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Hari Sreenivasan
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Hari Sreenivasan

Shields and Brooks: Is California’s Election Reform a Good Idea?

Politics

New York Times columnist David Brooks and, eventually, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, joined us on the Rundown Friday to discuss the effects of President Obama’s stimulus plan, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Proposition 14 election reform and the NBA Finals.

We started our conversation with Brooks because Shields was stuck in traffic, but he eventually showed up in time to weigh in on California and predict the Boston Celtics will win the NBA championship.

Brooks talked with us about his [latest Times column](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11brooks.html?hp), which looks at what economists are saying about the merits and costs of the stimulus plan. He told us that economists, not surprisingly, haven’t reached a consensus on whether or not the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package is worth the cost.

Brooks wrote:

Over all, most economists seem to think the stimulus was a good idea, but there’s a general acknowledgment that we know relatively little about the relationship between fiscal policy and job creation. We are left, as Glaeser put it on The Times’s Economix blog, “wading in ignorance.”

You can read Shields’s column here, “What Baseball Can Teach American Business.”

Both were generally positive on California’s election reform, which sets up a “jungle” primary process where the two primary candidates, regardless of party, that get the most votes go to the general election.

Remember to submit via Facebook, Twitter or e-mail your questions for Shields and Brooks in the next episode.

Hari Sreenivasan
By —

Hari Sreenivasan

Hari Sreenivasan joined the PBS NewsHour in 2009. He is the Anchor of PBS NewsHour Weekend and a Senior Correspondent for the nightly program.

@hari

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