Portside

Expanding health insurance to the uninsured was never the big story. The most important benefit of Obamacare is the security it provides to the tens of millions of people who already had insurance – except that insurance, before the Affordable Care Act, was only as safe as their job.

De Blasio is to the left of America's Democratic party, but he's no radical seeking to overthrow capitalism. Instead, he'll likely usher in progressive policies.

Dean Baker refutes Bill Keller's New York Times article, "Inequality for Dummies," published on December 22, (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/opinion/inequality-for-dummies.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0) in which he contrasts the "left-left against the "center-left.

The biggest issue . . . is that this is a budget that will continue to impose a drag on the economy . . . While the stimulus approved by Congress boosted growth and added between 2-3 million jobs, the steep deficit reduction of the last three years has slowed the economy, costing millions of jobs. With the housing bubble gone, we are missing close to $1 trillion in annual demand and no mechanism in the private sector that will cause it to replace this demand on its own.

Agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership distribute wealth upward. Real 'free trade' can lower medical costs for everyone.

This evidence suggests that cuts to programs for seniors may be unlikely to end up benefitting our kids. Rather such cuts may be associated with reduced spending on kids as well. If the public does not trust the government to provide good care for seniors, it may also not trust the government to provide good care for children.

Best leave the mortgage market in government control or abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac entirely and let moral hazard rule.

Anyone who expects a huge uptick in investment to provide a major boost to demand is either smoking something serious or simply has never looked at the data. It hasn't happen in the last 65 years and it's not about to happen now.

If most homeowners have not hedged themselves against the possibility that home prices, like bond prices, may fall if interest rates rise, we may be in for another round of very bad news if interest rates ever return to more normal levels. It is remarkable that the latest run-up in house prices has received so little attention from people in policy positions. There may be an enormous price to pay for the continued lack of attention to housing bubbles.