One way in which Americans have always been exceptional has been in our support for education. First we took the lead in universal primary education; then the “high school movement” made us the first nation to embrace widespread secondary education.

What Republicans have actually put on the table is almost nothing. All of the rest is just big talk. So how is the president supposed to negotiate with people who say, 'Here's my demands. By the way, I can't give you any specifics. Just make me happy'?

I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.

In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.

Tax cuts were not going to be effective at creating jobs, and the job creation record is lousy.

In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price-determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a living wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away.

We know that advanced economies with stable governments that borrow in their own currency are capable of running up very high levels of debt without crisis.