As befalls many an ambitious bill when legislatures head into the home stretch, the Healthy California Act got the hook last Friday. But as confusion mounts in Washington, there are good reasons you should know about this bill which sounds like a brand of smoothy.
Category: Tom Baxter
Posted inTom Baxter
The 6th District election and the fate of the AHCA
In its closing days, the race for the 6th District congressional seat, already regarded as the most important bellwether for the 2018 congressional elections, has begun to be seen as an indicator of something much more immediate: the fate of the American Health Care Act.
Posted inColumns
London to Topeka: A long arc of spectacular miscalculation
What connected Kansas to the United Kingdom last week were the inevitable consequences of bad math, which always trumps political conviction.
Posted inTom Baxter
George C. Marshall and the decline of political literacy
There are a lot of reasons why it’s timely to revisit George C. Marshall’s speech, given 70 years ago this week, outlining his plan for a European recovery from the ravages of the Second World War. One is its simple literacy.
Posted inColumns
The complicated question of how many of us there are
Remember the population explosion? Back in the 1960s, when overpopulation was considered such an imminent threat that President Richard Nixon spoke of the need to address it, the world’s population was moving past 3.5 billion. Today it’s more than 7.5 billion.
Without question, this increase in our numbers has contributed to a host of problems, from resource depletion to frictions over immigration. But the way we think and talk about overpopulation is vastly different than it was when there were half as many of us to worry about it.
Posted inColumns
Vogtle’s financial meltdown approaches historic proportions
Suppose the I-85 bridge repairs had run four weeks later than the guaranteed date, completion not yet in sight as summer dragged on, with a cost overrun of $36 million. That’s only a miniature comparison with the scope of the financial meltdown at the Plant Vogtle nuclear project.
Posted inTom Baxter
Perdue bill blows up with majority leader on board
Interesting things have a way of happening when everybody’s interested in something else. Take last week.
Posted inTom Baxter
‘All things Russia’ hearing was all things Yates
There’s much to unpack from the 10 days Sally Yates worked in the Donald Trump administration, and in a long-awaited hearing she did so Monday.
Posted inTom Baxter
Perdue gives Trump a map to rural America
All the way up to the week he took over his new job as Agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue had been an afterthought, his paperwork lost in the greater tumult of the Trump administration. And then, shazam.
Posted inTom Baxter
For Handel, ‘all hands on deck’ means just that
Most campaign entreaties for money go straight in the email trash bin without a glance, but not when the politician is Karen Handel and the subject is “Donald Trump.”
Posted inTom Baxter
In 6th District race, who exactly is us?
“Not one of us” — its a phrase which has become part of the political messaging tool box. But in the 6th District, who is us?
Posted inColumns
The Luv Guv leaves the building, and a woman rises in Alabama
Of the six Alabama governors elected since the end of George Wallace’s long reign, two had been convicted, until this week. With the plea deal on two misdemeanor charges and resignation of Gov. Robert Bentley — the “luv guv,” as he’s come to be known — the conviction rate went up to 50 percent.
Posted inColumns
Want to run the country like a business? Your CEO is behind the curtain
When we talk about running the country like a business, whose business are we talking about? In this day and time there are quite a few options to the old, staid stereotypes of American enterprise.
Posted inColumns
Less vulnerable than it appears, Medicaid misses the ax
Last week, the government’s largest health insurance program was spared the ax because those in control of the ax couldn’t agree on how to swing it. If you think we’re talking about Obamacare here, you missed much of what was really going on.
Posted inTom Baxter
A wind blows up around energy policy
Let these numbers sink in: there are now about 80,000 coal mining jobs in the U.S., and over 100,000 jobs connected to wind energy.
Posted inColumns
A generational walk through the health care debate
He’s a young, healthy guy with an independent streak, who may decide he doesn’t need health insurance when the government mandate goes away. She’s a 60-ish cancer survivor who depends on an Affordable Care Act subsidy for her continued medical care. You’ll be hearing a lot about them as the debate over the American Health Care Act unfolds.
Posted inColumns
Hate crimes: Categorizing the darkness within us
By repeatedly elevating the obvious into italics when we talk about hate crimes, we diminish to some degree the seriousness of what is going on around us. It is a tragedy beyond category.
Posted inLatest News
Zell Miller’s Legacy Dinner captures bipartisan spirit central to Miller Institute
The honoree has been ailing lately, and wasn’t about to attend. But in an age of sharp political divisions, Zell Miller’s 85th birthday was celebrated Tuesday evening by as bipartisan a group as you’ll be likely to gather these days.
Posted inColumns
For Democrats seeking a way back to relevance, it’s down to Idaho
It says something about the current condition of the Democratic Party that nearly all the votes that nudged Tom Perez over the top in Saturday’s election for chair of the Democratic National Committee were cast in the first round for the executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party.
Posted inColumns
Waiting for concrete: Toshiba bets on us, and loses
It’s an odd little world, where a Japanese company many of us still associate with the stereo equipment of our youth is brought to its knees because it can’t get concrete poured fast enough in Georgia and South Carolina.
