Ezra Klein: August 23, 2009 - August 29, 2009
Tab Dump
• Do we need another Church Committee? • Rumor is that Mario Batali is opening a restaurant in DC. • Blame Congress for the deficit. • Did the Education Department kill Reading Rainbow? Sigh. We'll miss you, Reading Rainbow....
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August 28, 2009; 6:49 PM ET |
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What Happened to Chuck Grassley's Deficit-Improving Health-Care Plan?
Chuck Grassley on whether the "Gang of Six" will reach a deal when the Senate returns in September: If you asked me that on Aug. 6, I would have said yes, I think so, September. But you’re asking me...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 6:08 PM ET |
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Health Reform
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Ted Kennedy's (Interim) Successor
Like Matt Yglesias, I'm puzzled by the charge that it's somehow hypocritical for the Massachusetts legislature to modify their 2004 modification to their succession laws. Basically, the 2004 change blocked Mitt Romney from appointing a successor if John Kerry vacated...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 6:03 PM ET |
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Let's All Go to the Movies ...
I finally saw "District 9" last night. Good movie! Thought I'd let it get a bit overhyped. Go in expecting a somewhat gruesome horror/survival film rather than an incisive art film, or an action-oriented summer blockbuster, and you'll really enjoy...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 5:40 PM ET |
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Movies
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Burn Carbon Responsibly
One thing that Elizabeth Kolbert's broadside against eco-stunt literature (the books about going green by living without carbon, or electricity, or trash, or toilet paper) didn't do a very good job of explaining is that making sensible decisions about...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 5:34 PM ET |
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Climate Change
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He's Just Not That Into H.R. 3200
Howard Gleckman: It is interesting, and perhaps worth noting, that while political opposition seems to be hardening against the $1 trillion, ten-year cost of the early versions of health reform, barely a peep of concern has been raised about the...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 3:47 PM ET |
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Let's Make a Deal!
On the question of whether the GOP is, or is not, interested in a deal on health-care reform, it's worth noting that not a single Republican senator, at least to my knowledge, has released a clear document explaining what concessions...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 3:38 PM ET |
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I Am the Uninsured
I didn't know I was uninsured. Didn't have any reason to believe I was uninsured. But, for the past four months, I've been among the uninsured. The story actually starts a decade ago, when I was a part-time tutor for...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 2:50 PM ET |
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Health Reform
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Lunch Break
Inside a meeting of Obama's "death panel." Death Panel Advisors - watch more funny videos...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 1:16 PM ET |
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We Ration. We Ration. We Ration. We Ration.
"Look at Canada," says Charles Krauthammer. "Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we." So do we. This is not an arguable proposition. It is not a difference of opinion, or a conversation about semantics....
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 12:45 PM ET |
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Health Reform
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Much-Too-Big-to-Fail
Remember that too-big-to-fail problem we had when a bunch of banks started failing last year? We solved it in an interesting way: by making a bunch of banks bigger by helping them eat banks that would otherwise have failed. As...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 12:14 PM ET |
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Financial Regulation
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Solutions
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Harry Reid Supports the Public Option
As the Gang of Six process falls apart, health-care reform is increasingly Sen. Harry Reid's problem. But until now, Reid has been pretty tight-lipped about his approach to the issue. On Tuesday, however, Reid (D) offered one of the...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 11:38 AM ET |
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No More Regrets
As Steve Pearlstein writes, Ted Kennedy's greatest legislative regret was failing to strike a deal on health-care reform when Richard Nixon seemed ready to cut one with him. "The simple lesson from this story," writes Pearlstein, "and certainly the one...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 11:28 AM ET |
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Health Reform
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Is the Housing Tax Credit a Rip-Off?
This morning's Express had a spread on the D.C. real estate market arguing new buyers are -- and should be -- flooding in to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit that expires Dec. 1. "We expect a condo frenzy...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 10:17 AM ET |
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Categories:
Housing Crisis
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Solutions
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Taxes
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'They Frankly Own the Place'
Adair Turner, head of Britain's Financial Services Authority, is arguing that the attention to bonuses is, at best, a “populist diversion” from policies that would really slow the financial sector. Among those policies? A global financial transactions tax. I agree...
