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As a retiree with a defined-benefit pension; a former public employee who defended public workers’ pension benefits for decades; and an advocate who, after leaving the Service Employees International Union, chose to spend several years trying to create a national effort to build a new all-American retirement system, I want to offer my perspective on some of the recent pension issues in Rhode Island.

Shaun McCutcheon is everywhere. First he challenged aggregate contribution limits in a case currently before the Supreme Court that threatens to remove one of the last remaining reigns on campaign spending.

Defenders of Social Security say all the time that this program has nothing to do with the deficit, and thus cuts to Social Security shouldn't be part of any long-term fiscal deal.

In fact, though, Social Security's future costs will drive future deficits, and that reflects a monumental blunder by Washington that can still be corrected.

Narratives like Paul Ryan’s “maker vs. taker” narrative is resurrected Social Darwinism, where the poor are lazy and the rich are virtuous.

Progressives focus a lot on the need to "defend" government. But we can be curiously indifferent to the urgent task of making government work better -- and, in fact, have a long history of treating such efforts with suspicion. In that sense, progressives share blame for the HealthCare.gov debacle -- an episode that showcases why fixing a dysfunctional public sector needs to be near the top of the progressive "to do" list. 

Discussion is growing of an empathy gap rooted in our society's dramatic increase in inequality. As David Madland argues in Democracy, "Studies across U.S. states, of the United States over time, and across countries all find that societies with a strong middle class and low levels of inequality have greater levels of trust of strangers." This trust brings about economic advantages.

Not long ago, there were barely any progressive think tanks -- and certainly none on par with the Heritage Foundation. When Demos started in 1999, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities was the biggest policy shop around, but steered clear -- and still does -- of entire issue areas, like foreign policy and the environment. 

Wal-Mart Stores is the country’s biggest private employer. Its low wages have incited labor protests and congressional criticism, and have created a cottage industry of public policy research.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark paper that helped delineate the federal poverty line. A huge leap forward in its day, the poverty line established credible criteria for what constituted an acceptable standard of living.