I’m not a fan of Organizing for Action.  I think they’ve squandered a chance to be effective, and judging from the emails I’ve received from them they’ve focused mainly on things I don’t care about or don’t support.  In short, it’s been much more a centrist/center-left organization than a truly progressive one, because the Obama […]

There are limits to the analogy between Clinton’s 2008 primary contest with Obama and Sanders’s primary contest now with her.  Clinton doesn’t get that.  But she needs to figure it out because the differences matter. — There are limits to the analogy between Clinton’s 2008 primary contest with Obama and Sanders’s primary contest now with […]

When I wrote this post today I wasn’t aware of this piece by Jonathan Cohn (a longtime favorite of mine, dating to his time at The New Republic).  It was published early this morning but I just learned of it (h/t Paul Waldman).  But it makes the same key point that I do in mine. Which […]

We got to the end in June, and I did not put down conditions. I didn’t say, ‘you know what, if Senator Obama does X, Y, and Z, maybe I’ll support him.’ I said, ‘I’m supporting Senator Obama, because no matter what our differences might be, they pale in comparison to the differences between us […]

So Sanders and Clinton are arguing about soda taxes — Clinton for, as a way to raise money for good stuff while discouraging self­-destructive behavior, Sanders against, because regressive. I have no illusions that rational argument will make much difference in the short run; we’re in that stage where anything Clinton supports is ipso facto […]

by Linda Beale Should simplicity be a primary goal of tax reform? I was at a housewarming party last Saturday and talked to quite a few people I didn’t know.  One was an economics professor at a regional school.  Naturally, economists and tax professors gravitate towards talk about the economy and tax policies, so it […]

by Peter Dorman (from Econospeak) Pet Peeve: An America that Sees Only Itself This is a small but typical example: the New York Times today ran a story about frictions in the switch to embedded-chip credit cards.  The process has been bumpy, and retailers think the banks and payment processors have been exploiting them, while […]

Linda is returning to blogging again.  Welcome back.   Dan by Linda Beale Finance Committee acts/doesn’t act on important Tax Court, Social Security, and HHS Appointments As the Senate Finance Committee continued work on its markup yesterday, it approved several important nominees for positions in the Social Security Administration and in the Tax Court, but […]

New York primary results: track the votes live Raw numbers are funny. But Trump’s admittedly massive victory tonight over his rivals doesn’t even mean he could deliver his own State in November. This works both ways. I am feeling the Bern but understand that his relative massive wins in the Mountain West don’t mean much […]

I’m getting really good at recognizing instantly the latest vapid or ridiculous soundbite that Clinton has settled on and will be repeating again and again.  So I detected her latest one the moment she introduced it at last Thursday’s debate: It’s easy to diagnose the problem. You’ve got to be able to solve the problem. […]