Mori Dinauer

In light of the fact that the ARRA has proved itself a job creator/saver, you would think that Congress and the president would be eager to pass a second, more targeted stimulus focused on job growth. Of course, that would involve deficit spending, which can only be used for paying for wars, tax cuts for […]

Despite a favorable new CBO score and independent analysis demonstrating the Senate health-care reform bill’s costs savings, the debate over controversial elements of the legislation has finally begun in the hallowed upper house of Congress. In light of this, it’s worth considering the implications of an Urban Institute study that recommends triggering a strong public […]

President Obama has pledged to committing the U.S. to reducing carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels in advance of traveling to Copenhagen Dec. 7 for the international climate conference, but between the parochial interests of individual senators and the energy industries they represent, as well as the denial caucus’ proclivity for putting would-be […]

President Obama‘s “Educate to Innovate” campaign focusing on promoting the “cool” factor of science is quite welcome in an era of the Discovery Institute and the ongoing campaign to deny global warming even exists. The question is whether this is going to be the administration’s strategy for strengthening education, which is supposed to be one […]

One thing you’ll notice about the RNC’s new “purity test” is that the 10 alleged “policy positions” are mostly vague statements of principle. The very first item declares support for “smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes” but doesn’t explain how they intend on actually achieving this limited government paradise. Of course, […]

How is one to account for Barack Obama‘s precipitous drop to 49 percent approval in the latest Gallup daily tracking poll? Is is the grave pronouncements printed in British blog posts? Democratic legislators throwing temper tantrums because Obama isn’t doing their job for them? No, as always, for every president, it’s the economy. And has […]

Some conservatives are open about their reverence for the Bush administration’s policies. But others, perhaps not wanting to associate themselves with the worst presidency of modern times try to pretend the last eight years didn’t happen by comparing Barack Obama to History’s Greatest Monster, Jimmy Carter, or pretending that foreign policy initiated by the Bush […]

Of course there are political advantages to calling a “stimulus bill” a “jobs bill.” But rhetoric only takes you so far if your jobs bill fails to actually produce jobs. The ARRA, while imperfect, saved a not-insignificant number of jobs, and created some demand where there otherwise would not have been any, but it wasn’t […]

One can draw many conclusions from the list of senators who voted for the debt-financed Medicare Part D legislation in 2003 and now complain about the debt supposedly produced by the deficit-neutral health-care reform legislation hitting the Senate floor this week. Are they economically illiterate? Clearly. Hypocritical? Absolutely. And is anybody in the press talking […]

In light of the latest conservative freakout over diplomatic protocol and following the rule of law, here’s a handy fill-in-the-blanks statement you can use for the next one: “I am shocked and appalled that this president would take the unprecedented step of _____ before ______ on his overseas trip to _____. This fits into a […]