The Ugly Truth

Ezra Klein nails it on his blog (link).

Democrats won their massive majority because of an economic collapse. They've passed so much legislation because they have a massive majority based on an economic collapse. But the economic collapse isn't over. And having a lot more seats than the other party means 1) voters blame you for the condition of the country, and 2) you have a lot of seats to lose. What the bad economy and the huge majority giveth, the bad economy and the huge majority taketh away. Om. 

If there's a tension here, it's in the way that public opinions and the system interact -- or, more specifically, the way they don't. You can look at this and ask why Democrats passed all this legislation that made them unpopular. But if Democrats had sat around and done nothing after the stimulus, does anyone think they'd be more popular? On some level, Democrats understand that if people's incomes had gone up over the last year, their agenda would be popular enough, but that in the presence of persistent joblessness, they're going to lose the election. The only thing to do in the meantime is try and pass legislation that'll make the country better off. That's what they've done, or at least what they think they've done.

It's ugly in the sense that policy is irrelevant to the outcome of most elections.  I'd really like to believe that this isn't true, and political parties would be rewarded and punished on the basis of the policies that they enacted or blocked.  But, as usual, the relationship is much clearer than that.  Here's the chart Ezra uses to demonstrate the correlation:

This Week's Notable Readings

So here's the idea.  I have begun tweeting links to articles I found interesting.  This page is designed to be a sum up of what I those tweets. I'm not sure if I'll make this a weekly of a daily feature, but for the time being it'll be weekly.

So here's what I liked this week:

Clever needs to be kind

What kind of bias does reality have?

Coming Soon - Deflation 

Who cares about deficits?

Do tax cuts generate additional tax revenue? (No)

What spending should we cut exactly?

Incentives matter

No one ever is to blame

Who will be our next POTUS?

Leaders of the next congress?

Consistently Greenspan

Current Contenders

He's down but he's not out


Got any links I should take a look at?  Feel free to post them in the comments.