In the American tradition, governments have a purpose – a reason or set of reasons that they exist at all. The Founding Fathers felt compelled to make this clear – first, in the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their […]
In a post reviewing President Obama’s new economic proposals, Ezra Klein also goes after the idea that the Obama administraiton is somehow “anti-business”. He sums it up this way: The various stimulus measures have been designed to directly support businesses or indirectly support the people who those businesses rely on. It’s just a variation on […]
Building on my post yesterday, I want to stress that my vision of economic liberty is aimed at individuals and families. I think if we had this framework for thinking about economic matters, the financial bailouts of the last year or so might have looked completely different. We’ve spent a great deal of money and […]
I want to suggest a new way for liberals and progressives to think about their arguments for government-delivered social programs – economic liberty. It strikes me that most often we see arguments supporting everything from Social Security to health care reform framed in three ways: security, equality of opportunity, and a question of rights. These […]
I’ve pretty much been on board with the idea that we need to save the financial system in order to help re-start the economy. I’m not happy with many of the specifics (I generally think the existing financial players are getting too many breaks), but I’m willing to see the government do something to keep […]
Conservatives spend a lot of time belly-aching about “patriotism.” (Actually, they’ve been pretty effective at it and have pretty much owned the word. More work for liberals to do…) But what counts as patriotic is not that simple, especially in a globalized economic age. The bailouts of the auto industry being managed by the Obama […]
Conservatives love to talk about how “welfare” and “entitlement” programs destroy the character of Americans by undermining their willingness to work and generate economic prosperity. There are all sorts of problem with this view. Among them, what’s the evidence? There are plenty of rich people who could retire today with a high quality of life, […]
I’ve been critical of Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post before, but I thought this column was very good. I especially liked toward the end as he talked about the cultural changes we’re going to have to make: Then there is Richard “Is This America?” Kovacevich, the chairman of Wells Fargo. Late last week, Kovacevich […]
Missed this earlier this week, but Durbin is backing a Financial Products Safety Commission modeled on the Consumer Products Safety Commission. The New Republic has more about the origins of the idea with Elizabeth Warren. The details of such a plan always matter, but in general, I think this is a great idea. Over the […]
An excellent article by Jonathan Chait in the New Republic evaluating conservative claims against the New Deal. Part of what I like is that he makes it clear that liberals are not muddle-headed about the New Deal. Some parts did not work and should not be repeated, while many parts did work and should not […]
Bill Poorman 