A lot is being made these days of the so-called Texas miracle, in which that state has bucked the national unemployment trend. Governor Rick Perry hopes to ride that success all the way to the White House, with the promise of extending that miracle to the rest of the country. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Except [...]

  First Hurricane Irene flooding the Northeast, then wild fires consuming the Southwest, and now THIS. 

Yesterday, the last of the recall elections in Wisconsin were decided. All told, more than $35 million was spent to overturn two seats in the Wisconsin statehouse. That was just for the campaigns. I don’t know how much the state of Wisconsin spent to hold the elections. The total for the nine recall elections was [...]

The president, freed, at least temporarily, from the limit hostage crisis, has turned his attention, finally,  to jobs. His problem, and the nation’s, is that there’s almost nothing he can do to create more jobs. Having tied himself to deficit reduction, he can’t very well call for the stimulus necessary to shake the economy out [...]

Washington has zeroes in with laser-like focus on the most pressing issue of our day–the unacceptable level of unemployment. No, wait! Just kidding. It’s cutting the size of government, which of course, matters more than anything else to the millions of Americans who can’t find work, who have lost or are in are in danger [...]

The upcoming “golf summit” with President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, and late additions Paul Ryan and Joe Biden, may well produce the long-awaited agreement on deficit reduction, forestalling a default brought on by Republican (along with some Democrats) refusal to raise the debt ceiling. It will, even if it succeeds, do absolutely nothing to [...]

The economy continues to lurch along, gaining a little bit of steam, then falling back again. Unemployment stays stubbornly around 9%, homes are still being foreclosed at a ferocious rate, and  the housing industry remains in a deep funk, Meanwhile, official Washington is consumed with the debate over the debt ceiling. Will someone please explain [...]

I just returned from my son’s graduation from Boston University. It’s a big school, with thousands of graduates–so many that each department hands out the diplomas in a separate ceremony–and it’s only one of many colleges and universities in the area. Harvard, Tufts, MIT, Boston College, Northeastern, Brandeis, and so many others have graduations in [...]

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin has released his budget, and as expected, school funding takes an enormous hit. Wisconsin is not alone in sacrificing education, and it’s not just Republican governors who are mortgaging our kids’ futures to balance today’s budgets. Colorado’s new Democratic governor, John  Hickenlooper, has called for drastic cuts, too. I don’t [...]

Funny, you’d think Wally Piper’s classic children’s book, The Little Engine That Could, would have been a rich source for cartoon metaphors, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever used it. The tragic oddity of the economic recovery now well underway is how few people are yet benefitting from it. Wall [...]