A popular right-wing rhetorical trope involves saying that families work hard and sacrifice to balance their budgets, and so should the federal government. The standard line against this point has been to retort that family budget and federal budgets are very different animals. And indeed they are. But the argument that there is a disanalogy… Continue reading Families don’t balance their budgets
Author: Matt Bruenig
A breakdown of the federal debt
The hysteria that generally surrounds the federal debt is almost entirely a joke. Smart Republicans pretend to be concerned with it, but only insofar as they think they can use it to push what they always push: more for the rich, less for the rest. Dumb Republicans push it because they are dumb. The reporting… Continue reading A breakdown of the federal debt
How big of a problem is food access really?
Food deserts are areas that have no nearby access to healthy foods. For a period, there seemed to be a furor about food deserts, but that has died down recently. A variety of studies came out challenging the idea that bringing healthy food options into food deserts would have any impact on the consumption of… Continue reading How big of a problem is food access really?
Fun with equal opportunity
In my last post, I said liberals do themselves a disservice by talking about equal opportunity all of the time, instead of raising other grievances they have with our economic institutions. If you listened to the people who talk on television, you’d believe the only thing concerning liberals is that the positions in our economy… Continue reading Fun with equal opportunity
Equal opportunty is inadequate
Steve Pearlstein has a long piece titled “Is capitalism moral?” in the Washington Post. The piece is a total mess. It seems to misconstrue different moral traditions and hops between them without seemingly realizing it. Nonetheless, it does provide a jumping off point for a point that needs to be emphasized: equal opportunity is totally… Continue reading Equal opportunty is inadequate