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Ezra Klein
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August 28, 2009; 10:07 AM ET |
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Financial Regulation
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Tab Dump
• In my chat today, someone suggested a fantasy Congress league. Turns out there already is one. • What's wrong with eco-stunts. • Are soccer players afraid of planes? • The Onion asks: Is using a Minotaur to gore detainees...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 6:53 PM ET |
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Mark Peterson on Senate Committees
In reply to this post, Mark Peterson, a political scientist at UCLA, e-mails a more expert take on the culture and rules of the Senate's "power committees." Long ago Richard Fenno wrote about the congressional committees and the differences among...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 6:19 PM ET |
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Senate
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Is the Deficit Being Used as a Distraction?
Jon Gabel had an important op-ed yesterday noting that the Congressional Budget Office has a fairly consistent record of underestimating the savings and overestimating the costs of changes to Medicare. In the 80s, the CBO estimated that payment changes would...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 6:11 PM ET |
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Health Economics
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Health Reform
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Quagmire Thinking
Michael Crowley catches Bruce Riedel offering this justification for ramping up the fight in Afghanistan: The triumph of jihadism or the jihadism of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in driving NATO out of Afghanistan would resonate throughout the Islamic World.This...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 5:08 PM ET |
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Afghanistan
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Is Ben Nelson in Hock to Big Nebraska?
A Research 2000/Daily Kos poll shows that Nebraskans approve of Ben Nelson's approach to health-care reform and oppose the public option. That's not surprising. Nebraskans are conservative. And given that their Democratic senator is painting health-care reform as liberal overreach...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 4:26 PM ET |
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A Post-Finance Job Market
Harvard economist Ben Friedman isn't the first to suggest that the financial sector does some serious damage to the rest of the economy by siphoning off the most talented graduates and putting them to work "ensur[ing] that microscopically small...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 3:34 PM ET |
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Solutions
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Who Is the Dealmaker?
Earlier today, I did a spot on CBS Unplugged (a weird name for an Internet show. Maybe it's all wifi?), and they asked who, in Kennedy's absence, can broker the final deal on health care. The problem is that there's...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 2:53 PM ET |
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Replacing Kennedy
Looks like the effort to allow Deval Patrick to appoint an interim senator to Ted Kennedy's seat is gaining steam in Massachusetts. The House speaker has apparently given his blessing to the effort, and a hearing has moved forward to...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 1:57 PM ET |
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Chat Transcript: Like 20 Blog Posts in One
Austin, Tex.: Good morning, Ezra. Is there collusion going on between insurance companies and health-care providers (hospitals, doctors) to help generate profits for both? Is this something the FTC should look in to? Are lobbyists for the industry successful at...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 1:10 PM ET |
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What Will Chris Dodd Do?
Speaking of Senate Committees, Kennedy's death throws things into a bit of chaos. Tim Fernholz has a good rundown here. The basic lay of the land is this: Everything depend on Chris Dodd, who chairs the Banking Committee and...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 1:00 PM ET |
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Senate
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Committee Questions
It's true that Ted Kennedy could only rack up his incredible list of achievements because he was elected as a young man and thus had the time to amass incredible seniority. The same goes for Joe Biden, or Max Baucus,...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 12:06 PM ET |
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Senate
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Rise of the (Military) Robots
Matt Yglesias is worried that the military can't handle the coming of the drones: The military [...] is an institutional culture that puts a great deal of stock on honor, courage, and difficult physical work. A service that consists of...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 11:35 AM ET |
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Chat With Me
I've got one of those Post live chats at noon eastern. Sounds like fun, right? But it could all go horribly wrong. You may all refuse to ask questions, or participate. In that case, I'll just be sitting in a...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 10:59 AM ET |
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More on Organizing the Poor
From a reader: I would point out that the Center for Community Change attempts to actually mobilize grassroots groups of low-income people. (They don’t have the influence of, say, CBPP but perhaps that’s a tough standard to meet.) When I’ve...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 10:57 AM ET |
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Poverty
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By Any Means Possible
Mark Schmitt, a former staffer on the Senate Finance Committee, recalls a small anecdote that says a lot about Kennedy's style as a legislator: Early on in the period when I was working for Sen. Bill Bradley, Bradley decided to...
