‘Enemies List,’ Updated
Since President Obama entered the Oval Office, federal agencies have harassed entire classes of American citizens. Yet in an insightful post on Real Clear Politics, Ben Domenech suggests that this ...
Obamacare Costs Spark Voter Cynicism
Ask any pollster. Distrust of the government in Washington stands at unprecedentedly high levels. Between three-quarters (Pew) and four-fifths (Gallup) of Americans now instinctively question the veracity of promises from ...
Head Start: Still Useless
What is it about the Head Start program that prevents presumably responsible adults from doing what’s best for poor children? What prompts this question is the reaction to a scientifically ...
Parsing the Polls
Last week, the Gallup Organization provided more fodder for the debate over whether this year’s polls are skewed due to a systematic over-representation of Democrats in the samples. If Gallup ...
Income Matters in Voters’ Choices
In a Wall Street Journal column, Phil Gramm and Mike Solon ask whether the recent rapid expansion of the welfare state has altered the “old metrics” for assessing how the ...
Two Tribes
Why, the perplexed talk-show host asked last week, would the Democrats expunge all references to God from their party platform? And why reverse the party’s position that Jerusalem is the ...
‘Keep That Pay Raise, I Can’t Afford It’
Does our $927-billion-per-year welfare state discourage the poor from seeking work? Does it cause them to shun pay hikes? Does it, in short, create dependency?
This may be the most intractable ...
Polls and Party Affiliation
In its 2012 American Values Survey, the Pew Research Center identified a new and profound dividing line in American politics. “Americans’ values and basic beliefs,” Pew concluded, “are more polarized ...
Helping Workers RAISE Themselves
“I want every man to have the chance . . . in which he can better his condition; when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this ...
Oversampling Dems
How important is it for polling organizations to include the correct proportions of self-identified Republicans and Democrats in their polls? The short answer is: Extremely.
In this hyper-partisan age, the partisan ...