Media

Here’s a policy idea that should be as uncontroversial as they get: America should stop doing business with chronic lawbreakers. If a company repeatedly exposes their employees to dangerous working conditions that have triggered serious OSHA penalties, we should think twice before signing another contract with that company to do work for the federal government. If a contractor can’t bother to pay the minimum wage and follow other basic employment laws, we can surely find someone else to run government call centers and carry out public construction projects.

There's a lot of speculation about how the Affordable Care Act is likely to play out in coming months and years. But lately few voices are pushing the point that Obamacare is likely to spur the economy -- both in the near and long term. 

In earlier times, before the dawn of modern American prosperity, it was common for hard pressed families to take in boarders. Watch some old movies if that era has slipped your mind. Then good times arrived, and renting out rooms to survive was no longer a widespread imperative. Images of the quirky boarding house were supplanted in the media by the sprawling suburban home or spacious urban apartment. 

The much-anticipated final regulations implementing the Volcker Rule will be released today and, almost miraculously, it seems to be significantly stronger than the proposed text publicized more than a year ago. We will all have to await the actual wording since this is an area in which the devil is truly in the details.

But the all-important limitation on insured banks betting on the trading markets with depositors’ money is rumored to do a few key things:

Americans aren’t incredibly concerned about the wide income gap between the very rich and the very poor, even though it's bigger issue in the United States than any other advanced economy. And it's growing.

You don't hear deficit hawks talking much about inequality, which is no surprise, since many solutions to inequality involve more federal spending. In truth, though, deficit hawks should be deeply worried about the big gaps in income and wealth for at least five reasons. 

The Trayvon Martin case and subsequent focus on Stand Your Ground laws brought the right-wing group, ALEC, into the mainstream. ALEC pushes legislation and policy at the state level advocating for limited government, free markets and federalism. For decades, ALEC operated somewhat under the radar and managed to push right to work, Stand Your Ground, and anti-environmental legislation at the state level. But, it was never clear the extent of its success.