Tim Fernholz

I remember seeing George Packer in the Senate press galleries as he reported this story (we both like watching senators vote, apparently) and his time well spent. However, I’d agree with Jonathan Bernstein that some of the complaints set up by Packer’s narrative don’t play into the most serious problems facing the Senate: “partisanship and […]

On the news that the Fed may react to the stumbling recovery with actual policy shifts, the monetary-policy-obsessed Matt Yglesias notes that it would be nice if the president’s three nominees to the Fed Board of Directors could be confirmed in time to participate in the Fed’s Aug. 10 decision-making meeting. (They were nominated by […]

With last week’s dismal growth news and the public’s mistrust for the financial-reform bill, the Treasury Department is launching a communication assault to try to explain its economic policies. It began yesterday evening with a speech from Secretary Tim Geithner in New York, followed today by a New York Times op-ed titled, with some irony, […]

The troop withdrawal form Iraq is actually on schedule. Marc Lynch, assessing President Obama’s foreign-policy record, observes: Obama is on track to deliver on his campaign promise to withdraw from Iraq — something which voters might begin to notice next month when they discover that he has also met his promise to get down to […]

Since the Democrats have set themselves up for an election-year tax-cut brawl, this article on the little-known realities of Bush administration’s signature tax cuts is worth reading. For instance, no, letting the cuts for upper-income brackets expire won’t hurt small business. Perhaps more surprising to some, the tax cuts have actually slowed economic growth since […]

Looking at some historical revisionism on the right about John McCain’s truly epic presidential fail in 2008, Jon Chait notes a common — and false — idea: That McCain’s campaign died after the financial crisis shocked the American electorate into voting for Obama. In reality, though, “what killed McCain is that the economy in general […]

In the wake of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony this week, it became clear to everyone that the central bank is not yet prepared to leverage monetary policy to increase job growth. As predicted, Bernanke is waiting for things to get worse before taking more aggressive steps. One key policy tool waiting in the […]