Former senator John Edwards gave a terrific speech to the National Press Club Thursday, one that felt like eloquence from another age. His theme: America should end poverty in three decades, mainly by rewarding work and promoting opportunity. “Poverty is the great moral issue of our time,” Edwards declared. This speech was his de facto […]
Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His latest book is Notes for Next Time: Surviving Tyranny, Redeeming America. Follow Bob at his site, robertkuttner.com, and on Twitter.
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Filling the Breach
Are the liberals dividing the Democratic Party once more and weakening Democrats’ credibility on defense? Or are they stepping into a leadership vacuum? The Democrats’ schisms over Iraq were on display at last week’s Take Back America convention in Washington. Senator Hillary Clinton, whose speech to the gathering was mostly applauded, got scattered boos when […]
Posted inColumns
What’s the Matter With Class?
On June 6, California voters decisively rejected a ballot initiative to provide tax-supported public pre-kindergarten. A special surtax would have touched only residents making at least $400,000 or $800,000 for a couple. It’s hard to think of a better use of social outlay for the middle class and the poor, or a better-targeted tax. Yet […]
Posted inDispatches
Solidarity Man
On April 3, at an unpublicized strategy meeting, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack assembled AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, AFSCME president Gerry McEntee, and several other senior labor leaders with officials of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), including Clinton administration veteran and DLC president Bruce Reed. Vilsack, the current DLC chairman, encouraged the two factions to stop […]
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A Losing Formula
It has now become less politically risky for Democrats to accept gay marriage than to support taxing the richest 1 percent of Americans. And that reality speaks volumes about the Democratic dilemma. On Wednesday, Senate Republicans offered a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that they knew had no chance of passage. Their purpose was simple […]
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A Sad Estate of Affairs
This week, the Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate will attempt to ram through a permanent repeal of the estate tax. A companion bill has already passed the House. Under the Bush administration, the estate tax has been cut to the point where less than one estate in a hundred pays any tax. The revenue […]
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Helllloooo, Nurse
America has a nursing shortage, so Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has the perfect solution: imports. His provision in the Senate’s immigration bill would waive the ceiling on the number of foreign nurses who can immigrate. Most come from poorer countries like the Philippines and India. According to The New York Times, which first […]
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A Glimpse at the Uniter in Chief
The immigration debate is, among other things, a window on the kind of President George W. Bush might have been if he hadn’t been captured by the far right — a uniter, not a divider, as someone said. Bush, in seeking to satisfy internationalists as well as exclusionists, to respect immigrants as hard-working human beings, […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Truth in Capitalism
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John C. Bogle (Yale University Press, 260 pages, $25.00) The stock market collapse of 2000-2001 was the most serious since the crash of 1929. But unlike the earlier Great Crash, the recent one led neither to a general depression nor to a wider indictment of […]
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Dangerous Liaison
Shame on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Rupert Murdoch, the right-wing publishing mogul, is hosting a fund-raiser in July for her Senate reelection campaign. Her explanation is that Murdoch, based in New York, is an important constituent: ”I’m very gratified that he thinks I’m doing a good job.” Murdoch runs Fox television, home of Bill O’Reilly and […]
