There are two great fiscal legacies of American liberalism since Franklin Roosevelt. One is the invention and broad public acceptance of social insurance-notably Social Security, unemployment compensation, and Medicare. The other is the use of public spending, both to increase human and physical productivity over the long term and for macroeconomic stimulus during recessions. There […]
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 inFeatures
Comment: Speed Bumps
W ill the economic expansion just keep rolling on? Probably not. The economy has certainly demonstrated that it can sustain higher rates of growth than most economists thought possible. This higher speed limit is one part technology, one part greater competition, and one part belated recognition that the earlier pessimism about the economy’s potential was […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Of Our Time: Wayne’s World
O ur text, fittingly enough, is the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. At the top of the page for June 3 is an essay by Wayne Angell, the former governor of the Federal Reserve. “Over the past 15 years stock prices in the U.S. have risen at a 15 percent annual rate,” he […]
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How to Rescue the Economy
The economy now seems headed for serious recession. How to fight a shadowy enemy is necessarily Topic A, but rescuing the economy is not far behind. The economy is plummeting for several interrelated reasons. The stock market was already falling sharply before Sept. 11. The speculative excess of the late 1990s financed trillions of dollars […]
Posted inArticle
Ironically, Gore’s Biggest Worry May be About Oil
The record economic boom is near a tipping point. Although no seriousinflation is being generated by the sizzling economy, increases in oil prices show up in the general price index. They also worsen America’s balance of trade. Meanwhile, the weakness of the euro is depressing profits that Americancompanies earn abroad. On all these counts, the […]
Posted inArticle
Let’s Have Real Shared Sacrifice
Retailers are not expecting a great Christmas season this year. Shoppers have less money in their pockets and more worries about their economic future. The very act of shop-til-you-drop, always a little bizarre as a form of Yuletide expression, feels especially unseemly in wartime, even when rationalized as a patriotic act of economic stimulus. It […]
Posted inFeatures
Low Marx
In The New York Times Magazine for November 28, Jacob Weisberg wrote about “The Rehabilitation of Joe McCarthy.” The article partly drew on (and credited) Joshua Marshall’s earlier American Prospect article “Exhuming McCarthy” [March/April 1999]. Weisberg depicted the endless rehashing of who was right about communism as a kind of family co-dependency among leftists and […]
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Prescription for Failure
Prescription drug benefits are shaping up as one of the defining issues in this fall’s campaign. Drugs are now the fastest-growing component of medical care. Elderly people spend more on drugs than on doctor bills. HMOs are squeezing other kinds of care because of their own rising drug costs. There are really two big questions […]
Posted inFeatures
News Pollution
Readers of the Sunday New York Times Magazine were treated on April 1 to an extensive advertising supplement on allergies and asthma. The supplement ran from page 30 to page 42, with regular Times Magazine page numbering. The ostensible news copy was prepared by an outside agency; the section carried the disclaimer, in small type, […]
Posted inFeatures
Comment: Budget with Care
I recently proposed that instead of getting rid of what the Bush people call the death tax we abolish the “pre-death tax.” This term, coined by my friend Michael Lipsky, refers to the Medicaid provision that requires people to spend down their personal assets on nursing-home care before Medicaid starts paying the cost. Medicaid is […]