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Ezra Klein
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August 27, 2009; 10:16 AM ET |
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Tab Dump
• Remembrances of Ted Kennedy, from those who knew him best. • A long interview with Frank Bruni. • Why did Chuck Grassley and Max Baucus vote for Medicare Part D? • Amanda Marcotte and Matt Yglesias want their deaths...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 6:35 PM ET |
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Politics and the Poor
Alec MacGillis has a good piece in the American Prospect on the difficulty politicians have talking about poverty. It reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a smart social policy advocate on this topic, and have been...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 6:06 PM ET |
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Remembering Ted Kennedy: An Interview With Former Sen. Harris Wofford
Former Sen. Harris Wofford has long been among the Kennedy family's confidantes. When John F. Kennedy ran for president, it was Wofford who convinced JFK to make his fateful call to Coretta Scott King after Martin Luther King Jr. was...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 4:52 PM ET |
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Interviews
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Are the Midterms Affecting the Senate?
People tend to imagine that the Democratic senators who are balking on health care are concerned about their reelection. But unlike in the House, where every single incumbent needs to face the voters in 2010, relatively few of the key...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 4:49 PM ET |
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The Ted Kennedy Affordable Health Choices Act
Sen. Robert Byrd has arguably the most obvious reaction to Ted Kennedy's death: Name the health-care bill in his memory. Given that his committee is one of the two that passed the bill, and that his staff took the lead...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 4:20 PM ET |
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Confused About Insurance
It's no mystery why the insurance market isn't competitive from the standpoint of individuals: Most of us don't choose our insurer. Twelve percent of us are on Medicare. Thirteen percent are on Medicaid. Fifteen percent are uninsured. And 53.4 percent...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 4:06 PM ET |
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Health Coverage
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Health Reform
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'The Man Who Found Himself'
A lot of today's tributes have focused on Ted Kennedy the legislative giant, or at least Ted Kennedy the great man. Joe Klein's eulogy, however, gets at Ted Kennedy, the human being, and is all the more touching for it....
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 3:19 PM ET |
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Why Are Senators So Cynical and Immoral?
Matt Yglesias is still puzzling through "the high degree of cynicism and immorality displayed in big-time politics.” The question isn't the mechanism: Desire for reelection provides plenty of explanation for why people make awful compromises to ensure their safety. The...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 3:01 PM ET |
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Senate
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Glimmers of Hope on Housing?
The Case-Shiller housing index saw a slight rise in housing prices last quarter. It wasn't a lot, but it's enough to spark some welcome optimism: You could peer into this data and see troubling things, too: The tax credit that's...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 1:40 PM ET |
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Solutions
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Lunch Break
Greg Sargent digs up a YouTube of Ted Kennedy arguing for universal heath care on the floor of the Senate — in 1971. "Kennedy is introduced by none other than Walter Cronkite," notes Sargent, "who also passed away recently, underscoring...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 12:36 PM ET |
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Lunch Break
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Kennedy and Compromise
"Many Democrats loved Kennedy for the same reason that some Republicans hated him," writes Julian Zelizer. "He was a true believer in a political system that privileges compromise and the abandonment of principle. Kennedy was not that kind of...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 12:17 PM ET |
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Senate
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Are Democrats Setting Themselves Up for Electoral Catastrophe?
James Morone is the co-author of a new book on presidential efforts to pass health-care reform, and Short Stack, the Post's book blog, asked him weigh in on the current tussle. Moderate Democrats, he says, are making a terrible tactical...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 11:48 AM ET |
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Health Reform
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The Pressure on Chuck Grassley
Most of the commentary on Chuck Grassley's truculence and back-pedaling has focused on his potential primary challenge and fear of the Iowa electorate. But that's not terribly convincing: According to Survey USA, Grassley has a 62 percent approval rating, and...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 11:22 AM ET |
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Health Reform
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Some Ted Kennedy Links
• The piece he wrote for Newsweek on July explaining why health-care reform was "the cause of my life." • Harold Meyerson's perfect, beautiful remembrance. • Kennedy's speech before the 1980 Democratic Convention, in which he declared that "the dream...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 10:46 AM ET |
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The Cause of Ted Kennedy's Life
"This is the cause of my life," Ted Kennedy wrote. "For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a...
