Media

Washington is in its usual state of hysteria this week -- now over the Obamacare rollout -- so, as usual, few people in power are talking about the biggest problem facing the country: a still-stagnant labor market that has stranded millions in a jobless hell, with real unemployment rates for some groups at Great Depression levels. 

“Not happy with your job? Just wait,” the Associated Press instructed young peopleon Sunday.

Memo to 20-somethings: You might be waiting a long time.

Millions of workers across Indonesia are joining a national strike this week to press for a higher minimum wage and universal health coverage. This is actually a big deal for Americans, not that any of us are paying a lick of attention.  

The most likely consequence of the sequestration will be be slower growth and lower tax revenues, and it’s a distinct possibility that the sequestration could actually increase the deficit.

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.