In the Comments thread today to my post yesterday titled “Clinton Announces When She Will Disclose Her Healthcare Insurance Improvement Plan: She’ll announce it just as soon as the Republican presidential candidates tell us theirs,” reader Urban Legend wrote, as part of a several-paragraph comment: While a single payer plan is superior in theory — […]

Paul Krugman has been incessantly complaining about some Sanders supporters who accuse him and other high-profile Sanders critics, especially academics, of conflict of interest. The Sanders supporters allege all manner of self-interested reasons for the Sanders animus, much of it (including Krugman’s) expressed with vitriol. I’m not among the Sanders supporters who subscribe to the […]

— Clinton [at a CNN-sponsored town hall last night in South Carolina] promised to go hard after Wall Street. The former Secretary of State faced criticism in a different department: her failure to release transcripts of paid speeches given to Goldman Sachs. “Sure, I’ll do it if everybody else does,” the former Secretary demurred, circling back to a familiar refrain […]

And let me say that the great thing about a progressive agenda is that it doesn’t require big growth promises to make it work, because the elements of that agenda are good things in their own right. Conservatives need to promise miracles to justify policies whose direct effect is to comfort the comfortable (cutting taxes […]

Bernie Sanders hates the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which held that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums advocating for their preferred candidate. Who doesn’t? Citizens United was a deeply misguided decision that vastly underestimated the state’s compelling interest in preventing the appearance of corruption that massive corporate electioneering inevitably creates. […]

Nicholas Kristof’s and Linda Greenhouse’s.  They’re on different subjects but, in my opinion, part and parcel of the same thing. ____ ADDENDUM: Reader Sandi and I exchanged these comments in the Comments thread here this morning: Sandi February 19, 2016 9:03 am One way Kristoff didn’t mention that amasses huge fortunes is our tax laws, […]

Sarah Kliff has a very helpful account of Vermont’s attempt to create a state-level single-payer health care system, and why it failed. It’s a bit like the old joke about the farmer, asked for directions, who says “Well, I wouldn’t start from here.” The point is not that single-payer is a bad idea. It is that given […]

The Clinton campaign is set to air this new, minute-long ad in Iowa and New Hampshire that has the feel of a closing argument: [picture from ad of a very solemn-faced Secretary of State Clinton standing next to Obama at the funeral of a fallen soldier or marine, and a link to the ad.] — […]

[T]there are serious questions about how we’re going to pay for what we want to see our country do. And, I’m the only candidate standing here tonight who has said I will not raise taxes on the middle class. I want to raise incomes, not taxes, and I’m going to do everything I can to […]

Second, single-payer would require a lot of additional tax revenue — and we would be talking about taxes on the middle class, not just the wealthy. It’s true that higher taxes would be offset by a sharp reduction or even elimination of private insurance premiums, but it would be difficult to make that case to […]