Global Investors Are Telling Donald Trump His Deficits and National…
Washington is unnerved these days about budget deficits and the national debt. Deficit angst comes along periodically, often as a pretext for cutting social spending. This time, however, there’s genuine cause for alarm. Outsized deficits are par for the course when the economy is in recession or reeling from a shock like the pandemic or the financial collapse; most of… Continue reading
At Last, the Net Neutrality Fight Is Over
Official Washington, which usually doesn’t accomplish much at all, is having a week of extraordinary achievement. There’s the deal on taxes which should boost the economy next year and into 2012, the START Treaty, the long-overdue end to discriminations against gays and lesbians in our military, and now new open Internet rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The text…Continue reading
The Pitfalls of Economic Nostalgia
The United States faces economic problems as daunting as any seen since the 1930s. GDP growth and job creation remain slow in the early stages of the current recovery, when both should be strong. Moreover, the pressures of globalization, along with technological advances, have reduced the capacity of American businesses to create new jobs even when demand is strong. These…Continue reading
Taxes and the Art of the Possible
Barack Obama exhibited this week what Machiavelli called the essential quality of a successful statesman, “virtu,†or the capacity to advance a society’s vital interests while respecting the constraints of conditions beyond his control. The vital interest at stake here is a decent economic expansion that improves the circumstances of the vast majority of Americans, and the critical condition beyond…Continue reading
The Quiet Role of Class in the Coming Budget Battle
The political struggle over how the federal budget will shape American government is now in full swing and likely to dominate Washington for the next two years. This week, the President joined the battle by proposing a two-year freeze on federal pay, his symbolic version of Bill Clinton’s maxim that “the era of big government is over.†In doing so,…Continue reading
The FCC Gets It Right on Net Neutrality
Here are a few thoughts on the breaking news from the FCC on net neutrality, a matter I’ve written about repeatedly for several years. Today, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski spelled out his proposal for new rules for the regulation of broadband networks. They won’t satisfy everybody, and some outspoken advocates of so-called network neutrality are already throwing their stones, but…Continue reading
While the President Promotes U.S. Interests Abroad, His Opponents Deny…
Most of Washington is stuck "in what we call the reality-based community . . . people who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. . . . When we act, we create our own reality.â€Â Karl Rove, 2004. Rove’s famous comments came to mind this week as…Continue reading
The Mid-Term Elections and the Failure, Yet Again, of Trickle-Down…
This week’s seismic shift in the Congress will not change the problems facing its members and the President. This is the third consecutive election to bring large losses for the party in power, all for the same reason. For a decade, neither party has been able to deliver the rising incomes and economic security that matter most for average Americans.…Continue reading
Lesson in Economics for the National Deficit Commission
The French statesman Georges Clemenceau famously called war “too serious a matter to entrust to military menâ€; and in the same spirit, national budgets in a democracy are too important to leave to economists. But no sensible government would wage war without listening to generals and admirals, and the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — aka the National…Continue reading