PolicyBytes

The U.S. is approaching what economists call "full employment," in which everyone who wants a job can find one.  So why are so many people unemployed and desperate for work? 

Future Social Security and Medicare benefits can't be counted as part of seniors' wealth because they don't own those accounts.  But if seniors did own them, they wouldn't just be "counted" as wealthy, they would be wealthy.

Maine Governor Paul LePage wants to make the food stamp program more of a safety net and less of a hammock. Former Texas Senator Phil Gramm would have agreed.

The Clintons tried to put every American in an HMO and the public soundly rejected that attempt by voting Democrats in 1994; Obama is succeeding where the Clintons failed and the public is punishing Democrats for it.

Will one socialist learn from another socialist about marginal tax rates? Probably not.

Minimum wage increases, like welfare benefits, expand the entitlement mentality.

The budget deal perpetuates the Social Security trust fund fiction by borrowing from one trust fund that has loaned its assets for IOUs to save another trust fund which has spent its IOUs. 

The budget sequester had a short but meaningful life.  It successfully helped to control federal spending, which is why Democrats and many Republicans had to snuff it out.

The best way to address the problem of income inequality is to ensure that lower-income workers can accumulate wealth, and the best way to do that is to replace Social Security with personal retirement accounts.

Bernie Sanders claims to be a "democratic socialist." Fortunately the group Democratic Socialists of America can tell us what that means.