Phillip Longman and Lina Khan at the
Washington Monthly write:
In 1978, however, a group of liberals including Ralph Nader, Ted Kennedy, Kennedy’s then Senate aide Stephen Breyer, and an economist named Alfred Kahn, whom President Jimmy Carter chose to run the CAB, conjured up a plan to drive down the cost of airline fares by fostering more price competition among airlines. Though they called it “deregulation,” the practical effect of eliminating the CAB, especially after subsequent administrations abandoned antitrust enforcement as well, was to shift control of the airline industry from experts answerable to the public to corporate boardrooms and Wall Street.
Over the years, most Americans have adopted a pretty standard line about the results. On the one hand, complaining about the indignities of flying—overbooked, late, or canceled flights; surly flight attendants; and, more recently, terrible in-flight food service and high fees for checked baggage— has become a staple of American life, much like complaining about Internet providers or health insurance companies. On the other hand, we’ve told ourselves, at least the increased competition has made air travel cheaper. And at least most of us can still get where we need to go by air.
But now we find ourselves at a moment when nearly all the promises of the airline deregulators have clearly proved false. If you’re a member of the creative class who rarely does business in the nation’s industrial heartland or visits relatives there, you might not notice the magnitude of economic disruption being caused by lost airline service and skyrocketing fares. But if you are in the business of making and trading stuff beyond derivatives and concepts, you probably have to go to places like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Memphis, St. Louis, or Minneapolis, and you know firsthand how hard it has become to do business these days in such major heartland cities, which are increasingly cut off from each other and from the global economy.
And it’s about to get worse. [...]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003:
As expected, the Senate passed the ban of so-called Late-Term Abortions, sans an exception for the health of the mother, by a 64-33 vote.
Now if this quote from Bush doesn't scare everyone who cares about Choice, then nothing ever will:
"Partial-birth abortion is an abhorrent procedure that offends human dignity, and I commend the Senate for passing legislation to ban it," Bush said in a prepared statement. "Today's action is an important step toward building a culture of life in America."
Note Bush's choice of words: "an important step". All those who decry "slippery slope" arguments, that the ban on this rare procedure doesn't mean Bush and GOP will ban all abortions, need only read those words once again:
Today's action is an important step toward building a culture of life in America
Tweet of the Day:
The American League of Lobbyists has written POTUS, calling on him to "tone down his attacks on lobbyists"
— @samsteinhp via TweetDeck
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