Ezra Klein

Igor Volsky: So what does all of this mean for health care reform and the recent debate over reconciliation? Democrats now have 60 votes (assuming that Al Franken is seated) to pass health care reform and some pundits may argue that reconciliation is no longer necessary. But this view overestimates the unity of the Democratic […]

An informed reader writes in. Ezra,A few quick notes on your housing market post. I’m in the affordable housing realm—mostly rental, occasionally ownership– so I’d like to think I know something. 1.) This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. A lot of developers of large projects will offer their own financing or partner with a […]

In general, when a politician leaves a party, you ask “why?” With Specter, the more rewarding question is “who?” In this case, there’s an answer: Pat Toomey and the Club for Growth. Toomey is the conservative ex-congressmen mounting a primary challenge against Specter. The Club for Growth is the monomaniacally anti-tax organization that’s funding it. […]

Over at Swampland, Karen Tumulty distinguishes a “filibuster-proof majority,” which is what FDR had, from a Senate where one party or another controlled a theoretically filibuster-proof number of seats, which is what Carter had. Specter’s defection, she suggests, is akin to FDR’s situation rather than Carter’s. But I’m not sure that’s right. FDR, after all, […]

The Financial Times has a good story today on a new twist in the mortgage market. Namely, banks have stopped offering mortgages in buildings that haven’t already sold a sufficient quantity of units. In one case, a buyer with “stellar credit” and a 25 percent downpayment couldn’t get a mortgage because the luxury development she […]

Kathleen Sebelius is expected to win a fairly easy confirmation today. Some Senators have spoken of delay, but few suggest there’s any hope of marshaling a consequential number of “no” votes. And so we will have our Secretary of Health and Human Services. Max Baucus’s glowing statement follows the jump:

The Washington Post confirms: Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, according to sources informed on the decision. Specter’s decision would give Democrats a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next Senator from Minnesota. (Former Sen. Norm Coleman is […]

Thought the first: They blew through $100 million? Buh-buh-buh-buh-how? The magazine wasn’t printed on gold leaf. It wasn’t staffed by robots from the future. It didn’t have a Mars bureau. My working assumption has been that the budget meetings went something like this: But presumably that’s not right. Or is it? Thought the second: Someone […]

Swine flu is obviously a bad thing. But it’s a bad thing with outrageously bad timing. Mexico, in particular, was in economic trouble before. The situation is dire now. The sort of policies you implement to quarantine a disease are the reverse of the sort of policies you implement to grow an economy. One requires […]

Fareed Zakaria interviews Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who turns out to be a total downer: Can we really prevent global warming? Or should we be thinking more about adaptation? Building coastal fortifications may be cheaper than halting the release of CO2. Right now, the climate scientists feel that if all humans shut off carbon emissions […]