Matt Robison is a writer and political analyst who focuses on trends in demographics, psychology, policy, and economics that are shaping American politics. He spent a decade working on Capitol Hill as a Legislative Director and Chief of Staff to three Members of Congress, and also worked as a senior advisor, campaign manager, or consultant on several Congressional races, with a focus in New Hampshire. In 2012, he ran a come-from-behind race that national political analysts called the biggest surprise win of the election. He went on to work as Policy Director in the New Hampshire state senate, successfully helping to coordinate the legislative effort to pass Medicaid expansion. He has also done extensive private sector work on energy regulatory policy. Matt holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Swarthmore College and a Master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He lives with his wife and three children in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Top election reform expert Alex Tausanovitch of the Center for American Progress explained what the biggest threats to American democracy are, and how these bills would fix them.
On the Great Ideas Podcast with Matt Robison, two top oil and gas sector experts – Mike Sloan and Andrew Griffith of the consulting firm ICF – explain what’s causing higher prices, what government leaders can do about them, and most importantly, when we can expect them to fall again
Is this bill really going to work and actually accomplish something good for America?
The way we run political campaigns has changed drastically in the last two decades. Today, political campaigns spend three times more money and leverage far more sophisticated data and media tools. They also have an unnerving amount of information on voters. Yet those extraordinary powers have mostly been used not to have a more nuanced,…
In California, and increasingly in much of America, a lack of affordable housing is the key issue, and also a burning problem that drives a lot of the other things we think about in policy.
Ms. Riley described how the system is failing and how better data, more coordination with civic groups, and better priorities could improve the lives of millions of American kids.
An under-discussed problem is that the frequency and severity of extreme weather events threatens to shake our financial system to its core.
On June 7, the F.D.A approved the use of the controversial Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm. This led to a backlash from many Alzheimer’s experts, who say that evidence for the drug’s effectiveness is limited.
Over the last 20 years, there has been perhaps no issue more emotional, fraught, and hard to fix than immigration. There have been many brief periods where it looked like the stars were aligning for a solution. All have disintegrated into bickering and political backlash. But some analysts believe that we could achieve a breakthrough…
As we begin to emerge from the worst of the pandemic recession, American workers and businesses are rethinking how we work, how much we work, and what we want out of our jobs. Dr. Daniel Cox is a Senior Fellow in public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute. His research suggests some surprising findings about what…
Covid-19 has now been a defining part of our lives for a year and a half. And we are now entering a new phase: trying to transition this disease from a society-crashing pandemic to a more manageable endemic disease. On the Great Ideas Podcast, Matt Robison interviewed leading researcher Dr. Jodie Guest – Professor and…
One night, New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick awoke to find himself in the ICU. He had been attacked by his son who was experiencing a mental health crisi
Democratic elections expert David Shor has a stark warning: if Democrats think they’re sitting pretty, they’re deluding themselves.
For the last year, we’ve been focused on getting kids back to school. But even before the pandemic, American students’ reading, science, and math scores had flattened at depressingly low levels. So if our education system is failing to get the vast majority of our kids to even basic proficiency, why are we rushing to…
Doug Dunbar spent almost 30 years in senior positions in American government. He was the Deputy Secretary of State in Maine. The press secretary to the Governor of Maine and a Communications Director in Congress. He worked for US Senators and state agencies.
He’s also now a felon.
Karlyn Bowman – an expert on tracking and analyzing American public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute – says there’s reason to look on the bright side.
“It’s not just about cutting. It’s about doing the work to make smarter choices.”
By accomplishing as much as he did, President Biden made a smart strategic choice and hit a foreign policy home run for America.
cost caps is the right solution on healthcareSince Congress passed the Affordable Care Act a decade ago, we’ve gotten totally stuck on health care. The parties are at war with each other. Republicans have tried to repeal the ACA 70 times. Democrats can’t decide whether to reform the system with a “public option” or to…
Instead of fighting over taxes, why not cut back on some of the money that the federal government spends on rich people?
All this attention is expected to peak in June when the Department of Defense is set to release a report on their investigations.
Will conservatives actually manage to get out ahead? Our edited conversation is below…you be the judge.
The pandemic has made all-too-clear that childcare is also a critical enabler of work. Especially for American women. And we don’t have nearly enough of it.
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under Donald Trump actually said that white supremacist extremists are “the most persistent and lethal threat” in America.
Ben Ritz, Director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Funding America’s Future, shared some of the incredible stories of what US government research has given us.
Conservatives have long argued that the federal government should do less, and instead “devolve” (i.e., hand back) power and money to states. Liberals tend to dismiss this idea.
The broader question is, after years of decline, do unions have a future? And should the vast majority of Americans even care?
The fiercest debate in Washington right now centers on some surprisingly basic questions. What is infrastructure? And when should the federal government invest in it?
Lindsey Walter, a Climate and Energy expert at the think tank Third Way, says that if you look closely at all the numbers there’s actually a lot of good news that gets buried.
Dr. Sarah Jane Glynn, an expert in employment, work, and family issues at the Center for American Progress, says that we if we started talking about the reality of the minimum wage, we could solve the problem and get to consensus as a country a lot faster.
Over the course of 2020, the federal government spent a massive amount trying to deal with the economic fallout of the pandemic. Republicans and Democrats agreed that in the face of crisis, America needed to put the fire out first, worry about all the water they were using later. But in 2021, people are beginning…
The filibuster is a historical accident. Many experts believe that it is ruining Congress and hurting democracy. It allows a small political minority to run roughshod over the majority and stop things that the American people need and want. But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says that if Democrats get rid of it, Republicans will…
Researchers say that global temperatures will continue to rise for centuries, no matter what we do today…and prospects for getting things done in Congress are not that bright. But climate policy expert Sam Ricketts says there is a lot of important action outside federal government that is making a big difference.
Cybersecurity policy expert Michael Garcia explains the true scale of this alarming problem that affects all of us, and how the Biden administration can protect us better.
The Senate is about to use a trick called “reconciliation” to pass Joe Biden’s Covid relief bill. Many Democrats want to go further and use this arcane rule to pass all kinds of policies that would never otherwise make it through – a rise in the minimum wage, climate policies, infrastructure, etc. But Tori Gorman, a…
In the midst of a devastating pandemic, fresh ideas to cover the 30 million currently uninsured Americans are more important than ever. Jim Capretta, health care expert at the American Enterprise Institute, says we can do a lot right now with some common-sense steps: “there’s literally tens of millions of people out there who are…