Howard Fineman writes about the “Conservative Crackup”: President George W. Bush may have no military exit strategy for Iraq, but the “neocons” who convinced him to go to war there have developed one of their own – a political one: Blame the Administration. Their neo-Wilsonian theory is correct, they insist, but the execution was botched […]

The headline inflation numbers in the estimates of consumer and producer price inflation during September were pretty spectacular; in fact, yesterday’s PPI report showed a one-month increase in producer prices that was the highest in 31 years. But most of the inflation indicated by these headline numbers was caused by one thing alone: sharply higher […]

Jerry Bowyer of NRO Fuzzcharts fame found something interesting: President Bush’s economic policies have created an environment that is highly conducive to the prosperity of racial minorities. BuzzCharts knows this assertion might shock some people, even those who are supporters of President George W. Bush. The Bush administration clearly is better at helping African Americans […]

It appears that the President’s commission studying fundamental tax reform is nearing its final recommendations. From the NYTimes: WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 – President Bush’s tax advisory commission agreed today to recommend two alternative tax plans, both of which would limit or eliminate almost all tax deductions, including the ones for state and local income and […]

The funds for retirement for many workers will come from a variety of sources including Social Security (a publicly run defined benefits plan), private defined benefits plans, defined contribution plans, and even bank accounts. Just as FDIC and FSLIC were designed to provide insurance for bank accounts, PBGC was designed to provide insurance for private […]

I oppose Proposition 75, which is mislabeled paycheck protection. My local newspaper endorsed it: IN 1998, THIS PAGE OPPOSED Proposition 226, the so-called paycheck-protection measure that sought to bar labor unions from spending a member’s dues for political activities in the absence of that member’s consent. We considered that initiative a disingenuous “good government” move […]

Michael Mandel replies to James Hamilton: Moreover, he also doesn’t point that the real consumption per person is actually reduced by the amount of additional savings … The pro-savings people are asking us to accept a sure decline in living standards today, in exchange for the possibility of a moderate increase in income somewhere off […]

Kevin Drum provides us California voters who may be confused by the lies we hear on TV a couple of favors. The point of his post is to alert us to the very good analysis from Brad Plumer as to why Proposition 77 is not reforming how we do redistricting as much as it is […]

Fall is in the air. For us Southern Californians that means the first rains of the season. For the seasons of the housing market, it means falling real prices. Although we will not know for sure until the Q3 OFHEO House Price Index is released on December 1st, it is very likely that real housing […]

ThinkProgress watches Faux News so we don’t have to: Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, commenting on Fox News Sunday about the leak scandal: KRISTOL: But talking to people pretty close to both Libby and Rove outside of government, who therefore can talk about it, I think they expect the worse now. I think […]