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Gynecologist doing ultrasound of pregnant woman in hospital.

No Doctor, No Delivery, No Future

The Sleeping Giant Woke Up. Trump is Asleep.

The Sleeping Giant Woke Up. Trump is Asleep.

Woman putting savings in a white piggy bank.

Affordability Crisis: From The Great Compression to the Great Divide

Podcast: Fear and loathing in Washington: The debt ceiling

Podcast: Fear and loathing in Washington: The debt ceiling
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMay 15, 2023
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Here we go again. Congress is facing a June 1 deadline to avoid a totally preventable “debt ceiling” crisis. If no one flinches in this dangerous game of chicken, the U.S. economy will be dragged into a cataclysm, destroying America’s global reputation and unleashing unfathomable pain for every American family.

An artifact from World War I, the debt ceiling comes back every few years to provide existential drama — the battlefield of partisan politics. It all sounds a bit insane, but it’s only the latest crisis to be spawned by our increasingly dysfunctional political system.

On this week’s episode, Fernando is joined by Washington uber-insider Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to discuss her mounting fear that a “default is possible” and what we can do about it.

Also, Fernando chats with Nellie Gorbea, former Rhode Island Secretary of State, for the latest installment of the X-Ray Vision interview. In this quirky conversation, Nellie shares her dream superpower, transformative leadership vision, and why Puerto Rican rum is superior to scotch.

Listen.


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The Constitution didn't create American prosperity — geography, immigration, and historical luck did. Here's why that matters for reform debates.

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The Constitution Did Not Make America Rich

Americans are taught a reassuring story about their country’s success. The United States became prosperous, powerful, and free because the framers wrote an exceptional Constitution. The miracle of Philadelphia produced the miracle of America.

The story appears in classrooms, campaign speeches, judicial opinions, and serious scholarly works. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson have argued that institutions securing property and constraining expropriation help separate rich nations from poor ones. But the popular American version takes that insight and turns it into something much stronger – and misguided: that our prosperity flowed from our particular constitutional design, and that altering it would put the wealth at risk.

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An examination of how gun rights, taxes, business regulation & public health all reflect the same core principle: rights come with responsibilities to society.

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With Rights Come Responsibilities - That's the American Way

People on the Right/MAGA are always talking about their rights and how the government is taking away their rights. Whether it’s the issue of gun ownership, running a business, or restrictions on movement during the pandemic, people on the Right don’t seem to understand what it means to be a citizen. Yes, we have rights. But with rights come responsibilities. Not even the right of free speech, let alone the right to gun ownership, is absolute.

Man is by nature concerned mainly with his and his family’s interests. That is his biological imperative. Socially, however, man has evolved into being a member—a citizen—of a larger society. And so, from the most primitive communities to contemporary societies, that driving instinct has been reigned in for the greater good of the community.

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An Independent Just Broke Through in Alaska — As Republicans Try to Kill the System That Made It Possible

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An Independent Just Broke Through in Alaska — As Republicans Try to Kill the System That Made It Possible

Independent Bill Hill is heading to the November ballot after finishing second in Alaska's Aug. 18 top-four open primary, setting up a race against Republican incumbent Rep. Nick Begich III for the state's at-large US House seat. With 396 out of 403 precincts reporting, Begich led with roughly 46.12% of the vote to Hill's 30.89%.

In Alaska's system, all candidates run in a single primary. The four candidates with the highest vote totals are then placed on the November general election ballot. Voters use ranked choice voting to rank those four candidates based on their preferences.

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