Daily digest – Congress’s shutdown staycation

What you need to know to navigate today’s most critical debates.

A Plan on Jobs Deserves a Hearing (NYT)
Christina Romer writes that four common arguments against President Obama’s jobs proposal amount to one more bad argument for doing nothing, of which Congress already has plenty.

Congress Forced to Stay as a Shutdown Looms (WSJ)
Pity our representatives, who were planning to take a nice week-long vacation until the rest of the government had to go and ruin it by needing an operating budget.

The Funding Standoff and the GOP’s Refusal to Learn From Hurricane Katrina (The Nation)
George Zornick notes that playing politics with FEMA didn’t work out so well for Republicans last time around, but asking them to think back to six years ago may be a stretch when they can’t remember the deal they cut in August.

Whatever Happened to the American Left? (NYT)
Michael Kazin writes that what the 1930s left understood and today’s progressives don’t is that the success of political movements is driven by an ongoing public argument, not a series of individual elections.

How Do You Say ‘Economic Security’? (NYT)
Theodore Marmor and Jerry Mashaw note that FDR knew how to speak about America’s challenges in a way that captured people’s deepest hopes and fears rather than the feeling of falling asleep in a civics class.

In Praise of Extremism (New York)
Frank Rich argues that right-wing conservatives have reshaped the political debate by refusing to compromise, while elites on both sides have tried to forge a bipartisan consensus so bland and ineffective that no one could care enough to object to it.

America’s most powerful liberal? (Politico)
It may sound like calling something America’s most exciting dish detergent, but as New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman has the desire and the opportunity to take on Wall Street in a way progressives like him only wish the president had.

Euro Zone Death Trip (NYT)
Paul Krugman writes that watching Europe’s leaders push for more of the same policies that have already brought the system to the brink of collapse is like trying to read a murder mystery after you’ve skipped ahead to the butler’s confession.

Speculators Get a Break in New Rule (NYT)
One of Dodd-Frank’s goals was to rein in excessive speculation, but critics feel the CFTC’s high cap on commodities positions will only encourage traders to gamble on how much your next trip to the supermarket will cost.

The Hidden Hands in Redistricting: Corporations and Other Powerful Interests (ProPublica)
As states redraw their congressional districts, a plethora of cryptically named organizations are hard at work to ensure that voters don’t get in the way of how the election is supposed to go.

Short URL: http://aworldofprogress.com/readingroom/?p=1066

Posted by Nunzia Rider on Sep 26 2011. Filed under New Deal 2.0, the reading room. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry