At this point everyone knows about Fix the Debt. It is a collection of corporate CEOs put together by Peter Peterson, the Wall Street private equity mogul. Ostensibly they want to reduce budget deficits and the national debt, but for some reason their attention always seems focused on cutting Social...

The corporate profit share of national income is near a post-World War II high. The share of income going to the richest 1 percent is almost at its pre-Depression peak.

These would seem like impressive accomplishments but the process of upward redistribution, from Joe Sixpack to Joe Six Houses, is...

The accolades for Timothy Geithner came on so thick and heavy in the last week that it's necessary for those of us in the reality-based community to bring the discussion back to earth. The basic facts of the matter are very straightforward. Timothy Geithner and the bailout he helped engineer...

Many people have been asking about the Justice Department's priorities in the wake of the suicide of computer whiz and political activist Aaron Swartz. As has been widely reported, the Justice Department was pressing charges that carried several decades of prison time against Swartz. He was caught hacking M.I.T.'s computer...

According to inside Washington gossip, Congress and the president are going to do exactly what voters elected them to do; they are going to cut Social Security by 3 percent. You don't remember anyone running on that platform? Yeah, well, they probably forgot to mention it.

Of course some people...

That headline has all the D.C. insider types rolling their eyes right now, since they know it is absurd to imagine that President Obama would pick Krugman to be Timothy Geithner's replacement as Treasury Secretary. They aren't wrong, it is absurd. There is no way on earth that Obama would...

The truth is often painful but nonetheless it is important that we live in the real world. Just as little kids have to come to grips with the fact that there is no Santa Claus, it is necessary for millions of liberals, including many who think of themselves as highly...

That is what the headlines would say if anyone really believed that the anti-union laws passed last week in Michigan actually had anything to do with the rights of workers. When the legislature outlawed contracts requiring workers who benefit from union representation to pay for that representation, it...

Ed Haislmaier, a senior scholar at the Heritage Foundation, made himself famous in this video where he appears to be assaulting people protesting a conference organized by Fix the Debt. While this act of bad temper may be uncharacteristic of the public behavior of this corporate-sponsored crusade to...

Fans of arithmetic everywhere know that the large deficits of the last five years are the result of the economic downturn caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. But those taking part in deficit discussions in Washington won't allow such numbers into the discussion.

The Serious People...

At this point almost everyone has heard of Nate Silver, the New York Times polling analyst who had all the pundits looking stupid on election night. Silver managed to call every state exactly right. He ignored the gibberish about momentum or voters' moods and simply focused on the data given...

Washington policy debates are primarily about being admitted to the club of participants rather than about logic and evidence. Until the public understands this fact, there is little chance that the vast majority of people will have much ability to influence the course of policy.

The budget deficit is the...

Resulta notable que la Seguridad Social no haya figurado como una cuestión más destacada en la carrera presidencial. Al fin y al cabo, el gobernador Romney ha propuesto un plan que implicaría recortes de más del 40% para los trabajadores de clase media que...

When Gov. Romney gave his acceptance speech at the Republican convention he quipped that President Obama wants to slow the rise of the oceans and that he, by contrast, wanted to help American families. It would be interesting to see if Romney would care to repeat this line...

One of the major growth industries in Washington is the promotion of budget hysteria. Well-funded groups have weekly, if not daily, events designed to hype the country's budget situation. Much of the national media, most importantly The Washington Post, have enlisted in this effort, devoting both their opinion and news...

Bill Clinton is undoubtedly the greatest politician of his generation. He is also a thoroughly reprehensible character.

Last week he had the gall to complain to people in Wisconsin about "impatient voters." According to a news account, at an Obama rally in Green Bay he said:

"This shouldn't...

While much of the country is focused on the presidential race, the Wall Street gang is waging a different battle; they are preparing an assault on Social Security and Medicare. This attack is not exactly secret. There have been a number of pieces on this corporate-backed campaign in...

President Obama definitely had a bad night when he faced Governor Romney in Denver for the first presidential debate. However, for many listeners the worst moment was not due to his atypical inarticulateness. Rather, the worst moment was when he quite clearly told the country that there was not much...

The Washington political establishment has decided that reducing the debt should be the country's number one economic priority. The tens of millions who are unemployed, underemployed or out of the workforce altogether due to the fallout from the collapse of the housing bubble will just have to wait until things...

That is a pretty simple and important question. Unfortunately most voters are likely to go to the polls this fall without knowing the answer.

If the backdrop to this question is not immediately clear, then you should be very angry at the reporters who cover the campaign. One of the...