The real case for universal programs

It's not about politics, they're better on the merits — but raising taxes is hard

Hey folks — this morning I wanted to introduce everyone to a new member of the team, Claire Cantrell, who came on board this week as editorial assistant to help make sure the posts here are as good as they can be and to keep the trains running on time. Claire is great, and I’ll let her say hi in her own words:

Hi everyone! My name’s Claire and you’ll be seeing me around Slow Boring periodically alongside Matthew and Marc. I graduated from college last year with a degree in International Affairs and currently live in D.C. (okay, technically Arlington), though I was born and raised in Austin, Texas. My concentrations in my studies were Latin America and geography, and I studied abroad for five months in Chile (I also did three shorter-term programs in Copenhagen, Cape Town, and Monteverde, Costa Rica). I have a senior cat named Huey, I will try pretty much anything once, and cheese is far and away my favorite food in the world… and those are the basics about me. I can’t wait to get to kn…