#Wisconsin Governor at Center of a Vast Fund-Raising Case | NYTimes |

CHICAGO — Prosecutors in Wisconsin assert that Gov. Scott Walker was part of an elaborate effort to illegally coordinate fund-raising and spending between his campaign and conservative groups during efforts to recall him and several state senators two years ago, according to court filings unsealed Thursday.

The allegations by five county district attorneys, released as part of a federal lawsuit over the investigation into Mr. Walker, suggest that some of the governor’s top campaign aides directed the political spending of the outside groups, most of them nonprofits, and in effect controlled some of them. Continue reading #Wisconsin Governor at Center of a Vast Fund-Raising Case | NYTimes |

Paul Krugman: The Hype Behind the #HealthCare #Scandal – NYTimes

Paul Krugman

You’ve surely heard about the scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs. A number of veterans found themselves waiting a long time for care, some of them died before they were seen, and some of the agency’s employees falsified records to cover up the extent of the problem. It’s a real scandal; some heads have already rolled, but there’s surely more to clean up.

But the goings-on at Veterans Affairs shouldn’t cause us to lose sight of a much bigger scandal: the almost surreal inefficiency and injustice of the American health care system as a whole. And it’s important to understand that the Veterans Affairs scandal, while real, is being hyped out of proportion by people whose real goal is to block reform of the larger system. Continue reading Paul Krugman: The Hype Behind the #HealthCare #Scandal – NYTimes

Timothy Egan: Walmart, Starbucks, and the Fight Against Inequality – NYTimes

Timothy Egan

For some time now, Republicans in Congress have given up the pretense of doing anything to improve the lot of most Americans. Raising the minimum wage? They won’t even allow a vote to happen. Cleaner air for all? They may partially shut down the government in a coming fight on behalf of major polluters. Add to that the continuing obstruction of student loan relief efforts, and numerous attempts to defund health care, and you have a party actively working to make life miserable for millions.

So, our nation turns to Starbucks. And Walmart. In the present moment, both of those global corporate monoliths are poised to do more to affect the huge chasm between the rich and everybody else than anything that’s likely to come out of John Boehner’s House of Representatives. Continue reading Timothy Egan: Walmart, Starbucks, and the Fight Against Inequality – NYTimes

NPR: Free College For All: Dream, Promise Or Fantasy?

“Free” is a word with a powerful appeal. And right now it’s being tossed around a lot, followed by another word: “college.”

A new nonprofit, Redeeming America’s Promise, announced this week that it will seek federal support to make public colleges tuition-free. That effort is inspired by “Hope” and “Promise” programs like the one in Kalamazoo, Mich., which pays up to 100 percent of college tuition at state colleges and universities for graduates of the city’s public high schools.

In reality there’s no free college, just as there’s no free lunch. The real policy discussion is about how to best distribute the burden of paying for it — between individual families and the public at large — and, secondly, how to hold down the cost of providing it. All while leveraging the power of “free” responsibly. Continue reading NPR: Free College For All: Dream, Promise Or Fantasy?

Sluggish Housing Market A Product Of Millions Of ‘Missing Households’ : NPR

By Chris Arnold

Home sales have fizzled in part because Americans in their 20s and 30s are choosing not to buy. Only 16 percent of new home sales are to first-time homebuyers.

A year ago, the housing market looked like it was finally recovering. Sales and prices were picking up. But then home sales fizzled. Currently, they are down about 7 percent from last spring.

A big part of why housing remains so stunted is that there are more than 2 million “missing households” in the U.S. That’s how economists describe the fact that fewer people are striking out on their own to find places to live. Continue reading Sluggish Housing Market A Product Of Millions Of ‘Missing Households’ : NPR

Labor Supply and the Poor: Some Facts That Might (or Might Not) Surprise You | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy

It is way too common in this town to run into people who think that poor people are poor because they don’t work. Influential Congressman Paul Ryan has referred to safety net benefits as “a hammock” that create “poverty trap” and a culture of non-work, a rap as old as poverty itself. Various critics of poverty programs argue that their benefit structure dis-incentivizes work and are increasingly calling for more work requirements.

I needed to look into the numbers of working poor persons for a project I’m doing and I found the results kind of interesting (h/t: AS and DT). I suspect everyone brings different priors to this question, but some might be surprised by these results. Continue reading Labor Supply and the Poor: Some Facts That Might (or Might Not) Surprise You | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy