Daily Clips: February 9th, 2016

President Obama’s budget calls for a new wage insurance program. Here’s what that means: Matthew Yglesias outlines Obama’s plan to bolster wage insurance in a succinct fashion, making this complicated subject easy to comprehend.

The basic idea is that you would get 50 percent of the difference between your old salary and your new salary in the form of a check coming out of your state’s unemployment insurance program.

The fine print:

• You have to have worked at least three years at your old job.
• Your new job must pay less than $50,000 a year.
• The maximum amount of money available is $10,000 over two years.

So if you worked for three years at a job that paid you $55,000 a year, got laid off, and then took a new position that pays $45,000 a year, you could get $5,000 a year in wage insurance for two years while you build skills and experience in your new position.

David Brooks spins Rubio’s flub in a hilarious way: By now, you’ve heard of Marco Rubio repeating himself (nearly verbatim) four times over the course of the last debate. So, did those pathetic gaffes make Brooks rethink his support? Of course not! Listen to his rationalization:

I happen to find it charming that Marco Rubio gets nervous on the big occasions — that he grabs for the bottle of water, breaks out in a sweat and went robotic in the last debate. It shows Rubio is a normal person.

If by “normal person” you mean someone that doesn’t answer the question and regurgitates talking points that are vague and unspecific, then sure, he’s normal.

Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement matters: So why is she holding back? It’s a question that has been tossed around by many progressives. Some are frustrated, others suspicious. The fact remains, her endorsement will be a huge boost for either Hillary or Bernie. Here’s an interesting passage from the piece:

Most importantly, Warren can afford to wait for a clear winner to emerge, increasing her leverage over a future Sanders or Clinton administration—giving her another chance to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she created but was denied the opportunity to lead—and, perhaps, bolstering her shot at a presidential run somewhere down the line.