The Coming Liberal Argument

Here is a real effect Occupy Wall Street is having on the liberal left. They will start to blame the current bad economy explicitly on income inequality. Here is Heather Boushey writing at the Center for American Progress: Take, for example, the housing bubble of the 2000s. It was …

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Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Monday December 19, 2011

The Right to Rise? Ok!

In today's Wall Street Journal , Gov. Jeb Bush celebrates the "right to rise," a concept he credits to Rep. Paul Ryan. The idea behind the phrase is a powerful one: "We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise." At a time when Americans born into the poorest …

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Written by David Frum on Monday December 19, 2011

What Keeps the American Dream Alive?

President Obama’s recent speech on income inequality and upward mobility has struck a chord with many Democrats. If the President keeps using this rhetoric, then it could become a central message of the 2012 campaign. If this happens, I would also bet that Elizabeth Warren will give the keynote …

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Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Friday December 16, 2011

He Went to Kansas to Say That?

In my column for The Week , I discuss how Obama's speech on income inequality fell short: The Kansas speech was composed of two main parts: a critique of the performance of the U.S. economy over the past generation, and a program for "rebalancing" in the years ahead. The trouble is that …

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Written by David Frum on Wednesday December 7, 2011

British Conservatives Face the Future

Anyone who gets drawn into the attempts to modernize the Republican Party inevitably ends up reading about the experiences of the UK and Canadian conservatives. The Canadian Conservatives went through many years in the wilderness before they eventually secured their current governing majority and …

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Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Tuesday November 15, 2011

Upward Mobility: It's a Race Thing

You don’t have to accept some of the anarchistic radicalism at Occupy Wall Street to admit that America is a country with high income inequality and low upward mobility. Some Conservatives have tried to obfuscate this reality but others are actually wrestling with it. A recent issue of National …

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Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Friday November 11, 2011

Do Facts Matter in the Inequality Debate?

In the Weekly Standard , Matthew Continetti warns conservatives that the data on income inequality might, just might, not be backing up conservative talking points: What too many [conservatives] have done is accept the premise that the purpose of government is to lessen inequalities of …

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Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Wednesday November 9, 2011

How to Manipulate Income Measurements

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Written by Eli Lehrer on Tuesday November 8, 2011

Downwardly Mobile America

James Pethokoukis has posted a new chart on his blog as part of his ongoing commentary about income inequality in America. In this post, he argues that “alarmists” are wrong to worry about income inequality because America has a lot of upward economic mobility: Turns out that the Tax …

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Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Monday November 7, 2011

Libertarians For Oligarchy?

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Written by David Frum on Friday November 4, 2011

The Thing Santorum Got Right

img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-105661" title="santorum" src="http://www.frumforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/santorum1.jpeg" alt="" width="534" height="340" />

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Written by David Frum on Wednesday October 19, 2011

The Ugly Truth About the American Dream

The promise of upward economic mobility is central to the American Dream. Marco Rubio invoked it at CPAC in 2010 with  stirring language: [America is] the only place in the world where it doesn't matter who your parents were or where you came from. You can be anything you are willing to work …

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Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Friday September 16, 2011