Monthly Archives: February 2011

Wow. From the New York Times, Enlisting Prison Labor to Close Budget Gaps: …Prison labor — making license plates, picking up litter — is nothing new, and nearly all states have such programs. But these days, officials are expanding the … Continue reading →

Tim Fernholz wrote an excellent article in the National Journal about the “bait and switch” of Governor Walker’s Wisconsin plan. Fernholz points out that the short-term deficit problem can be covered by debt restructuring, and that the big pieces of the bill … Continue reading →

In 1955, Adali Stevenson gave the commencement speech at Smith College. He told young women: “I think there is much you can do about our [spiritual] crisis in the humble role of housewife. You may be hitched to one of these … Continue reading →

Amidst all the public debate about how states are being bled dry by militant public unions, you wouldn’t know that we just had a major housing bubble across the country followed by a financial system near-collapse and the most prolonged … Continue reading →

- Both Bernard Harcourt (!) and Adam Serwer have followup on the battle over deinstitutionalization and the problems of using weak balance sheets in a recession as a wedge to reduce prison populations. – This blog, which is mostly about … Continue reading →

Kevin Drum had a post about educational achievement and how the United States isn’t doing as bad as popular wisdom would lead you to believe: These figures come from Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, and they show how American kids … Continue reading →

It’s tough to remember now that we are after the Obama campaign, but in 2005 one of the most exciting Centrist Democratic plans for regaining a significant place for liberalism in the country wasn’t finding a foreign policy differentiable from … Continue reading →

Via Mark Thoma, there’s been a round of debate about the winners and losers from free trade, particularly trade with China. See William Polley for a roundup on the question and his summary of the liberal position: “There are winners … Continue reading →

Have you heard about 16.896? The fight in Wisconsin is over Governor Walker’s 144-page Budget Repair Bill. The parts everyone is focusing on have to do with the right to collectively bargain being stripped from public sector unions (except for … Continue reading →

I didn’t believe it at first either, but digging into the data showed otherwise. Let’s back up.   When you do these statistics you have to do them carefully, because you have to compare the total compensation between different types … Continue reading →