May 17, 2012
Previous Editions 
Email
cg@remappingdebate.org Craig Gurian is the editor of Remapping Debate. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia College, his law degree from Columbia Law School, and a master's degree in United States history from the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Craig's published work includes Let Them Rent Cake: George Pataki, Market Ideology, and the Attempt to Dismantle Rent Regulation in New York.
He is also Executive Director of the Anti-Discrimination Center and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School.
Commentary
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Aging, Population
Of all the fantasies indulged in by a society speeding toward self-destruction, none is as consequential as the idea that continuing growth — both in population and size of our economy — has a happy-ever-after ending. Yet, when overpopulation is discussed at all, it is discussed as a problem limited to the developing world. Indeed, a growing chorus of “pro-natalist” or population growth ideologues insists that, in the U.S. and other parts of the developed world, population stability or decline represents a demographic crisis that needs to be reversed.More
Press Criticism
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Politics, Taxes
A New York Times piece suggests that unprecedented tax hikes for all Americans may be coming in January. In fact, what we have is essentially a rerun of 2010. The central question once again: will President Obama stand up to the GOP and allow tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to return, as scheduled, to their Clinton-era levels?More
Press Criticism
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Legislation, NYC, Politics
Lots of anecdotes to show that the City Council Speaker is down to earth, but little of substance. When you leave out the fact that Quinn runs the Council undemocratically, thwarts the will of voters, and serves the interests of the one percent, you don't have much of a profile.More
Press Criticism
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Corporate influence, Labor, Pensions, Role of government
Two recent articles in The New York Times ignore altogether the need for a critical approach. In one, a front-pager billed as a news article, the reporter could easily be mistaken for a member of BlackRock's public relations team. In the other, the reporter treated with contempt the idea that workers deserve to have bargained-for pensions benefits honored.More
Commentary
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Politics, Redistricting
The Governor has a 69 percent approval rating, totes around an adoring press corps, and has been described as the tamer of New York's dysfunctional legislature. But preventing a repeat of the state's usual gerrymandering process in this redistricting cycle was just not important enough to Cuomo. So he has broken his promise to veto cynical plans to reproduce the status quo.More
Original Reporting
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Corporate influence, Taxes
It's the corporate tax reform mantra these days — at least on the Democratic side of the aisle. Supporters frequently say that the goal is a corporate tax system that makes the U.S. more competitive in relation to other industrialized democracies, reduces inequities and inefficiencies, and is “revenue neutral.” But serious questions have been raised about the premises underlying the vision of lowering rates and closing unwarranted corporate tax loopholes concurrently, and about the fiscal prudence and ultimate revenue neutrality of proceeding in that manner.More
Commentary
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Civil rights, Education, Law, Race
As the Supreme Court looks ready to restrict or eliminate race-based affirmative action in its 2012-13 session, supporters of such preferences have a tool they have (puzzlingly) not yet deployed: race-based affirmative action as a means to compensate for the disproportionately negative impact of current-day "legacy admissions" policies on minority applicants.More
Commentary
|
By Craig Gurian
|
Cultural values
Do all cultures celebrate cheating as much as we do? Has "getting away with it" always thrilled us to the extent it does now? I’ll concede in advance the danger of falling into the this-is-the-worst-it-has-ever-been trap, and even acknowledge, on a moment’s reflection, that our time and place has no patent on pretense, disingenuousness, and deceit. But we are still in staggeringly bad shape.More