You may want to read the following. You’re being conned by the WSJ editorial page. Again.

TODAY’S WSJ LEGERDEMAIN:

Judd Gregg (R-NH) requested that the Congressional Budget Office prepare a study measuring how low-income households with children have fared from 1991 to 2005. CBO dutifully complied, and found that low-income households with children have seen their income rise 35% over this period. The result is trumpeted in a lead editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal. The poor get richer! shouts the Journal. There are the predictable sneers at John Edwards for his insistent belief that there are poor people in the United States, and demands that the “class envy lobby” accept “this dose of economic reality.”

But wait. Why fifteen years? Well, it is a nice, round number. But fifteen years (from the last year where data) is available is 1991. That was a recession year, when incomes for this group collapsed. So the CBO study that Gregg demanded measures the change from a recession year to a boom year. Incomes for the poor — or anybody — always rise over the course of a business cycle. The measurement Gregg demanded is simply useless.

If you look closely at the study, you find that all the low-income growth occurred in the 1990s — more than all, in fact. It peaked in 2000, and has fallen since. One table in the study shows that low-income households with children had their income drop more than 10% from 2000 to 2005. You could take that point and argue that the Bush administration has made the poor poorer. That wouldn’t be a fair argument– Bush didn’t cause the 2001 recession — but it would be much fairer than the point Gregg and the Journal are making.

The interesting question is whether, by the time the current business cycle hits its peak, incomes for people at the bottom will recover to where they were at the peak of the last business cycle. As of 2005 they still haven’t caught up.

–Jonathan Chait

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Edwards…the only candidate in the 2004 race who consistently won every single primary and caucus where independents, RINOs, and Republicans were allowed to vote. In every single one, he carried moderate Americans. Had Kerry been bailed out by Kennedy money and arm twisting, Edwards would have swept the primarys etc middle of the season to the end. Why? Because back then he appealed to Americans-not just Democrats. Today, he’s full on pandering, and he has to if he wants to win the nomination. The Democratic Party is uber-polarized, and he has to pander to get money from those who are way off in la la land. If he doesn’t, come Feb 5, he’s gone.

The real question is, will Hillary’s money and back door arm twisters carry the day on 2/5 or will Obama’s empty zeal and amazing speaking ability crush Hillary’s? Yet further, on 2/5, there will not just be Democrats in primaries etc. Republicans and independents-America as a whole-will have the choice of who to vote for, and if Fred Thompson comes into the race in July as expected, he will crush all. Republican base loves him. His speaking ability and knowledge and experience crush Hillary and Obama’s, and if some of the minor Republican candidates fold before 2/5…he’ll have the staff too (he’s already got a fairly adept one).

Edwards is politically doa. This is it for him, he’s desperate, and he knows it.

I can’t wait to see how it goes 2/5. Not only will we see which dem and which rep carried each state, we’ll see which party carried each state, and how well each nominee did in each state. That’s the Democrats’ catch 22. They have to pander to the base to get the nomination, but they also have to focus on the national because a lot of people can vote for the other party in 08. I just don’t see NASCAR dads ooooing and ahhhhing to get to the polls for Sen Edwards. In just 7 months, we’re gonna have a real good idea who the next President will be-not just the nominees, but the next president.

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Scrap That Meme

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Is Edwards trying to be the Ron Paul of the Democrat Party?

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