Obama and His Rivals Duck the Entitlement Crisis By Michael Barone
Some of society's most intractable problems come not from its failures but from its successes. Often you can't get a good thing without paying a bad price.
Commentary by Michael Barone
Most Recent Releases
August 29, 2011
August 25, 2011
Traveling Back to the Future on Intercity Buses By Michael Barone
Not long ago, I wrote about how the private sector outraces and laps government. While governments dither and dispute, the private sector discovers.
August 22, 2011
Same-Sex Marriage Moving Toward the Mainstream By Michael Barone
One of the few issues on which opinion has moved left over the last few years is same-sex marriage. In 1996, Gallup found that Americans opposed it by a 68 percent to 27 percent margin. Last May, Gallup found Americans in favor by 53 percent to 45 percent. That's a huge change in 15 years.
August 18, 2011
Harry S. Obama? By Michael Barone
Pundits lately have been comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, suggesting he is a likely loser in 2012. But my American Enterprise Institute colleague Norman Ornstein, writing in The New Republic, compares Obama to Harry S. Truman, suggesting he may outperform the polls and win.
August 15, 2011
GOP Has Momentum, Needs Clear Direction By Michael Barone
This has been quite a week or 10 days for Republicans. As this is written, down in South Carolina Rick Perry has just announced he's running for president, while here in Ames most of the votes have been cast but none has yet been counted in the Iowa Republican straw poll.
August 11, 2011
Bachmann Shows Why She's the Straw Poll Favorite By Michael Barone
Things look different in the Midwest. Back in Washington, people are talking about President Barack Obama's poor showing this past week. (Did you see that Maureen Dowd has turned against him?) In Iowa, they're focused on the state Republicans' presidential straw poll in Ames next Saturday. And in Wisconsin, they just got through counting the votes in a recall election that has great national significance.
August 8, 2011
Americans Want the Honor of 'Earned Success' By Michael Barone
Why aren't voters moving to the left, toward parties favoring bigger government, during what increasingly looks like an economic depression? That's a question I've asked, and one that was addressed with characteristic thoughtfulness by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg in The New York Times last week.
August 4, 2011
Chasing Votes by Promising to Do Impossible Things By Michael Barone
"Leading from behind." That's what an unnamed White House aide told the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza that Barack Obama was doing on Libya.
August 1, 2011
Republicans Win When the Fight Is Over Cuts Not More Taxes By Michael Barone
Everyone seems pretty cross at this juncture in the fight over raising the debt limit. As this is written, the House has just passed the bill that Speaker John Boehner yanked from the floor Thursday night and then revised with a balanced-budget amendment on Friday. The Senate has yet to pass Majority Leader Harry Reid's measure that in many but not all respects is not that much different.
July 28, 2011
Under Obama, Millennials Move Into the Republican Fold By Michael Barone
Most presidents affect the standing of their political parties. Ronald Reagan advanced his party's standing among young voters. So did Bill Clinton.
July 25, 2011
To Get a Mandate, GOP Must Win Another Election By Michael Barone
Those who consider themselves constitutional conservatives should take care to consider not only the powers that the Constitution confers on the different branches of government and reserves to the states and the people, but also the schedule that the Constitution sets up for sharp changes and reversals of public policy.
July 21, 2011
Will College Bubble Burst From Public Subsidies? By Michael Barone
When governments want to encourage what they believe is beneficial behavior, they subsidize it. Sounds like good public policy.
July 18, 2011
What the Debt Limit Battle Is All About By Michael Barone
It's hard to keep up with all the arguments and proposals in the debt limit struggle. But what's at stake is fundamental.
July 14, 2011
New Reality Emerging on Illegal Immigration By Michael Barone
The United States is a country that has been peopled largely by vast surges of migration -- from the British Isles in the 18th century, from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century, from Eastern and Southern Europe in the early 20th century, and from Latin America and Asia in the last three decades.
July 11, 2011
'Man-cession' Ends as Males Learn New Job Skills By Michael Barone
Some of us called it the man-cession. In the deep recession that lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, many more men than women lost their jobs.
July 7, 2011
Racial Quotas, Speech Codes and the Thought Police By Michael Barone
It's racially discriminatory to prohibit racial discrimination. That's the bottom line of a decision issued last Friday, just before the Fourth of July weekend, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
July 4, 2011
Replacing Property as a Source of Wealth Creation By Michael Barone
One of the interesting things about our country, the independence of which the Founders declared 235 years ago today, is that we have been a property-holders' democracy.
June 30, 2011
Why the Civil Service Is No Way to Run a Business By Michael Barone
What's the fair way to run a large organization? That's a question that is squarely, and interestingly, raised by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, a Supreme Court case decided last week.
June 27, 2011
Like Chauncey Gardiner, Obama Is Profoundly Aloof By Michael Barone
Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
June 24, 2011
Feds Crack Down on Campus Flirting and Sex Jokes By Michael Barone
When I was growing up, it was widely believed that colleges and universities were the part of our society with the widest scope for free expression and free speech. In the conformist America of the 1950s, the thinking ran, few people dared to say anything that went beyond a broad consensus. But on campus, anyone could say anything he liked.
