David Atkins

For years progressives in blue states have had to put up with listening to conservatives in red states bray about their supposed economic “miracles” of low-tax, low-investment paradises of low unemployment in places like Texas and North Dakota. The fact that these economies were creating mostly minimum-wage jobs with terrible safety nets and awful infrastructure […]

Good journalism and analysis aren’t just about bringing the most important stories to light and holding the powerful to account. They’re also about creating the ideal of what government can and should be. Policymaking is and has always been a messy and often ugly business; a fair and free press is crucial for keeping it […]

After the publication of the torture report, the torturers and their enablers have been all over the airwaves defending themselves and the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These “techniques” included horrific acts of rape, threatening family members with rape and death, suspension from ceilings and walls for days on end, forcing prisoners to soil themselves […]

Dan Balz has a story at the Washington Post about the “new normal” of hyperpartisanship and political dysfunction: A new report from the Pew Research Center lays out the evidence in clear and unrelenting detail. The survey of attitudes at the close of the year offers a reminder to political leaders, and especially prospective presidential […]

Lindsey Graham reacts to Elizabeth Warren’s speech: “You have every right to vote no and argue to bring the bill down,” Graham said, as noted by Politico. “If there’s something you don’t like, welcome to democracy.” Graham then said that Warren was really the problem. “If you follow the lead of the senator of Massachusetts […]

As the progressive wing of the Democratic Party threatened to derail the cromnibus in order stop further weakening of campaign finance and Wall Street regulations, it became fashionable in some circles to call Elizabeth Warren and her ilk the “Ted Cruz” or “Tea Party of the left.” This phrase and similar ones are usually said […]

It’s no secret that world of journalism is in a state of upheaval. The very public implosion of the current incarnation of The New Republic is only the latest example of the trends affecting the field. The online revolution was the first big shock, of course; the Washington Monthly was one of the first to […]

Senator Charles Schumer, in response to a question posed by my brother Dante Atkins on behalf of Daily Kos, gets at the heart of the problem: Yes, it is fundametnaly shifting. This loss in income, America has never had a loss in median income for such a long period of time. And it’s certainly never […]

Mainstream beltway pundits have a habit of extolling the virtues of the supposedly pragmatic centrists over those nasty partisans who insist that their side is usually or always in the right. This tendency goes hand-in-hand with good government advocates who try to disempower political parties in favor letting voters pick the “best” candidate regardless of […]

I wrote back in early October about the Republican desire to use “dynamic scoring” in the budget process: it’s basically fantasy-based budgeting that assumes that tax cuts will generate massive revenues through economic growth that pays for the cost of the tax cuts. We know, of course, that tax cuts do not in fact create […]