A few years ago, I got pulled over on my bicycle by a police officer, also riding a bike, because I wasn't wearing a helmet -- which the officer incorrectly said was required by law. It's episodes like that which give the nanny state a bad name.
Few values matter more to Americans than freedom. And now, as key provisions of the Affordable Care Act take effect, America is becoming a freer country. That's certainly how Katie R. Norvell sees it. The New York Times quotes this 33-year-old music therapist, who has been uninsured for three and a
Middle-class Blacks are using credit to help cover their basic living expenses, according to a report from the NAACP and public policy research organization Demos. In the recession’s aftermath, 79 percent of middle-class African-American households carry credit card debt.
The New York Times reported this morning (echoing the reporting of Greg Sargent and others earlier this year) that Democrats plan to campaign on raising the minimum wage during the election season. Aside from being good economic policy, raising the minimum wage is quite popular,
If affluent people decide that cities are great places to live, how do we stop lower and middle income people from being priced out? That's a tough and complex problem, but not one that Alec MacGillis seriously addresses in his gratuitously snarky attack on Richard Florida in the New Republic.
Once upon a time, conservatives were famously good at what George Lakoff called "moral politics." They won over Americans with simple -- often simplistic -- value propositions. Progressives, meanwhile, often struggled with this dimension of politics, gravitating more toward consumerist appeals about
My newest article at The Atlantic examines Vermont’s push for universal healthcare. Rather than reform the individual market and leave the employer-based healthcare system largely intact, Vermont is working towards a Medicare-for-all system. All Vermont citizens will be enrolled in Green Mountain
From the late 1970s through the early 2000s, evangelical Christians were among the most zealous foot soldiers of the New Right. They pushed the Republican Party to a more extreme conservatism and provided the electoral muscle to win key elections. Their power reached new heights in the 1990s, and
