Reconciliation: How the Democrats Can Run the Table
Congressional Democrats will take office in January with the broadest mandate since the post-Watergate midterms in 1974—twice the popular-vote margin the Contract-with-America Republicans won in 1994. The work begins with dismantling most of what Donald Trump and his corrupt, incompetent administration have done over the past two years. Much of what Trump wrought came through his One Big Beautiful (sic)… Continue reading
The State of the Union and the Real Meaning of…
Last Tuesday night, the President exhorted Americans to raise our economic game and challenged Congress to give us the means to do so. His basic proposition, which comes from mainstream economics and more recently from Bill Clinton’s 1992 economic plan, is that expanding certain national investments can make us more competitive, especially if it’s tied to overall deficit restraint. Moreover,…Continue reading
What the Obama-Hu Meetings Can Mean for the U.S. Economy
Barack Obama and China’s President Hu Jintao have genuinely important economic matters to talk about this week, even if there’s little prospect for any agreements that could materially improve our own economy anytime soon. But President Obama can –– and certainly will –– use these meetings to hammer home his long-term priorities for the U.S.-Sino relationship. And so long as…Continue reading
Why It Matters So Little that Obama’s Jobs Record is…
The great partisan squabble of 2011 over the economy begins this week with the new Congress. Even if some of the rhetoric seems fresh, the core issues likely to become the stuff of real political fights — the terms of entitlement spending, the shape of the tax code, and the value of public investment — are all familiar from battles…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