The Principle of Infrangibility and the White-on-White Murder Rate
Back in 1999, the Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson made the case for what he called “the principle of infrangibility”:Some problems, of course, are characteristic of certain groups, the result of...
View ArticleThe Politics of Respectability and the Future of the Democratic Coalition
Successful political parties are successful for only so long. As a coalition grows more expansive and diverse, it also grows more fractious. This raises the risk that some important segment of the...
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Today's Policy Agenda, August 26: Study Says Globalization Is Harming U.S....
Work itself is crucial for happiness.For Arthur Brooks’ new site The Pursuit of Happiness, Andy Quinn examines the literature on unemployment and happiness:Cristobal Young, a Stanford sociologist, has...
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Today's Policy Agenda: Should Tax Dollars Go to Training Doctors?
Should tax dollars go to training doctors? At the Upshot, prominent health-care academic Uwe E. Reinhardt argues that, as an economic matter, new doctors shouldn’t be trained at the expense of...
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The New CBO Report: Medicare Really Is Looking Better, But Not Good Enough
The Congressional Budget Office released their update to the Budget and Economic Outlook for the next decade Wednesday. Damian Paletta has a summary for the Wall Street Journal, but here are are three...
View ArticleHow Many Public Employees Can We Afford?
In an interview with The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn, Richard Yeselson, a veteran of the labor movement and well-regarded policy intellectual, offers a mostly sanguine take on the role of public...
View ArticleImmigration and the Persistence of Social Status
Though the title of Gregory Clark’s new Foreign Affairs essay (“The American Dream Is an Illusion“) is regrettable — my guess is that it was written by an editor hostile to Clark’s argument — the essay...
View ArticleScandinavia's 'Right-to-Work' Unionism
Though I often disagree with Justin Fox, I’m a fan of his writing. And so I was surprised by his recent discussion of Jake Rosenfeld’s new lament for organized labor’s decline, What Unions No Longer...
View ArticleWhat If GDP Growth Remains Stubbornly Low?
Robert J. Gordon offers yet another pessimistic assessment of America’s future growth prospects in his latest NBER working paper. While the CBO projects that U.S. GDP will grow at an average annual...
View ArticleCommon Core Validation Committee Member: 'Nobody Thought There Was Sufficient...
It’s all too common: The backers of a broad-based political movement claim their cause is steeped in evidence, but a perusal of the research reveals more hope than substance. The Common Core education...
View ArticleInnocents and Skeptics
Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge, a sweeping account of the American political scene from Richard Nixon’s 1972 reelection to the presidential campaign of 1976, when Ronald Reagan emerged as the...
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Guide to the 2014 Senate Midterms
There’s a lot of speculation about the chances of Republicans taking the Senate in the November 4 midterm elections. In The New Yorker, John Cassidy recently lamented:Just in case you haven’t you...
View ArticleRecent College Graduates Are Still Adrift
In 2010, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa revealed in their book Academically Adrift that of the 2,300 undergraduates they had studied at a wide array of four-year colleges and universities, as many as a...
View ArticleRemember the Second-Order Consequences of Legislation (and a...
That, of course, won’t be an unfamiliar lesson for many right-of-center policy types, or conservatives in general, but it’s always one worth bearing in mind nonetheless, because sometimes there are...
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Guide to the Senate Races, Georgia Edition: David Perdue (R) v. Michelle Nunn...
Though Georgia is considered a relatively solid Republican state in presidential elections, its changing demographic composition has made it an increasingly attractive target for Democrats. The...
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Guide to the Senate Races, Louisiana Edition: Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) v. Mary...
Though Louisiana is generally considered a Republican state for purposes of presidential elections, its politics are famously idiosyncratic, with power alternating between candidates who identify as...
View ArticleElizabeth Warren Is Still Deceiving People about Student Loans
Politico reports that Senator Elizabeth Warren’s student-loan “refinancing” bill, which suffered death-by-filibuster back in June, will be resurrected in the Senate as early as this week. The...
View ArticleTesla and the Interstate Subsidy Chase
The Wall Street Journal has published an outstanding editorial on the success of Tesla, the boutique manufacturer of high-end electric automobiles, in extracting $1.3 billion in tax subsidies from...
View ArticleHow Conservatives Can Win on Social Issues
On Monday, Jonathan Martin of the New York Timesreported on how Democratic and Republican candidates have been adapting to a changing cultural landscape. Rising support for same-sex marriage, for...
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How Avikcare Would Fix Medicaid
Medicaid is a mess, and a very expensive one at that — the health-insurance program for low-income Americans is administered by states but has dozens of federal mandates and rules that drive up...
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