Obama's Segue From Constructive Tax Proposals to Low-Grade Demagoguery by Michael Barone
The tax system should be simplified and work for all Americans with lower individual and corporate tax rates and fewer brackets.
Commentary by Michael Barone
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August 29, 2014
August 26, 2014
A Decent Lawyer Should Tell Liberals They're Damned Fools and Ought to Stop By Michael Barone
"About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop." So supposedly said Elihu Root, New York lawyer and secretary of war and of state, and U.S. senator from 1909 to 1915.
Today it seems that many liberal "would-be clients" are in desperate need of what Root called "a decent lawyer."
August 22, 2014
Not Nearly as Daunting as the 1960s Riots by Michael Barone
Continued violence in Ferguson, Missouri, brings back memories of the urban riots of the 1960s.
As it happens, I had a front-row seat back then, as an intern in the office of Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh during the six-day riot in July 1967. At one point I was alone in the so-called command center with Cavanagh and Michigan Gov. George Romney.
Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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August 19, 2014
Hillary Clinton Not Campaigning Much for her Party in 2014, Unlike Richard Nixon in 1966 By Michael Barone
Just about everyone noticed Hillary Clinton's scathing comments on President Obama's foreign policy in her interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.
But almost no one has noticed where Clinton hasn't been seen. That's on the campaign trail or at fundraisers for Democrats running for the Senate.
August 15, 2014
Fidelity to Principle Can Make Needed Flexibility Impossible By Michael Barone
Politicians have ranges of positions of varying widths that they find acceptable. Hillary Clinton, like her husband, has a very wide range of stands she finds acceptable, depending on timing and circumstances. President Obama's range of acceptable positions has been far narrower
This is reflected in their attitudes about military action in Iraq. Clinton was for it in 2002 and was against it by 2007. Obama was always against what he called a "dumb war."
August 12, 2014
Three Hundred Years Later, Americans Owe a Debt to King George I By Michael Barone
Three hundred years ago, on Aug. 1, 1714, by the Julian calendar (Aug. 12 by the Gregorian calendar we use now), Queen Anne died. She was just 49 years old, but was weakened by obesity, gout and the effects of 17 pregnancies, from which only one child lived beyond infancy -- William, Duke of Gloucester, who died of smallpox at age 11 in 1700.
August 8, 2014
Primaries Show Republican Voters Wary of Tea party Candidates, Skeptical of Party Establishment by Michael Barone
The standard thing to say about the various Republican primaries this year is that the tea party movement has lost one race after another. That's a defensible conclusion but also an oversimplification.
I see more turbulence and undercurrents among Republican primary voters than usual. The evidence is that incumbents -- both those the mainstream media call tea partyers and those they call the party establishment -- have been prevailing by tenuous margins in primaries that in the pre-tea party years would almost certainly not have been seriously contested.
Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at
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August 5, 2014
Big Government Worked Better in the Industrial Age; Not so Much in Digital Era By Michael Barone
Earlier this week, I was thinking of writing a column about the lying and duplicity of Obamacare backers who argued that the difference between provisions providing subsidies in states with state-run health exchanges and providing no subsidies in states with federal exchanges resulted from inadvertence or a typographical error.
Typical among them was MIT health care expert Jonathan Gruber. The folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute found video of him in 2012 arguing that all or most states would create their own exchanges because they wouldn't get subsidies if they let the federal government run their exchanges. That was just a "speako" (the oral equivalent of a typo), Gruber replied.
August 1, 2014
Bipartisanship is Alive and Well, but not in the Obama White House By Michael Barone
Bipartisanship is dead. That's the conventional wisdom, and there's a lot of evidence to support it.
But there's evidence to the contrary as well. On two important issues, veterans' health and job training, congressional Republicans and Democrats have, with little notice, reached constructive bipartisan agreements.
