New Orleans — “This is our first gig,” said Bruce Springsteen. ”I hope it goes OK.” With that, The Boss and his 18-piece Seeger Sessions Band opened their set with a rocking rendition of ”Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep.” As an act of solidarity with this doubly ravaged city, Springsteen began his homage to Pete […]
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.
Posted inArticle
Gas Ache
America needs an Apollo-scale program to shift to renewable energy and more efficient vehicles. Politicians of both parties, particularly Republicans, are scrambling to deal with the voter pain of $3-a-gallon gasoline. President Bush wants a $100 tax rebate to help consumers pay for more costly fuel and more tax credits for people who buy (mostly […]
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Indispensable, Untouchable China
Question: How do you apply leverage against an emerging geopolitical giant that also happens to be among your biggest creditors? Answer: not very well. When President Bush took office, prodded by neoconservative advisers, he viewed China as a potential rival and menace. Today, bogged down in Iraq and hobbled by American financial dependence on Beijing, […]
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If You Fund It, It Will Work
Governor Mitt Romney has taken credit for the new Massachusetts approach to universal health coverage, even as he tries to gut its boldest feature, making free-riding businesses with no health coverage pay a modest fee. If Romney is replaced this November by a Democrat, will his successor do better? How to make the system work […]
Posted inSpecial Report
Going Postal
The first time you hear about Oregon’s approach to voting, the idea sounds almost un-American. In 1998, the state that gave us assisted suicide decided to run all of its elections by mail: no voting booths, no frantic Election Day get-out-the-vote efforts, no dueling poll-watchers — and no trooping off to the local firehouse to […]
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A Massachusetts Miracle?
Is the new Massachusetts new health plan really a model for reform nationally? Advocates of universal health coverage feel they finally have their nose under the tent. The question remains, however: is this the right tent? The design of the plan was drastically constrained from the beginning by Governor Romney Mitt who started with three […]
Posted inEducation in America
The Tchotchke Economy
As Congress grapples with immigration policy, most experts agree that wide-open immigration slightly depresses wages, especially among unskilled workers. But the main reason for static wages has more do with policies made in the United States. Immigrants, coming from destitution at home, will work for less than American wages. And, if they are here illegally, […]
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Industrial Strength
General Motors and the United Auto Workers stunned Wall Street and the labor movement this week by proposing the ultimate buyout package. GM proposes to pension off every one of its 131,000 GM and Delphi workers in the United States, with cash bonuses of up to $140,000 for taking early retirement. Who would make the […]
Posted inEducation in America
Consternation Over Immigration
Congress is belatedly grappling with immigration reform. There is no more difficult dilemma, both in terms of the politics and the need to balance contradictory policy objectives. The heightened concern with terrorism only complicates the job. America today is failing to control its borders. Most estimates place the number of immigrants here illegally at around […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Elephant in the Voting Booth
On democratic wrongs both past and present, as told by two books and a new commission study on reform.
