Category Archives: Economic Strategy

March 31, 2011

Forget about Spending and Get Serious about the Economy

Washington today, especially the Congress, has a textbook case of cognitive dissonance. A confluence of black swan developments may well…Continue reading

February 23, 2011

Deficits Matter — But Right Now, Not So Much as…

The conventional Washington wisdom is that the key to economic policy today is deficit reduction for 2011, and battles over…Continue reading

February 16, 2011

The Economics and Politics of Cutting Deficits

The 2011 battle over the budget brings to mind the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms talks of the 1970s and 1980s. The…Continue reading

January 31, 2011

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…Continue reading

December 15, 2010

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…Continue reading

December 8, 2010

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…Continue reading

December 2, 2010

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…Continue reading

November 11, 2010

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…Continue reading

November 3, 2010

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…Continue reading

October 27, 2010

Lesson in Economics for the National Deficit Commission

The French statesman Georges Clemenceau famously called war “too serious a matter to entrust to military men”; and in the…Continue reading