My wife and I saw “Drop Dead City” tonight at the IFC in Manhattan. It’s a riveting documentary about the New York City Fiscal Crisis of 1975. I know that statement sounds like a parody of a lecture in a poli sci class, but it happens to be true. The documentary is also riveting just as a cinematic experience. If you love the scene and soundscape of New York City film from the 1970s—from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three to Dog Day Afternoon—you’ll love this documentary. The archival footage alone will bring you back to the feel and time of another place. For me, the film was not just political (more on that below) but also personal. Figures […]
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Categories
Economies, Labor/Workplace, The Left, The Right, The State
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Tags Abe Beame, Albert Shanker, Buddy Beame, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Gerald Ford, Hugh Carey, New York City Fiscal Crisis, Svetlana Alexievich, Woody Allen, Zohran Mamdani
This past Sunday, I appeared on Up With Chris Hayes, where I spoke briefly about the rise of austerity politics in the Democratic Party (begin video at 2:13). My comments were sparked by Bruce Bartlett’s terrific piece “‘Starve the Beast’: Origins and Development of a Budgetary Metaphor” in the Summer 2007 issue of The Independent Review. Barlett is a longtime observer of the Republican Party, from without and within. He was a staffer for Ron Paul and Jack Kemp, as well as a policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a Treasury official under George HW Bush. Now he’s a critic of the GOP, writing sharp commentary at the New York Times and the Financial Times. He and I have argued about […]
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Categories
Economies, The Right
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Tags Alan Greenspan, balanced budget, Bruce Bartlett, debt ceiling, George HW Bush, George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Grover Norquist, Herbert Hoover, John Kenneth Galbraith, Jude Wanniski, Milton Friedman, Obama, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, starve the beast, tax cuts, Up With Chris Hayes