Archive
Progressive Breakfast - 5/12/2009
Health Care Mojo Bloomberg reports the Senate is moving on health care: "The Senate Finance Committee spelled out alternatives for overhauling the U.S. health-care system, including a mandate that all Americans get health coverage and creation of a government-run...
Progressive Breakfast: Insurers Play Ball With White House
Insurers Play Ball With White House NYT on major health care announcement today: "Doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies will join President Obama on Monday in announcing their commitment to a sharp reduction in the growth of national health spending,...
Progressive Breakfast - 5/11/2009
Insurers Play Ball With White House NYT on major health care announcement today: "Doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies will join President Obama on Monday in announcing their commitment to a sharp reduction in the growth of national health spending,...
Jack Kemp and Taxes: The Final Irony
Tax-cutters inspired by Jack Kemp have always argued that high tax rates give the rich an incentive to cheat on their taxes. The reality: So do low tax rates. Jack Kemp, the 1996 Republican vice-presidential nominee, died a week ago Saturday from cancer. Two days...
Good deficit, bad deficit.
Obama has introduced his budget, and people are hyperventilating about the deficit. Piling “debt on the backs of our kids and our grandkids,” declares House minority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). "Bloated," exclaims Democrat Evan Bayh of Nebraska. With all the...
Wrong Way Steny
Wrong Way Riegels became a football legend when Roy Riegels, captain of the California football team in the 1929 Rose Bowl picked up a fumble and rumbled the wrong way down the field. He was prevented from scoring a touchdown for the opposing team only when one of his...
Will The Senate Stop The Credit-Card Loan Sharks?
In Poultney, Vt., a small town near Lake St. Catherine near the Vermont-New York border, "Walter" had been running a small business during the summer for 43 years—until a rectangular piece of plastic helped bring him down. Walter, as he referred to himself in a letter...
Progressive Breakfast: The Muddle-Through Strategy
Unemployment Up in April Labor Dept. reports this AM: " Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent … Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In...
Progressive Breakfast - 5/8/2009
Unemployment Up in April Labor Dept. reports this AM: " Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent ... Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In...
390 Years Minus 100 Days, Pt. 4 of 5
Now, what did he do that for? That was my first thought when our newly-minted attorney general reached for his own rhetorical handful of elephant, as in the previous examples. Not because I thought he was wrong, but because he was saying what was virtually unsayable...