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Ezra Klein
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August 26, 2009; 9:37 AM ET |
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Tab Dump
• Is reading the best way to teach writing? • Ross Douthat and I agree: People should read Gene Healy's "The Cult of the President." • Conventional wisdom holds that people crave comfort food in times of change. Apparently not....
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 6:38 PM ET |
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Misremembering the Past
I'm going to quote pretty much this whole post from Nick Beaudrot because it's really, really, really good: It's simply not meaningful to compare the present circumstances to those faced by Lyndon Johnson or Franklin Roosevelt when it comes to...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 6:04 PM ET |
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Government
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History
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This Vote Goes Out to the Big Guy
I'm not a big sports fan. But I do enjoy the post-game interviews, wherein a member of the, say, Cavaliers, thanks God for his victory, implying that God simply wanted the Clippers to lose that day (in fact, it seems...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 5:03 PM ET |
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Swine Flu Hearts Our Health-Care System
The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology released its big report (pdf) on H1N1 on Tuesday. Some of the news was pretty sobering: The council estimates that swine flu could infect up to half of the population this...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 4:31 PM ET |
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Health Coverage
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Health Reform
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The Perfect Fed Chairman?
The perfect Federal Reserve chairman, writes Simon Johnson, would have had both the right jobs before the crisis and the right opinions before the crisis. "Unfortunately," he says, "there is essentially no one who meets both criteria." The people with...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 3:39 PM ET |
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Federal Reserve
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Don't Like Michael Steele's Position on Medicare? Wait a Day.
When last we saw RNC Chairman Michael Steele, he was telling seniors that "we need to protect Medicare and not cut it in the name of 'health-insurance reform.' " Today? Well, today he's telling Fox News that "the reality of...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 2:49 PM ET |
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Republicans
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The Problem With Food Diaries
As part of my research for an upcoming Food section column, I've been spending some time with David Cutler, Ed Glaeser and Jesse Shapiro's excellent paper exploring the rise in obesity. More on the main conclusions to come, but this...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 2:23 PM ET |
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Food
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The Coming Budget Battle
The mid-session budget review, says budget expert Stan Collender, suggests one main thing: Next year's budget "will start the biggest fight over the budget and fiscal policy in U.S. history." Collender thinks the battle will dwarf that of the...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 1:11 PM ET |
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Budget
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Lunch Break
Insurocorp would like to thank you for defeating socialism, and it has some other ideas for socialist institutions that should be defeated. Act now, and they'll give you 10 percent off in our new privatized utopia! We Defeated Socialism! INSUROCORP!...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 12:38 PM ET |
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Q&A With Simon Johnson
Not on this blog. But elsewhere on The Washington Post site, Simon Johnson will be doing a chat on the implications of reappointing Ben Bernanke. You can submit questions here, or just join in at 1 eastern. When it's finished,...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 12:30 PM ET |
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Rep. Dave Camp Forgets That Republicans Are Not in Charge
Rep. Dave Camp, the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, responded to the mid-session budget review by declaring that "if the House Democrats' unaffordable $1 trillion health care bill wasn't dead before, it should be now." This doesn't...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 11:57 AM ET |
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Health Reform
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Three Ways to Look at the Budget Review
There are three possible ledes you could write on the mid-session budget review (pdf). The first is that the 2009 deficit will be lower than expected because the financial crisis has, effectively, ended. Projections were for the deficit to reach...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 11:33 AM ET |
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Budget
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How America Lost the War on Drugs
Apropos of nothing in particular, if anyone out there hasn't spent some time reading Ben Wallace-Wells's masterful Rolling Stone feature detailing America's failed war on drugs, they should change that. Print it out and read it over lunch. You can...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 11:19 AM ET |
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Gonna Party Like It's 1965
My colleague Greg Sargent notes that Michael Steele isn't sounding so much like a Republican from 1994 as a Republican from 1964: Steele, for instance, warned that “we need to prohibit government from getting between seniors and their doctors,” adding...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 10:31 AM ET |
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History
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Republicans
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Why Did Obama Reappoint Bernanke on His Vacation?
The surprise isn't that Barack Obama reappointed Ben Bernanke. It's that he announced reappointing Ben Bernanke today. Obama is on vacation in Martha's Vineyard. It's a rare person who reappoints the Fed chairman in order to relax. Nor was...
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Ezra Klein
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August 25, 2009; 10:22 AM ET |
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Federal Reserve
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Tab Dump
• An interesting piece on research suggesting that we don't think about statements so much as instantaneously react and then use thinking to rationalize the feeling. • The uninsured speak out. • Could Afghanistan become Obama's Vietnam? • Welfare for...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 7:00 PM ET |
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Political Conservatives, Personal Statists
Daniel Gross says obvious, and true, things: If you add the failure of employer-linked health care with Medicare, Medicaid, government employment and the military, a huge chunk of Americans already have taxpayer-funded health care. It's a diverse lot. Rich old...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 6:35 PM ET |
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The High Cost of Knowledge
Niraj Choksi runs the numbers and finds something interesting: Education costs have been rising even faster than medical costs: Per capita spending on health care is more than $7,000. It's nowhere near as high in education, and so this is...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 6:02 PM ET |
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Charts and Graphs
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Education
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The Other Klein Says True Things
I wish Joe Klein was wrong about this: How can you sustain a democracy if one of the two major political parties has been overrun by nihilists? And another question: How can you maintain the illusion of journalistic impartiality when...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 5:31 PM ET |
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Where Are Reform's Beneficiaries?
"The main constituency for health reform consists of people who don’t think the present system is fundamentally sound," writes Matt Yglesias. "That’s a big part of the reason the public plan element of Obama’s proposals has become such an emotional...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 5:06 PM ET |
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Health Reform
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Michael Steele Hearts Single-Payer Health Care
There's no real secret behind Michael Steele's sudden adoration of Medicare: Seniors are the age group most solidly opposed to health-care reform, they vote in particularly large numbers in midterm elections, and they are uniquely active on the local level....
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 4:38 PM ET |
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Health Reform
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Is Ted Kennedy the Missing Ingredient?
Speaking to George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, John McCain argued that the real hindrance to health-care reform is the absence of Sen. Ted Kennedy. "It's huge that he's absent," McCain said, "not only because of my personal affection for him, but...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 3:42 PM ET |
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Health Reform
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Be Excited!
Michael Tomasky has a nice piece on what I've come to call "the dull reality of change": So now, liberals have to fight hard for something they're not terribly excited about. A health bill will likely have a very...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 3:07 PM ET |
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Health Reform
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More on Reporting the Lies
One more thing that needs to be said on the media's role in health-care misinformation: This is not the fault of any -- or at least most -- individual reporters. Journalists hear this sort of criticism and, quite rightly, get...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 2:35 PM ET |
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Journalism
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Letting Serious Crises Not Happen
As E.J. Dionne says, "Things could have been a whole lot worse" is not a very effective political slogan. Not only that, but it's not a very effective political strategy. The history of social change in America is that periods...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 12:08 PM ET |
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Reporting the Lies
Every day, my inbox fills with dozens of press releases, tips and advisories. Most of them tell of something that is already happening, or that is scheduled to happen in the near future. My involvement isn't necessary for the...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 11:35 AM ET |
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Journalism
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This Week's Think Tank
1) Families USA offers up 10 reasons to support health-care reform. The public plan is only one of them, and not the most compelling. 2) The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities outlines the five key questions for the new...
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 10:29 AM ET |
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Think Tank
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The Yesbuts
Read Kevin Drum on the Yesbuts. "These guys are infinitely worse than the flat-out nutters," Drum says, and he's right....
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Ezra Klein
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August 24, 2009; 8:30 AM ET |
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The 'Recession' Excuse
Joe Lieberman's heterodoxies were, for a time, quite contained. He might have been a Kristol-ite neoconservative on foreign policy, but he remained a Connecticut liberal on domestic and social policy. That was before Ned Lamont's challenge, and before Lieberman...
By
Ezra Klein
|
August 24, 2009; 8:20 AM ET |
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