Winner-Take-All Politics (book)
Encyclopedia
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class is a book by political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson
. In it the authors argue that contrary to conventional wisdom, the dramatic increase in inequality of income in the United States
since 1978 — the richest 1% gaining 256% after inflation while the income of the lower earning 80% grew only 20% — is not the natural/inevitable result of increased competition from globalization
, but of the work of political forces. Those at the very top of the economic ladder have developed and used political muscle to dramatically cut their taxes, deregulate the financial industry, keep corporate governance lax and labor unions hamstrung. Instead of a rising tide lifting all boats, the authors write, "yachts are rising, but dinghies are largely staying put" in America, and "there is reason to suspect that the dinghies are staying put in part because the yachts are rising."
(p.80), Louis Brandeis
(p.81-2), Alexis de Tocqueville
(p.77), the 1st-century Greek historian Plutarch
(p.75) (`An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics`), and even the father of the free market
, Adam Smith
(who warned of "great inequality" where "civil government" is "instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor") (p.82).
Since the late 1970s, inequality of income in America has gotten worse across the board, but it's at the top where income has become most concentrated — concentrated at a level not seen since just before the Great Depression
. Most of the gains of economic growth since the 1970s have gone to the top 1% of Americans, and most of that to the top 0.1%. While the share of America's income gains between 1979 and 2005 for the bottom middle- and lower-income 60% of the population was just 13.5% (and most of that gain came from working longer hours), the top 0.1% share was over 20%. In other words, the top 300,000 Americans gained half again as large a slice of income as the bottom 180 million. This after-tax distribution of income varies only slightly when factoring in non-cash compensation (such as health insurance and retirement pensions) distributed.
Nor has this rise in inequality taken place in many other developed economies. Western Europe and Japan, "haven't seen anything like the rise in inequality America has." Inequality in France and Switzerland has actually fallen; in Germany it's remained the same; and in Ericsson
's Sweden and Sony
's Japan it's moved up only slightly.
The relative lack of skill of American workers can't be blamed, as there isn't one. There is no gap between American workers and those of Europeans, Canadians, et. al., measured in years of schooling.
America's more extreme stratification has not come with any benefit of faster economic growth or more social mobility
than its peer countries. Economic growth per capita was essentially the same in the US as that of the 15 core nations of Europe through 2006. America's self-image as the land of the American Dream
and rags-to-riches success notwithstanding, the share of those brought up poor or middle class who succeeded in becoming rich (i.e. the social mobility
), is now less than in almost all other developed countries.
Two areas related to income distribution where the US differs quite a bit from other developed countries are executive pay and unionization. Unions as a whole have been a force for raising pay and benefits for those with lower income. The percentage of workers belonging to unions has had a marked decline in the US not mirrored in other affluent countries such as America's neighbor Canada, despite a similarity in the "structural features" of the two countries economies and their workers' "propensities to join a union."
Increase in the relative pay of CEOs in the US — from 24 times the earnings of the typical worker in 1965 to 300 times in 2007 — is much greater than in Europe. It takes a different form than those countries — deferred compensation, "guaranteed hours on corporate jets, chauffeurs, personal assistants, apartments, even lucrative consulting contracts". (This "camouflaged" compensation need not become public knowledge as American business law does not require its reporting.)
While corporate management in America has benefited mightily from it's `capture` from stockholders of boards of directors, whose nomination, pay and perks management has strong influence over. The financial industry's success has come from pushing government to deregulate that industry and making risky investments from which it has privatized the gains and socialized the losses with government bailouts.
The action in financial markets, corporate governance, industrial relations, and taxation, came from both changing policy and preventing it from being changed -- "drift". Policy changes include tax cuts and legislation such as the 1999 Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act that repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act
and allowed the merger of consumer banks, investment banks, and insurance companies.
Drift, or preventing policy changes to keep "pace with changing economic conditions," included not updating labor laws
in response to new corporate anti-union
tactics, not enacting stock option regulations in response to changing executive pay packages, and not updating securities regulations in response to the growth of dangerously risky but profitable Wall Street speculation.
