F red Block and Robert Heilbroner, in “The Myth of a Savings Shortage” (TAP, Spring 1992), want to persuade us that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, there is no scarcity of savings in the U.S. economy today. They say that the present national savings rate is as high as ever; that it plays no depressing […]
Economic Policy
The Politics of Repudiation 1992: Edging Toward Upheaval
Not a major realignment, but ominous rumblings.
Avoiding a Fiscal Dunkirk
A more progressive tax code is an essential part of any new economic plan.
Can We Put a Time Limit on Welfare?
Clinton’s proposal for a two-year limit on AFDC payments would be the most far-reaching welfare reform since 1935. But if the goal is to make welfare mothers self-sufficient, it won’t be cheap.
The Moral Equivalent of War Production
Restoration of robust growth is the paramount challenge facing the nation, the most significant issue of the 1992 election, and the first task that will face a new administration. Indeed, all other important public questions are being held hostage to a sick economy that depresses aspiration, increases unemployment, de pletes revenue, and makes public remediation […]
From “Projects” to Communities: How to Redeem Public Housing
Saving public housing will require more than bootstrap lectures and selling off units to tenants. To transform housing projects into safe communities requires a new balance of rights and responsibilities—and real resources.
Liberalism, Socialism, and Democracy
What, if anything, can be usefully salvaged from the socialist tradition, now that communism lies in final disgrace? Paul Starr argued in these pages last fall that four developments — the implosion of communism, the collapse of efforts to reform communism from within, the failure of socialism in the Third World, and the shift of […]

