Month: February 2005
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Cato and Bush keep using “privatization”/”private accounts”
Very interesting – I just received a fundraising letter from the Cato Institute, and they use the term “Social Security privatization” right on page 1 even though conservatives are waging a campaign against use of the term. Cato did change the name of their Social Security project from “Project on Social Security Privatization” to “Project
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The machine back at work
The Republican machine that savaged Tom Daschle from 2001 until his defeat in November has turned its attention to Harry Reid, the new Democratic leader in the Senate. Here’s the story from Roll Call (via Tapped): The Republican National Committee is set to begin a prolonged attack against newly installed Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid
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The not-so-responsible era
George W. Bush, 3/7/02: “America is ushering in a responsibility era; a culture regaining a sense of personal responsibility, where each of us understands we’re responsible for the decisions we make in life.”
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“The new conservative political correctness”
E.J. Dionne notices the nasty new racial politics being practiced by conservatives: [I]ncreasingly, it is conservatives who are using political correctness to sidestep hard issues. Consider the bait-and-switch in the Gonzales case: Democrats thought it appropriate to use Gonzales’s nomination to launch a debate about torture policy. Gonzales is Latino. Therefore, Republicans insisted, Democrats who
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How to actually build an ownership society
The New America Foundation’s Ray Boshara makes a strong case for promoting asset ownership through social policy in the Washington Post today, including establishing “a privately owned ‘KIDS Account’ at birth for each of the 4 million children born in this country every year and fund those accounts progressively — thus creating a lifetime platform
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Redistricting reform fever!
The grassroots (and Gov. Arnold) are calling for an end to incumbent protection rackets from coast to coast. The New York Times
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Reality check in the White House?
In the Times today, Edmund Andrews
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Clarke on democracy promotion
Richard Clarke kicks off his New York Times Magazine column with
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An honest anti-privatizer
Private account opponents are becoming annoyingly glib about the real financing issues that Social Security faces, which is only going to make it harder to muster the political will that we’re going to need to alleviate the shortfall (either now or down the road). So I was happy to see Jeff Madrick offer an intellectually
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Farm subsidies on the chopping block
If only Nixon could go to China, maybe only George W. Bush