I suspect the epithet, “the dismal science,” persists because economists tend to deal with numbers, and numbers have very little regard for our wishful thinking.[...]

Representative Alan Grayson caused a stir in the House yesterday when he presented “the Republican healthcare bill.” It was quite simple: 1. Don’t get sick. 2. If you do get sick, die quickly.[...]

Yesterday’s healthcare debate in the Senate Finance Committee was a dismal spectacle for so many reasons. Two public options were voted down. Sen. Baucus offered no better reason for voting against Sen. Schumer’s public option than his belief that other senators were not going to vote for it when the bill left committee. It was something less than heroic. But the last straw was when Sen. Grassley unabashedly adduced research that wouldn’t pass muster in an A.P. Government class.

I am surprised to see that ACORN is still in the news this week. In case it is possible for anyone to have forgotten, James O’Keefe III and his associate Hannah Giles, posing as pimp and prostitute went to ACORN offices in five cities including Baltimore and D.C. They sought advice on establishing a brothel, including how to file taxes without arousing suspicion, and some ACORN workers scandalously obliged.

It would certainly be nice if more, even most Americans had a firm grasp of economics, real-world as well as classical. At least then, our public debate could focus on the features of economic life that actually exist. This would likely rein in the discourse on both the right and left. But in a national climate in which a substantial percentage of people don’t think evolution should be taught in schools, I see little hope for economics.

Whereas the rhetoric of the House is often transparently insane, the thrust and parry of the senate is endlessly amusing.