In creating a better political future, it is better to be cursed with youth than blessed with age.
Paul Starr
Paul Starr is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the Bancroft Prize in American history, he is the author of eight books, including American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now (Yale University Press, October 2025).
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Health Reform’s Next Test
Will low enrollment in 2014 drive premiums higher for 2015?
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Let’s Shut Down the Filibuster
Why it made sense for Democrats to take the risk of ending the filibuster on most nominations.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Bad Faith and Budget Politics
Obama has to do business with people who cannot be trusted to own up to their side of a deal.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Did Republicans Lose the Election?
The 2012 election awarded us a peculiar form of coalition government. Will it hinder Dems as they pursue their ambitious agenda?
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Obama’s Second-Term BFD Agenda
The president has a new opportunity for immigration reform, old business to finish on health care, and fateful decisions to make about energy and climate.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Obama and the Art of Not Getting Credit
Although understatement is an attractive quality in most lines of work, politics is different. Framing achievements so as to get timely bragging rights for them is part of the job, if you want to keep it. Since most politicians are only too eager to claim credit for any positive development, this isn’t usually an issue; […]
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Supreme Surprise
Health-care reform survives another near-death experience.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Sixties at 50
Half a century later, the battles of the 1960s–and the effects of one great wrong turn by liberals of that time–are still with us.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Three Roads from the Supreme Court
None of the options for health-care reform is ideal, but the most likely path forward would be through action in the states.
