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Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone is the latest rich guy to make a fool of out of himself by invoking Nazism to condemn populist attacks on inequality. Langone has apologized, but it’s worth looking beyond the Hitler analogy to more closely examine Langone’s main point that “You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy and jealousy.”

It's no secret that the cost of living varies widely across different parts of the United States, and that it can be much tougher to make ends meet on a low wage job in Manhattan, New York than in Manhattan, Kansas. So here's an obvious idea: Let's improve the Earned Income Tax Credit so that its benefits track with local needs. 

With President Obama proposing an increase to the EITC in his new budget, now's a good moment to look at ways this crucial lifeline for low-income households could work better. 

At worst, this argument can be paternalistic and classist; at best, it misses the forest for the trees. 

Sometime in the next three months – perhaps as early as next week – the Supreme Court will issue its next big campaign finance decision, a ruling that reformers worry will further open floodgates of one-percenter campaign cash. The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, concerns a challenge by the RNC and conservative CEO Shaun McCutcheon to the federal laws restricting how much one person can donate to candidates and party committees each cycle.

As the nation’s trillion-dollar student debt continues to rise, a new analysis of public higher education’s funding finds dwindling state support is the key factor driving rising tuition costs and deepening student debt. According to Demos, a public policy organization advocating economic opportunity and inclusive democracy, over the last two decades state support for higher education funding shifted to a new paradigm.

BOSTON, MA — On Friday, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a series of rulings in Delgado v. Galvin, rejecting defendants' efforts to dismiss parts of the case, adding MassHealth as a defendant, and broadening the inquiry into the statewide failure of Massachusetts public assistance offices to provide federally required voter registration services to the Commonwealth's low-income citizens.

Read the Court's rulings: http://demos.io/1lId2f5

Two trends threaten to dominate government spending for decades to come -- and slowly eviscerate the public sector as a dynamic agent for solving problems. 

Paul Ryan triggered a firestorm of recrimination this week. Speaking recently on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio program, the Wisconsin Republican and self-styled budget wonk linked poverty to “this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.”