Spotlight

TCF Task Force on Community Colleges

TCF has assembled a Task Force called Preventing Community Colleges from Becoming Separate and Unequalto consider strategies to strengthen community colleges. The group will address the issue that has remained below the radar screen in discussions over improving college access and completion. Learn more about the Task Force in this press release. The Washington Post's Think Tanked Blog writes a piece on the Task Force.

Photo: NoDivision

Taking on Charles Murray's Coming Apart

Greg Anrig takes on Charles Murray's Coming Apart: The State of White America in this Blog of the Century series.Murray is co-author of the widely debunked, endlessly discussed best-seller The Bell Curve, which argued that genetic differences play a role in explaining racial variations on IQ tests. Read Anrig's take on the first part of the book  here and here in Blog of the Century. Stay tuned for more.

Photo: Truthout.org

The Tax Expenditures of the 1%

The Tax Policy Center’s newest report on the distribution of tax expenditures further strengthens the case for increasing tax progressivity and raising needed revenue by ending the preferential treatment of capital income (subject to a 15 percent tax rate versus a top marginal income tax rate of 35 percent). Read Andrew Fieldhouse's piece, "The Tax Expenditures of the One Percent" in Blog of the Century

Graph of the Day: Recovery Still Threatened

While it's surely five o'clock somewhere, champagne-soaked celebration would be premature for the the headline unemployment rate fall to 8.3 percent of last week.  Read Benjamin Landy's, "Graph of the Day: Fiscal Drag Still Threatens the Recovery," and see what's down the road to hold back economic recovery.

After the Veto, What Next on Syria?

The failed vote in the U.N. Security Council Saturday on a resolution committing the United Nations to the Arab League’s Syria transition plan opens the door to an international free-for-all in which Syrian factions enlist foreign patrons.  Read senior fellow Jeffrey Laurenti's analysis of the situation, "After the Veto, What Next on Syria?" in Blog of the Century.

Photo by Maggie Osama

U.S. Hypocrisy Starves North Korea

Amidst all the speculation about the future of North Korea’s leadership, a critical problem remains unresolved: the country has a major food problem affecting its most vulnerable and poorest populations, which even Pyongyang acknowledges could result in another humanitarian disaster. Morton Abramowitz continues his series on this issue in National Interest.

Photo: Stephan

How "Occupy Our Homes" Can Win

Since most of the original Occupy encampments were evicted by wintertime, the question now is, what's next for activists? One suggestion is "Occupy Our Homes," a campaign in which occupiers  would do actions at foreclosed houses or at bailed-out banks that are throwing people out of their homes. TCF fellow Amy Dean interviews anti-eviction organizer Steve Meacham in, How "Occupy Our Homes" Can Win.

Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh

A Quiet Triumph of Obama Care

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), enacted with only Democratic votes by the scarcest of margins in 2010, remains a complex, highly controversial piece of legislation with outcomes and costs that remain to be seen in the years ahead. Read The Washington Monthly piece by Harold Pollack and Greg Anrig, "A Quiet Triumph of Obama Care."

PolicyCast: New Fellows Join TCF

Get to know our new fellows by listening to them on TCF's Podcast:

Daniel Alpert, Michael Cohen, Amy B. Dean, Suzanne Mettler, Mark Thoma