new deal

I’ve been fascinated by the rise of Chuck DeVore, a Republican state assemblyman from California whose grassroots campaign against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) — and against brand-new Republican candidate Carly Fiorina — has transformed the Republican primary from a coronation to a neck-and-neck battle between conservative activists and GOP leaders. When I interviewed DeVore in [...]

Jonathan Chait has a good, long review of three books about the New Deal that can be read next to my story last month on the influence of Amity Shlaes and her revisionist history, “The Forgotten Man,” among Republicans.
At one point in her book, in fact, Shlaes actually concedes that Roosevelt’s Keynesian experiment succeeded when [...]

Franklin Roosevelt knew the Great Depression offered an opportunity to do more than rescue a sick economy. It was a unique chance to pursue a higher purpose for government — to make life less risky for future generations. If Roosevelt is the standard, Obama will be judged not just on how he deals with the economic crisis, but on how he uses it.

With the mortgage crisis dragging on and no quick fix in sight, lots of new ideas to help people stay in their homes are floating around. Maybe one upside to the lack of action on stopping foreclosures is an opening for some innovation — for ways to break through the complications that seem to be [...]