These highly effective organizations include business groups like Chamber of Commerce
, National Federation of Independent Business
, (p.120) anti-tax groups like Club for Growth
and Americans for Tax Reform
. (p.208) Along with them came a new generation of think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation
and American Enterprise Institute
. Officially non-partisan, they focused on "shifting public opinion and policy" in a conservative direction, rather than traditional `objective' policy advice.
s wear "black hats" and the Democrats
"gray hats". The GOP stands strongly united in favor of policies favoring the wealthy, and becoming ever more extreme
through the 1990s and 2000s. Their devotion to tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans surpasses all other issues — deficit reduction, or tax cuts for the middle- or upper-middle-class — in cases such as the negotiation of the 1997 deficit reduction budget deal. This is not a position Republican necessarily admit to, or are unaware of public resistance to. In 2001, internal memos told the Bush administration that `the public prefers spending on things like health care and education over cutting taxes`", but the GOP went on with a major cut one third of which went to the richest 1% of Americans. GOP leaders "appealed openly to bankers for financial support by touting their opposition to financial reform" following the 2008 financial crisis, while "leading GOP strategists" accused Democrats of bailing out Wall Street and "putting taxpayers on the hook," in "`populist` commercials and sound bites" for voters.
In the early 1990s, the minority party in the Senate (often the Republicans) made use of the filibuster
to create "something approaching a de facto `rule of sixty`", whereby 60 votes rather an a majority, were needed to pass laws. While only about 8% of major bills in the 1960s were filibustered, 70% were from 2000-2010. The minority Republican party could and did use the filibuster to make the reformist majority "look ineffectual" and fuel "popular disdain for politics."
Democratic "moderates", and Democrats the authors call "Republicans-for-a-day", aided the Republicans in establishing a winner-take-all system. Moderates, such as Senator John Breaux
(who famously insisted that his vote could not be bought — but "it can be rented") and Max Baucus
, supported pro-business initiatives such as the Bush tax cut
of 2001. Unlike the Republicans — whose members seldom if ever vote with the Democrats, at least in part because the party agenda does not require challenging powerful local interests — it is not uncommon for Democrats to "defect" from their party "on specific economic issues in deference to powerful local interests." Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is a "strong liberal voice" ... on any issue except finance where he works hard for Wall Street interests that are a major part of the New York state economy; California Democrats Dianne Feinstein
and Barbara Boxer
(D-CA), vote with Republicans when it come to preventing stock option regulations that would impact Silicon Valley
workers’ compensation. Sen. Blanche Lincoln
(D-AR) includes among her constituents heirs to the Wal Mart fortune, and supported repeal of the estate tax.
The 1890-1920 Progressive movement
and New Deal
serve as models of middle class reform. The way forward will require "continuing, organized capacity to mobilize middle-class voters and monitor government and politics on their behalf."
, Robert Solow
, Bob Herbert
(New York Times), Justin Fox
(Harvard Business Review
), Ed Kilgore, (Washington Monthly), Kevin Drum
, (Mother Jones
blog), James Fallows
, (National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly
), Elizabeth Warren
(Harvard Law School
), David Holahan (The Christian Science Monitor
), E.J. Dionne, Jr., Robert Kuttner
, Thomas B. Edsall.
Paul Pierson
Paul Pierson is a professor of political science and holder of the Avice Saint Chair of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2007-2010 he served at UC Berkeley as Chair of the Department of Political Science...
. In it the authors argue that contrary to conventional wisdom, the dramatic increase in inequality of income in the United States
Income inequality in the United States
Income inequality in the United States of America refers to the extent to which income is distributed in an uneven manner in the US. Data from the United States Department of Commerce, CBO, and Internal Revenue Service indicate that income inequality among households has been increasing...
since 1978 — the richest 1% gaining 256% after inflation while the income of the lower earning 80% grew only 20% — is not the natural/inevitable result of increased competition from globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
, but of the work of political forces. Those at the very top of the economic ladder have developed and used political muscle to dramatically cut their taxes, deregulate the financial industry, keep corporate governance lax and labor unions hamstrung. Instead of a rising tide lifting all boats, the authors write, "yachts are rising, but dinghies are largely staying put" in America, and "there is reason to suspect that the dinghies are staying put in part because the yachts are rising."
