The Feed

A month after Americans cast their ballots, the president, who campaigned unabashedly as a progressive Democrat, now faces a fresh opportunity to govern in the same manner. A new POLITICO-George Washington University Battleground Poll looks at voters’ attitudes now that the election season is over. To quibble over the definition of the term “mandate” would be a ...

  1. People who receive unemployment benefits are slow to search for work. This oft-repeated statement might have a chance of being true if benefits were unduly generous. They aren’t. Weekly unemployment insurance payment averaged $300 in 2010 and 2011, federal statistics show. It’s important to understand that unemployment benefits aren’t intended to replace a worker’s ...

At a talk at UCLA last month, I said that America’s growing anti-corruption movement needs to think big, not puny. That we need a fundamental change in the way America funds its campaigns, and that it will take a cross-partisan grassroots movement of outsiders to get the insiders in D.C. to embrace that change. To kickstart ...

Every class of newly elected lawmakers promises to be the one to change Washington — and every class inevitably falls short of that goal. As the incoming freshman members prepare to settle into their new offices, they should keep in mind that their constituents will be watching more than their voting records; they’ll be keeping ...

A great deal of attention is currently focused on the notion that a “fiscal cliff” of higher taxes and spending cuts awaits at the end of this year. The good news is that politicians are finally talking about the budget – and working hard to communicate their competing messages regarding what should be done to ...

A year ago, President Obama gave a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas where he laid out a vision of how the economy grows. This vision proved a successful way to connect with voters during the campaign. Now, as Congress debates whether to push the U.S. economy over the so-called fiscal cliff and policymakers consider far-reaching changes ...

Dear Congress, Please don’t drive our economy off the fiscal cliff. First of all, I really hate recessions—and you should, too. If you take between 3% and 4% of total spending out of an economy, a recession is very likely to follow. People like me won’t lose their jobs, or even take a pay cut. ...

The “fiscal cliff” is a rhetorical device designed to hijack the inauguration of new federal programs that would address our nation’s mass unemployment crisis. It distracts us from alternatives to reducing the federal budget deficit by other means than massive federal spending cuts. Indeed, the fiscal cliff debate has subverted our nation’s courage and imagination. ...

The US has just gone through its most expensive election ever. The projected price tag for the 2012 federal election is expected to top $6 billion. This is no way to run a democracy. This was the first presidential election since Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 US Supreme Court case that allowed unions and corporations ...

The Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Court will decide if some states need to get permission from the federal government before making changes that affect voting. Host Michel Martin speaks with Spencer Overton of George Washington University and Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation.