It's a slow August day in DC. So here's a case for why a conception of deservingness based on work, contribution, and family ought to be at the center of arguments challenging inequality.

An "Economic Snapshot" offered today by Max Sawicky of the Economic Policy Institute brings home the sobering cost of extending the Bush tax cuts of earlier this decade, measured two ways. It shows that, all other things being equal, despite "out of control" projected growth in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending, the cost of these benefits in 2017 will be dwarfed by the cost of Bush tax cuts and related revenue policies, excluding interest costs associated with debt payments.

The Brookings Katrina Index has a special edition of its regular report on the Hurricane Katrina recovery. In sum, two years after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failures, the city of New Orleans and its metro area has bounced back, recovering most of its population and economic base. Yet, progress in the past year has slowed, basic services and infrastructure remain thin, and stark disparities loom between the recovery of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes and the rest of the region.

One of the great projects undertaken during the Bush political era has been to tune up liberalism. By no means is this a new project, but people have recently been working on it with renewed vigor.