Themes
The authors quote a number of luminaries on the dangers of concentrated wealth and its incompatibility with good government — Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
(p.80), Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...
(p.81-2), Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
(p.77), the 1st-century Greek historian Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
(p.75) (`An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics`), and even the father of the free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
, Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
(who warned of "great inequality" where "civil government" is "instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor") (p.82).
Increase in inequality
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Most of the gains of economic growth since the 1970s have gone to the top 1% of Americans, and most of that to the top 0.1%. While the share of America's income gains between 1979 and 2005 for the bottom middle- and lower-income 60% of the population was just 13.5% (and most of that gain came from working longer hours), the top 0.1% share was over 20%. In other words, the top 300,000 Americans gained half again as large a slice of income as the bottom 180 million. This after-tax distribution of income varies only slightly when factoring in non-cash compensation (such as health insurance and retirement pensions) distributed.
Debunking the "educational cause"
"Most economic experts" agree that the 30-year trend in America of greater inequality is a natural economic/historical trend of economic rewards for those with educational achievements and workplace skills. The authors do not. The income distribution hasn't followed a pattern of "the 29% of Americans with college degrees pulling away" from those who have less education. It's the top 1% that have pulled away from the top 20%, and most especially "the top 0.1% or even 0.01%" that has grown richer than the rest of the population.Nor has this rise in inequality taken place in many other developed economies. Western Europe and Japan, "haven't seen anything like the rise in inequality America has." Inequality in France and Switzerland has actually fallen; in Germany it's remained the same; and in Ericsson
Ericsson
Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...
's Sweden and Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
's Japan it's moved up only slightly.
The relative lack of skill of American workers can't be blamed, as there isn't one. There is no gap between American workers and those of Europeans, Canadians, et. al., measured in years of schooling.
America's more extreme stratification has not come with any benefit of faster economic growth or more social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
than its peer countries. Economic growth per capita was essentially the same in the US as that of the 15 core nations of Europe through 2006. America's self-image as the land of the American Dream
American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...
and rags-to-riches success notwithstanding, the share of those brought up poor or middle class who succeeded in becoming rich (i.e. the social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
), is now less than in almost all other developed countries.
Two areas related to income distribution where the US differs quite a bit from other developed countries are executive pay and unionization. Unions as a whole have been a force for raising pay and benefits for those with lower income. The percentage of workers belonging to unions has had a marked decline in the US not mirrored in other affluent countries such as America's neighbor Canada, despite a similarity in the "structural features" of the two countries economies and their workers' "propensities to join a union."
Increase in the relative pay of CEOs in the US — from 24 times the earnings of the typical worker in 1965 to 300 times in 2007 — is much greater than in Europe. It takes a different form than those countries — deferred compensation, "guaranteed hours on corporate jets, chauffeurs, personal assistants, apartments, even lucrative consulting contracts". (This "camouflaged" compensation need not become public knowledge as American business law does not require its reporting.)
The top 0.1%
Besides corporate executives and managers, the other occupation/industry with large numbers of top earners are professionals in the finance industry. The two groups make up almost 60% of the top 0.1%. (In contrast, the celebrities and superstars in entertainment and sports, form only 3% of this elite one-household-in-a-thousand.)While corporate management in America has benefited mightily from it's `capture` from stockholders of boards of directors, whose nomination, pay and perks management has strong influence over. The financial industry's success has come from pushing government to deregulate that industry and making risky investments from which it has privatized the gains and socialized the losses with government bailouts.
The "political cause" of inequality
Hacker and Pierson describe the political action that has "abandoned the middle class" in the US in favor of making "the rich richer" in the last 30+ years as being the work of "modern, efficient organizations operating in a much less modern efficient political system." Those organizations strove successfully to cut taxes (estate and capital gains taxes) and tax rates for the wealthy, and to eliminate or prevent of any countervailing power or oversight of corporate managers -- including private litigation, efforts to empower boards of directors and shareholders, the regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and labor unions.The action in financial markets, corporate governance, industrial relations, and taxation, came from both changing policy and preventing it from being changed -- "drift". Policy changes include tax cuts and legislation such as the 1999 Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act that repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act
Glass-Steagall Act
The Banking Act of 1933, , was a law that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the United States and introduced banking reforms, some of which were designed to control speculation. It is most commonly known as the Glass–Steagall Act, after its legislative sponsors, Senator...
and allowed the merger of consumer banks, investment banks, and insurance companies.
