Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

November 18, 2009

Leading with the Numbers

Ezra Klein: "The Senate [health care] bill, we now know, costs a smidge under $850 billion during its first 10 years, cuts the deficit by $127 billion, and covers 31 million people. In the second decade, it cuts the deficit by an improbably large $650 billion. But we don't know anything else. We haven't seen the CBO's full score yet, nor do we know any of the specifics in the bill. Reid's office released the numbers before it let anyone see the language. It wants the numbers burned into the media's mind. They're the message, at least for now."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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