Category: Tom Baxter

Over the past four years, the staff of the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has produced a series of essays titled “The Demographics of Wealth.” It draws on interviews with more than 40,000 heads of households, conducted over more than a quarter century, to examine how factors like race, age and education affect a family’s financial health. You’re thinking, not exactly a summer beach read. No, but if you want a clear-eyed fix on the economy before the politicians start talking about it again, this is a great place to start.

Google the name of Norman Primus and all you will find is his photograph and his archived 2012 obituary. That’s a shame. Primus spent a good part of his life fighting for our republic, and if we had listened to him we might have avoided the problems which bubbled up in last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision on partisan gerrymandering.

By Tom Baxter In 1896, a young conservative newspaper editor, William Allen White, was so infuriated after being accosted by a gang of progressives on the streets of Emporia that he fired off one of the most famous blasts of vituperation in the history of journalism, under the headline “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” The […]

Gee, what a coincidence. In Tennessee, as in Georgia, the state house speaker has been embroiled in scandal this year, with calls for him to step down. Things couldn’t be working out much differently than they are in these neighboring states, however.

The first outlines of the Supreme Court showdown over Roe v. Wade are taking shape, and with them new questions. If the laws pass this year by state legislatures take effect, how exactly will they be enforced?

What do the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Rifle Association have in common? More, it turns out, than these groups’ leaders and supporters would care to admit. In recent months, scandal has threatened the survival of both organizations, and in both, women with deep Atlanta connections have been thrust unexpectedly into key leadership roles.

Stacey Abrams has made it pretty clear she wants a rematch with Gov. Brian Kemp. In a more low-key way, Kemp has signaled that is the race he’s expecting in 2022.

The fundraising battle has begun in the two North Metro congressional districts which will account for most of the money spent in Georgia House races next year.

As she ponders which of a buffet line of races to jump into next, Abrams has been making the national media circuit, the hottest name on the bill at progressive conferences and a guest on talks shows, morning and night. Events promoting the reissue of her book, “Lead From the Outside,” are sold out around the country. It’d be nice if it could last forever, but sooner or later the current Democratic star has to make up her mind.

It was, in its way, an ambitious session. We can say that before any confetti flies. But it was also one in which events outside the Golden Dome eclipsed what was going on there.

In little more than a year, electric scooters have made a mark on America’s urban landscape. Just as impressive, in its way, is the speed with which this freebooting young industry has taken on the governmental trappings of more established businesses, complete with lobbyists and competing legislation.

Crossover Day, the last day for a bill to pass one chamber of the General Assembly in order to be considered for final passage that year, always comes with a dollop of drama. More than in most years, this one seems to have marked a real passage.