Drift, or preventing policy changes to keep "pace with changing economic conditions," included not updating labor laws
United States labor law
United States labor law is a heterogeneous collection of state and federal laws. Federal law not only sets the standards that govern workers' rights to organize in the private sector, but also overrides most state and local laws that attempt to regulate this area. Federal law also provides more...
in response to new corporate anti-union
Union busting
Union busting is a wide range of activities undertaken by employers, their proxies, and governments, which attempt to prevent the formation or expansion of trade unions...
tactics, not enacting stock option regulations in response to changing executive pay packages, and not updating securities regulations in response to the growth of dangerously risky but profitable Wall Street speculation.
Politics as "organized combat"
Though this process came as part of what the authors describe as a "transformation of American government", it has been overlooked by the public, the media, and recent political science studies. They focus on the more entertaining, fast-moving and easy-to-follow "electoral spectacle" of politicians and their campaigns for office, instead of "what the government actually does" — the more complex, and "frankly boring," organization-driven making of laws and policy. But that the latter is what is really important is reflected in how much money is spent on lobbying (officially $3 billion a year, unofficially much more) than election campaigns", and the growth in corporate public affairs offices in the nation's capital (100 in 1968, 2500 in 1982).These highly effective organizations include business groups like Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
, National Federation of Independent Business
National Federation of Independent Business
The National Federation of Independent Business is a lobbying organization with its headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee and offices in Washington, D.C. USA, and in all 50 state capitals...
, (p.120) anti-tax groups like Club for Growth
Club for Growth
The Club for Growth is a politically conservative 527 organization active in the United States of America, with an agenda focussed on taxation and other economic issues, and with an affiliated political action committee . The Club advocates lower taxes, limited government, less government spending,...
and Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform is an advocacy group and taxpayer group whose stated goal is "a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today. The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax...
. (p.208) Along with them came a new generation of think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...
and American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
. Officially non-partisan, they focused on "shifting public opinion and policy" in a conservative direction, rather than traditional `objective' policy advice.
The two parties
In the story of a winner-take-all America, the authors believe RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
s wear "black hats" and the Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
"gray hats". The GOP stands strongly united in favor of policies favoring the wealthy, and becoming ever more extreme
Extreme
Uses for the term extreme, which is sometimes spelled xtreme, include:-Science:*Extreme weather, severe or unseasonal weather*Extremism, ideas or actions beyond what is deemed acceptable...
through the 1990s and 2000s. Their devotion to tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans surpasses all other issues — deficit reduction, or tax cuts for the middle- or upper-middle-class — in cases such as the negotiation of the 1997 deficit reduction budget deal. This is not a position Republican necessarily admit to, or are unaware of public resistance to. In 2001, internal memos told the Bush administration that `the public prefers spending on things like health care and education over cutting taxes`", but the GOP went on with a major cut one third of which went to the richest 1% of Americans. GOP leaders "appealed openly to bankers for financial support by touting their opposition to financial reform" following the 2008 financial crisis, while "leading GOP strategists" accused Democrats of bailing out Wall Street and "putting taxpayers on the hook," in "`populist` commercials and sound bites" for voters.
In the early 1990s, the minority party in the Senate (often the Republicans) made use of the filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
to create "something approaching a de facto `rule of sixty`", whereby 60 votes rather an a majority, were needed to pass laws. While only about 8% of major bills in the 1960s were filibustered, 70% were from 2000-2010. The minority Republican party could and did use the filibuster to make the reformist majority "look ineffectual" and fuel "popular disdain for politics."
Democratic "moderates", and Democrats the authors call "Republicans-for-a-day", aided the Republicans in establishing a winner-take-all system. Moderates, such as Senator John Breaux
John Breaux
John Berlinger Breaux is a former United States senator from Louisiana who served from 1987 until 2005. He was also a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1972 to 1987. He was considered one of the more conservative national legislators from the Democratic Party...
