Once more republicans in congress are planning to fight over the debt ceiling, refusing to raise it unless the president defunds health reform. Barack Obama insists that the debt ceiling is “not a bargaining chip”. Health reform is the primary lasting legislative achievement of his administration, and he insists he will not abandon it. The trouble is that Tea Party republicans don’t believe his threat to starve them out is credible. Why is that? That’s the topic of today’s post.
Tag: Debt
Only 6% of Voters Know Anything
I am often told that I take too negative a view of the average voter, that people do not need to be experts to vote well or to have good political instincts. I am not the least bit troubled by these critiques. Why? Because I continue to stumble upon utterly depressing statistics. These statistics show that contrary to our optimistic inclinations or general idealistic hopefulness, the average voter is well and truly spectacularly ignorant. The one I wish to discuss today certainly blew my mind–perhaps it will blow yours.
Americans Still Don’t Know What Sequestration Is
I haven’t been doing much writing about the US economy lately, in part because there’s been no substantive movement on the issue politically since sequestration went through. All we’ve gotten lately are some retread hopey changey speeches from Obama and threats of future government shutdowns from congressional republicans. Nonetheless, these are the first signs that we will soon be having more unproductive fights about the economy with potentially devastating consequences for growth, so I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled. And, lo and behold, I stumbled on a little poll from Gallup.
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Evaluating Erdogan
Recently there have been demonstrations against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The demonstrations began because the government was intending to demolish a park in Istanbul (not Constantinople) and replace it with a shopping mall. This relatively pedestrian protest escalated when the Turkish government removed the protesters in a violent police raid. The target of the protests has now expanded from the park to the policies of Erdogan more broadly, specifically the social conservatism of his government and its tendency to give preference to Islam in its legislation. A lot of people in the media in developed states have begun referring to this as a “Turkish Spring”, and the default reaction has been to support the protesters, assuming that they are under governments similar to those that prevailed in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other such places. The instinct is to view Turkey as just another Middle Eastern country protesting a generically malevolent government. A poor job has been done of evaluating the Turkish situation specifically, of giving the Erdogan government a fair evaluation. Today, I’d like to contribute to rectifying that.
Elizabeth Warren’s Student Loan Mistake
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently come out with a proposal to make the interest rates on federal student loans identical to the interest rates the federal government gives to large banks. This sounds really progressive and wonderful, and it is no doubt well-intentioned, but it is, unfortunately, an extremely misguided and foolish policy. Here’s why.
Benjamin Studebaker 