David Coates

Answering Back

Answering Back: The Living Book is a resource to keep you up-to-date as you fight for a better America. The book consists of 10 chapters, each covering a major issue in today’s political debates. Additional articles on these topics are regularly added to the book’s website, so it continues to live on. Here you will find the latest story lines, data sets, and literature references necessary to keep you fully up to speed with this incredibly rapidly changing and important set of political struggles.

I encourage you to respond to any and all of the articles. – David Coates

May 6, 2013

America’s Half-forgotten Housing Crisis

            On the housing front, the good news is that the President wants Mel Watt to head the FHFA. The bad news is that, precisely because the President wants him, there is no certainty that Mel Watt will be confirmed. The really bad news is that the problems in the U.S. housing system are currently. . . read more »

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May 2, 2013

Gridlock in Washington: Conservative Heaven!

Commentary on recent developments in American politics, written for a British audience As must now be blindingly obvious to anyone following the international news, American politics is not like Western European politics. In the United States, popular outrage does not turn rapidly into responsive public policy. Governments do not move effectively to deal with economic. . . read more »

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April 19, 2013

The Forgotten Jobs Crisis

Perhaps it is the sheer size of this country that makes important problems invisible – with each problem so localized and personal as not to count in public discourse. Or perhaps it is the sheer size of the problems themselves that enables them to hide in the open –with each so large and so ubiquitous. . . read more »

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April 9, 2013

Tomorrow’s Presidential Budget: Questions of Judgment?

The President is likely to have a bad week with his progressive base, if what we are told to expect in his budget tomorrow turns out to be true. We are told that his budget will trade “modest entitlement savings,” including future reductions in Social Security payments, for immediate tax hikes on the corporate-rich.[1] If. . . read more »

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March 27, 2013

Budgets to the right of us, budgets to the left of us: budgets, budgets everywhere!

              It’s been quite a month for budgets – both here and, as it happens, in the U.K. too. In London in March, the coalition government provided another round in its continuing pursuit of economic growth through fiscal austerity[1] – an economic growth which continues to elude it – while here in the U.S.. . . read more »

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March 13, 2013

The Problem with Charm Offensives: If They Are Needed, They Have Already Failed

  Faced by insurmountable odds as the Carthaginians swept down the Italian peninsula during the Second Punic War, the Roman general Fabius Maximus simply retreated and retreated, wearing the opposition down by declining to engage with them at all. Watching the Republicans play the President right now, the scorched earth policy that the Romans used. . . read more »

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March 12, 2013

America in Trouble

First posted on the Comment page of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institite (SPERI) website, University of Sheffield, UK Watching the economic policy debate in both Washington and London is a deeply frustrating experience. The debate in the UK is at least clearly focused -  on the adequacy or otherwise of Osborne’s policy of deliberate. . . read more »

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February 25, 2013

Going beyond the President’s Manufacturing Strategy

Amid the urgency of the sequestration crisis, many things of substance are likely to fade into the background of public debate – at exactly the moment when they should not. Among those are the President’s call for a strengthening of the economy’s manufacturing base and the recreation of well-paying US-based manufacturing jobs – his key. . . read more »

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February 13, 2013

Cataloging Weaknesses in the State of the Union Address

  So, the State of the Union is strong, is it? Well, maybe it is for the people the President chose to speak about last night. But what about the ones he only mentioned in passing, or the ones that he omitted to mention at all?  What about the state of the union for those. . . read more »

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February 6, 2013

Waiting for the State of the Union Address

  SOTU addresses at the start of a second presidential term are relatively rare phenomena, and in recent times they have also been also relatively ephemeral ones. George W. Bush used his SOTU Address in 2005 to make a prolonged pitch for the partial privatization of Social Security.[1] That pitch went nowhere. Bill Clinton used. . . read more »

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