-John Paul Stevens was nominated by Gerald Ford as a moderate Midwestern Republican, but is now the leader of the liberal bloc of the court, today announced his retirement. Here are some of his potential replacements.
-A recent poll found that Americans preferred cutting spending to raising taxes by a 61% to 5% margin. But when asked which programs we should cut, only item garnered support from a majority: foreign aid. Currently, 1% of our budget goes toward foreign aid (much of it to Israel, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan). As this excellent piece points out, even if we add together the total budget for the five programs that garnered support from more than 25% of the population, they still only account for 3% of the budget. Meaning we have some difficult choices ahead of us.
-The recession, officially, is almost certainly over. And a number of indicators -- from jobs to sales -- convey positive news. Yet, the mood of the general public has yet to shift. That's partially because unemployment is still high and the recovery is likely to be slow.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
More Poverty Policy Links
-The Economist asks "Who's Rich?" The middle three quartiles of household income (20th-80th percentiles) ranges from $20,000 to $100,000. The health care bill focuses taxes on individuals earning over $200,000 per year and households earning over $250,000 per year. The 95th percentile for individual income is $180,000 . . . meaning these taxes will impact very few Americans.
-Social Security was projected to begin taking in less money that it spends in 2016, but it appears it will instead do that this year -- largely because of the recession. Not to fear, though, because of the large trust fund it's built up by running a surplus for the past few decades, the latest projection is that Social Security won't actually run out of money until 2037.
-The University of Cincinnati has housing specifically for first generation college students (the Gen-1 house) . . . largely b/c first generation students are four times as likely to drop out as other students . . . nationally, 89% of low-income first generation students fail to graduate in six years.
-Most importantly, as of 7pm Eastern, the Pirates are in first place in the NL Central.
-Social Security was projected to begin taking in less money that it spends in 2016, but it appears it will instead do that this year -- largely because of the recession. Not to fear, though, because of the large trust fund it's built up by running a surplus for the past few decades, the latest projection is that Social Security won't actually run out of money until 2037.
-The University of Cincinnati has housing specifically for first generation college students (the Gen-1 house) . . . largely b/c first generation students are four times as likely to drop out as other students . . . nationally, 89% of low-income first generation students fail to graduate in six years.
-Most importantly, as of 7pm Eastern, the Pirates are in first place in the NL Central.
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