Mark Schmitt

That health care reform might be passed without the involvement of any Republican senators is an irresistibly tempting thought. Who needs ’em? Unfortunately, the possibility of that happening is but an illusion. To get all 60 Democratic votes in the Senate puts one at the mercy of the two or three most conservative and disruptive […]

The “New Blow to Health Plan” that was delivered over the weekend by the Congressional Budget Office illustrates the unusually powerful role that the CBO plays in determining the range of possibilities for reform, but also a little-understood fact about the CBO: It’s judgments are often guesses about probabilities, and they are often guessing about […]

My friend and colleague from the New America Foundation, Michael Lind, has a provocative article in Salon on health reform — well, the headline is provocative (“More Raw Deal than New Deal”), but the substance is actually a thoughtful and somewhat complicated journey through his own evolving thinking about health reform since he and Ted […]

Do liberals have a coherent theory about the Constitution? A few years ago, this would be the question hanging in the air at the end of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Conservatives had their claim to a theory – call it “originalism,” “textualism,” “judges should interpret the law, not make it,” or Chief Justice Roberts‘ […]

On day four of the Sotomayor hearings, the focus was on her role in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven firefighter case. “Mr. Ricci has a story to tell, too,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham in a condescending lecture to Sotomayor. Ricci told that story this afternoon. If you grew up in New […]

More than a year ago, Ezra Klein, on this site, put the health care lessons of the Clinton years as succinctly as it’s ever been done. Quoting an administration official who directed the bill’s legislation for the president: “I was the biggest mistake of the Clinton health care bill,” says Sara Rosenbaum, who sat in […]

Following up on Adam’s reply to Cliff May, I’ll comment further on May‘s accusation that we and the New York Times had attempted either to “crush debate” and/or to incite violence against him, particularly because May quotes from an e-mail exchange with me. Obviously, neither we nor the Times sought to incite violence against May. […]

You may be familiar with a wonderful short book by the economist/philosopher Albert O. Hirschman called The Rhetoric of Reaction. Hirschman (better known for his essay “Exit, Voice and Loyalty”) simply catalogs the three great arguments that conservatives use against virtually any progressive idea: Perversity (It will do the opposite of what you intend). Futility […]