Jonathan Bernstein

First, economist and former administration staffer Jared Bernstein is now blogging, and he has an excellent shortish item on why the federal budget is not like your family budget.* Highly recommended for those who have been tempted to buy that analogy. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein has another very helpful post on Medicare and the budget, titled “You […]

Matt Yglesias flags an interesting Kevin Carey piece about a new initiative on open-resourcing information from community colleges. It looks highly interesting, and if you care about education policy I recommend reading through both linked items. From the policy process perspective, it’s a good jumping-off point to hammer home two extremely important things that don’t […]

Conor Friedersdorf has some smart comments about the 10th grader who challenged Michele Bachmann to a competition over knowledge of the Constitution. I recommend it. My reaction? If I had a magic wand, I’d give this 10th grader and her peers the right to vote — and the right to really challenge Bachmann by running […]

Daniel Larison takes me to task for a comparison of Michael Dukakis 1987 and Tim Pawlenty 2011 I made last week (over at Greg’s place). Larison looks at the data Nate Silver posted and concludes: [N]o early polling on the Republican side has ever found an eventual nominee in the single digits at this point. […]

The Senate today confirmed the nomination of Susan Carney to the 2nd Circuit Appeals Court by a vote of 71-28. This follow up on two important confirmations for District Court positions: Edward Milton Chen, confirmed by a 56-42 vote last Tuesday, and before that John McConnell — confirmed 50-44 after getting cloture on a 63-33 vote. […]

I missed this yesterday, but it’s very good. Adam Serwer asks: Why is it, in our supposedly center-right country, conservatives seeking to dismantle the welfare state need to pretend they’re actually preserving it? I thought the American people were just a bunch of rugged individualists seeking to free themselves from the yoke of government assistance […]

Did Mike Huckabee drop out of the fight for the nomination because he lost? Or did he not enter that fight, because he chose not to? Why does it matter? Well, for academic research, it matters because if we want to discover how the process works and what causes some candidates to win and others […]

You know the drill: the House is out this week, so it’s time to check on the progress of the “replace” part of the GOP pledge to repeal and replace Affordable Care Act. Most recent updates here and here; see also Jonathan Chait here. No surprises; I’m not going to bother to link this time, […]

So Mike Huckabee isn’t running for president in 2012. Not, to be sure, a huge surprise; unlike, say, Haley Barbour or even Sarah Palin, Huck never really acted much like a candidate this time around. But it’s a big deal, regardless, since he certainly would have been a serious contender if he got in. Quick […]

Spencer Ackerman was right on the money yesterday, calling for a revival of the 9/11 Commission to document the hunt for bin Laden. Marcy Wheeler agrees. So does Andrew Sullivan. And Adam Serwer. Each of them adds interesting recommendations about the scope of what the commission should look at. My contribution is to remind everyone […]