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 Latest Attack on the Census is an Attack on…
The latest fight over the Decennial Census is part of a 30 years’ war over efforts to count everyone in America, including immigrants, minorities and poor people. It’s become an ongoing war, because the Census carries such large consequences. The Constitution mandates a census every decade, because the founders saw a regular, state-by-state population count as the best way to…Continue reading
Message to World at the G-20 Summit: Don’t Depend on…
This week’s U.N. General Assembly and the countless, private discussions between presidents, premiers and prime ministers will range from climate change to terrorism, but most of the leaders are more preoccupied with the outlook for their economies. In this sense, the UN meeting is an opening act for the main attraction, the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh at the end of…Continue reading
The Democrats’ Surprising Emergence as a Real Governing Party
The Republican Party is reconstituting itself in ways that are reshaping the Democrats into a genuine governing party. The tip-off is the GOP’s growing inability — and that’s what it is — to engage with the President and congressional majority in any meaningful give-and-take about the deepest recession since the early 1930s or some form of health care reform. So,…Continue reading
The Potential Cost of Political Paralysis: The Lesson of Japan
A political earthquake hit Japan this week, one which could hold important lessons for America’s current political stalemates. After a half-century of one-party rule, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was buried in parliamentary elections by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), a loose coalition of generally left-of-center opposition parties. The elections were less a matter of partisan competition than an…Continue reading
The Conundrums in Health Care Reform
The political furor over health care reform, and especially the media coverage, may be triggered by right-wing agitprop; but the cynical distortions – death panels! – fed by hard Republican partisans are not responsible for eroding public support. Health care reform will always be a tough sale. Three-quarters of Americans believe we need serious reform; yet two-thirds of those who…Continue reading
Why, Yes, We Do Have to Regulate Some Executive Pay
The House of Representatives has committed some fumbles this year, but the legislation passed last week to regulate executive compensation in large public companies is sorely overdue. By any plausible standard, compensation for the very upper reaches of American business has been out of control for a long time. In 1991, candidate Bill Clinton scolded corporate America for rewarding the…Continue reading
The Fault Lines in the U.S.-China Relationship
The fault lines in this week’s “strategic dialogue†between American and Chinese leaders remained largely unseen, like a low-grade infection that can flare up without warning. Those fault lines matter mightily, however, because the United States and China are the critical players in the globalization process shaping every economy in the world. And despite America’s insecurities about China’s rising power,…Continue reading
Noticing and Solving the Problem with Jobs and Wages
America’s vaunted job-creating machine has been breaking down, and the administration is finally noticing. It was in 2003 when I first asked myself whether the dynamics that normally produce lots of new jobs when the economy expands were changing in some fundamental way. I had noticed that job losses during the mild 2001 recession were five to six times as…Continue reading