TechWonk Blog Subsection
TechWonk Blog
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This week鈥檚 House and Senate vote on a short-term deal to re-open the government and extend the federal debt ceiling was the symbolic equivalent of a stroke victim taking his first few tentative yet positive steps in rehab.聽 It鈥檚 not a perfect metaphor to describe the legislative paralysis that has gripped Washington, but it works when we think about what Congress needs to do going forward.聽 With congressional [...]
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My college statistics professor was the source of a truly memorable warning: 聽鈥淭here are PT Barnums in data analysis who can easily influence people who鈥檝e either never taken a statistics course or slept through one.鈥澛� That鈥檚 good advice for policymakers because in major policy debates statistical wars usually occur, and some PT Barnums do surface. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is vying for the [...]
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Under a beautiful blue sky in the Rose Garden this morning, President Obama laid out the three key questions that drove the priorities in his just-released Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 budget: 鈥淗ow do we make America a magnet for new jobs?聽 How do we give our workers the skills they need to do those jobs?聽 And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living?鈥� Some of the key initiatives put forward [...]
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In October 1986, then-Los Angeles Lakers Coach Pat Riley confronted a major challenge:聽 How to restore a talented basketball team to dominance in a highly competitive league. 聽His response proved to be the most pivotal strategic decision of his career:聽 He made his most innovative playmaker, Earvin 鈥淢agic鈥� Johnson, the focal point of the team鈥檚 offense. Riley believed Magic had not reached his full [...]
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Sparky Anderson, who managed World Series-winning teams in Cincinnati and Detroit, once remarked, 鈥淲e鈥檙e getting close to opening day.聽 I don鈥檛 know if that鈥檚 a good or bad thing.鈥澛� January 3rd, 2013 marked American policymaking鈥檚 opening day:聽 the start of the 113th Congress.聽聽 We in the tech industry see the start of a new season of policymaking as a good thing because ours is an industry rooted [...]