Media

Audi runs ads in hopes of selling cars. That’s what ads are supposed to do. But, in yesterday’s New York Times, a full-page ad for the Audi A6 appeared twice and it not only aimed to sell cars, it promoted the idea that wealthy Americans can buy protection from the public decay likely to surround us all as our cities, our states, and our nation reduce investment in our public systems and structures. (A similar ad is also running on television, which you can watch below.)

One last point about the new poverty numbers, which is that they show that elderly poverty remains a major problem in the United States.

Conventional wisdom holds that seniors are doing just fine in the U.S. and that this is one area where the war on poverty was a big success. Well, not quite. Yes, elderly poverty rates are way down from forty years ago thanks to increased Social Security payments and government health programs.

As we continue to mine the new poverty statistics over here from the Census Bureau, here is a statistics that many people will find surprising: The poverty rate for naturalized U.S. citizens is 10.8 percent, while that for native born Americans is 13.7 percent. (The figure for foreign born residents is a very high 25.1 percent.)

For decades we've been hearing that government spending helps to cause poverty by keeping people dependent and by depressing economic growth.

This is not only nonsense, but new Census data shows that the exact opposite is true: Poverty tends to be higher in those states with small government.

It's hardly news when House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan distorts the facts about fiscal policy -- his supposed area of expertise -- but it still surprises me nonetheless.

Consider this whopper from a recent interview:

Both groups also saw the wealth they acquired evaporate almost over night. Hispanics lost 66 percent of their wealth and Blacks lost 54 percent.

Civil rights groups will release a letter to the Department of Justice charging an unnecessary, unfair, restrictive photo voter ID law intentionally discriminates against African American and Latino voters.

A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.

Incredibly enough, Social Security -- long considered a third rail of politics -- has become a ferocious touchstone during this Presidential primary cycle, even with the Iowa Caucus still a half-year away.