(who famously insisted that his vote could not be bought — but "it can be rented") and Max Baucus
Max Baucus
Max Sieben Baucus is the senior United States Senator from Montana and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected to the Senate in 1978, as of 2010 he is the longest-serving Senator from Montana, and the fifth longest-serving U.S...
, supported pro-business initiatives such as the Bush tax cut
Bush tax cuts
The Bush tax cuts refers to changes to the United States tax code passed during the presidency of George W. Bush and extended during the presidency of Barack Obama that generally lowered tax rates and revised the code specifying taxation in the United States...
of 2001. Unlike the Republicans — whose members seldom if ever vote with the Democrats, at least in part because the party agenda does not require challenging powerful local interests — it is not uncommon for Democrats to "defect" from their party "on specific economic issues in deference to powerful local interests." Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is a "strong liberal voice" ... on any issue except finance where he works hard for Wall Street interests that are a major part of the New York state economy; California Democrats Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....
and Barbara Boxer
Barbara Boxer
Barbara Levy Boxer is the junior United States Senator from California . A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives ....
(D-CA), vote with Republicans when it come to preventing stock option regulations that would impact Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
workers’ compensation. Sen. Blanche Lincoln
Blanche Lincoln
Blanche Meyers Lambert Lincoln is a former U.S. Senator from Arkansas and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected to the Senate in 1998, she was the first woman elected to the Senate from Arkansas since Hattie Caraway in 1932 and, at age 38, was the youngest woman ever elected to the...
(D-AR) includes among her constituents heirs to the Wal Mart fortune, and supported repeal of the estate tax.
Ideas for a solution
The authors emphasize the difficulty of undoing the winner-take-all transformation of America. Shrewd, charismatic leaders will not enough, changing policy will be a "long, hard slog." The issues of stock options, financial deregulation, and tax law, and what to do about them, are "mind-numbingly complex". The rich are highly motivated, focused, organized. The average voter ignorant of many of the most basic facts of government, let alone "which policies to support or oppose, which politicians to vote in and out of office."The 1890-1920 Progressive movement
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
and New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
serve as models of middle class reform. The way forward will require "continuing, organized capacity to mobilize middle-class voters and monitor government and politics on their behalf."
Critical
The book has won praise or compliments from Fareed ZakariaFareed Zakaria
Fareed Rafiq Zakaria is an Indian-American journalist and author. From 2000 to 2010, he was a columnist for Newsweek and editor of Newsweek International. In 2010 he became Editor-At-Large of Time magazine...
, Robert Solow
Robert Solow
Robert Merton Solow is an American economist particularly known for his work on the theory of economic growth that culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him...
, Bob Herbert
Bob Herbert
Robert “Bob” Herbert is an American journalist op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times. His column was syndicated to other newspapers around the country. Herbert frequently writes on poverty, the Iraq war, racism and American political apathy towards race issues...
(New York Times), Justin Fox
Justin Fox
Justin Fox is an American financial journalist, commentator, and writer born in Morristown, New Jersey. He is the editorial director of the Harvard Business Review Group and business and economics columnist for Time magazine. He graduated from Princeton University and has worked for Fortune...
(Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review is a general management magazine published since 1922 by Harvard Business School Publishing, owned by the Harvard Business School. A monthly research-based magazine written for business practitioners, it claims a high ranking business readership among academics, executives,...
), Ed Kilgore, (Washington Monthly), Kevin Drum
Kevin Drum
Kevin Drum is an American political blogger and columnist. He was born in Long Beach, California and now lives in Irvine, California.-Education:...
, (Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
blog), James Fallows
James Fallows
James Fallows is an American print and radio journalist. He has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly for many years. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a...
, (National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
), Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren is an American bankruptcy expert, policy advocate, Harvard Law School professor, and Democratic Party candidate in the 2012 United States Senate election in Massachusetts. She has written several academic and popular books concerning the American economy and personal finance. She...
(Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
), David Holahan (The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
), E.J. Dionne, Jr., Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner is an American journalist and writer. Kuttner is the co-founder and current co-editor of The American Prospect, which was created in 1990 as "an authoritative magazine of liberal ideas," according to its mission statement...
, Thomas B. Edsall.