Author: Terrance Heath

Well, that didn\’t take long. Ya gotta admire people who know how to get results, and get them fast. For that reason, I\’ve got to take my hat off to the National Association of Home Builders, for pulling off something almost worthy of Wall Street: their own version of a federal bailout, of sorts. And…

Bear Stearns has been rescued, and its shareholders have been placated. Wall Street has several invigorating injections of billions of tax-payer dollars. Now that a great deal of public wealth has gone to prop up private wealth, maybe some of that public wealth can be used to help, well, the public. But only if the…

Like some middle class kids in my generation, education was a high priority. In my house it was emphasized as the doorway to upward mobility. (The idea of learning for learning\’s sake was something I discovered later.) If I wanted a "good job," I\’d better — at least — get an undergraduate degree. It wasn\’t…

I sat on the panel on \”Blog Power: 2008 and Beyond\” at the Take Back America conference Tuesday, alongside Pam Spaulding, Digby, Tracy Russo, and Chris Bowers. Towards the end, someone in the audience asked a question that made me think about what being a progressive means to me, and why I\’m a progressive. The…

Starting with Monday\’s panel, \”Health Care For All: The Plan to Get There,\” during Take Back America we\’re talking about health care. Every day. It\’s obvious why. Health care is a concern for every family in America — those with insurance and the 47 million Americans without it.

A new study suggests that conservatives are happier than liberals. But before conservatives start gloating, there’s something else to consider. Being happy is a cinch, if you can rationalize not caring about injustice and inequality.

Part Five of a series. Something\’s happening out there. It\’s happening quietly in some places and not-so-quietly in others. It\’s happening around kitchen tables and in living rooms across the country, as Americans come to grips with new — or, to them, newly-revealed — economic realities. For some, it\’s just impossible to deny or ignore…

It\’s rare that Americans speak up and speak clearly about what we want, and that Washington has in hand a plan that delivers it. In its latest issue, Consumer Reports has published some survey results that spell out six health care reforms the majority of Americans want. It just happens that—while it hasn\’t been implemented…

Part Two of a series. Consider this scenario. You\’re standing at a busy street corner when you see someone about to step off the curb right into the path of an oncoming bus. You have just enough time and you\’re close enough to reach out and stop them before it\’s too late. Do you? Conservatism…

(With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.) It began with Veggie Booty. Or rather, I should say, it ended with Veggie Booty. As was my habit, I\’d tossed it into the cart during our family\’s weekend grocery shopping trip. I didn\’t read the label, in part because I\’d read it before, to make sure there were…