July 29, 2014
Fighting Parasitic Bureaucracies and Crony Capitalism by Michael Barone
"Pare down the parasitic fringe" of government. "Favor a gospel of work" instead of aristocratic entitlement. "Rationalize finance" and "reverse the Parkinson's law of bureaucracy."
All that sounds like rhetoric from the Tea Party or reform conservatives who assail what they call crony capitalism.
But it's not a contemporary criticism. Those are phrases from a long essay, written more than half a century ago, by the British historian H. R. Trevor-Roper, titled "The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century."
Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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July 25, 2014
Obama Democrats Lose Their Big Bet on Health Exchanges by Michael Barone
Words mean what they say. That's the basis for the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Halbig v. Burwell invalidating the Internal Revenue Service regulation approving subsidies for Obamacare consumers in states with federal health insurance exchanges.
The law passed by Congress, Judge Thomas Griffith explained, provided for subsidies in states with state-created exchanges, but not in states with federal exchanges. That's factually correct, and under the Constitution, the government can't spend money not authorized by Congress.
July 22, 2014
Obama Dragged Down by Chaos at Home and Abroad, not by the Economy by Michael Barone
Why do you think President Obama's job rating is falling, even though the economy is recovering? the interviewer asked.
July 18, 2014
How Obama is Turning Liberalism Into an Instrument of Coercion by Michael Barone
Liberals just aren't very liberal these days. The word "liberal" comes from the Latin word meaning freedom, and in the 19th century, liberals in this country and abroad stood for free speech, free exercise of religion, free markets, free trade -- for minimal state interference in people's lives.
July 15, 2014
Obama Pays Price for Inaction on Immigration Law by Michael Barone
The flood of underage -- and non-underage -- illegal immigrants from Central America coming across the border in Texas is, to paraphrase a former Obama administration official, a "man-caused disaster." The man who caused it, more than anyone else, is Barack Obama.
Speaking at political fundraisers in Dallas and Austin last week -- he refused to do a "photo-op" on the border, first things first -- Obama placed the blame on House Republicans for not having passed a comprehensive immigration bill as the Democratic-majority Senate did in June 2013.
Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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July 11, 2014
Obama Skitters, Scampers and Scuttles Away From Failure by Michael Barone
Skitter, scamper, scuttle. That seems to be the mode of the Obama administration of late.
Skitter away from your red line in Syria. Scamper off to a meeting you'd previously nixed with Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Scuttle as much as the Constitution as you can, at least until you get called on it by 9-0 majorities in the Supreme Court, as the justices did on recess appointments, warrantless cellphone searches and $75,000 a day fines for disturbing supposed wetlands.
Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
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July 4, 2014
Supreme Court Slaps Down the Obama Administration By Michael Barone
Seldom in American history has the Supreme Court unanimously rejected positions advocated by presidents' administrations.
But in this respect at least, President Obama has produced the fundamental transformation he promised in his 2008 campaign. Over the last three years, the Court has rejected Obama administration positions repeatedly in unanimous 9-0 decisions.
July 1, 2014
Why Government Isn't Working and How to Make it Better by Michael Barone
Government just doesn't work very well. That's the persuasive thesis of three important books published this year.
June 27, 2014
Liberals Champion Freedom of Speech -- Except in Politics By Michael Barone
I'm old enough to remember when American liberals cherished the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. They celebrated especially the freedom accorded those with unpopular beliefs and protested attempts to squelch the expression of differing opinions.
June 24, 2014
Hispanics Sour on Obama as Young Illegals Surge Across Border By Michael Barone
What should Republican lawmakers do about immigration? That's been a simmering source of controversy ever since George W. Bush's push for so-called comprehensive immigration legislation, with legalization and enforcement provisions, in 2006.
Most liberals and many economic conservatives argued that support for such legislation was a political imperative for Republicans. Otherwise, they would continue to lose Hispanic voters, an inevitably increasing segment of the electorate, by 2-1 margins.
June 20, 2014
Are the Two Political Parties About to Crack Up? By Michael Barone
America's two political parties seem to be coming apart.
