Political Commentary

Most Recent Releases

January 7, 2013Dodd-Frank's Problems -- and Potential Solutions By Michael Barone
Over the next year, we will probably see much controversy over the implementation of Obamacare. Health insurance is something that almost every adult has some acquaintance with, and there seem to be glitches aplenty in the legislation, much delay in issuing regulations and some possible changes resulting from litigation.
We're likely to see or hear less about the operations of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation legislation, passed four months after Obamacare. Most of us don't work at banks or financial institutions, which will have to grapple with its myriad provisions and the regulations to be issued thereunder, and we tend to toss out those disclosure forms our bank sends out.
January 4, 2013Left Should Know, Obama Did Good By Froma Harrop
To my friends on the left: This one's for you.
Your grumbling that President Obama again gave away the store to Republicans is unwarranted. The deal to evade the fiscal cliff was no repeat of the debt-ceiling fiasco of 2011, when Obama famously bargained with himself. This time, he suppressed the urge to publicly consider raising the Medicare eligibility age. Meanwhile, he put off the clash over entitlements for another day.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                
                
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                            January 4, 2013Avoiding 'Fiscal Cliff' May Be a Bad Deal for Official Washington By Scott Rasmussen
In Washington, many are celebrating the deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Some, like The Washington Post, are hailing the "strong bipartisan votes (on) a big, contentious issue."
Outside of Washington, however, the reviews aren't nearly as strong.
January 3, 2013Fiscal Deal Passes as House GOP Clown Car Crashes, Again By Joe Conason
Observing the Congressional Republicans repeatedly stumble in and out of their caucus clown car, blowing loud kazoos and muttering angry threats, should be painful, embarrassing and highly instructive to any American voter with the patience to watch. When their latest performance concluded late Tuesday night with a 257 to 187 vote passing the stopgap fiscal deal negotiated by the Senate and the White House, an unavoidable question lingered: What is wrong with those people?      
January 3, 2013If Demography Is Destiny, Good News for Texas, D.C. By Michael Barone
Demographics buffs get a special Christmas present every year courtesy of the Census Bureau: its annual estimates of the populations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
This gives demographers a chance to see where the nation is growing and where it is not, and to get an idea of the destination of immigrants and of the flow of people into one set of states and out of another.
January 2, 2013No Regulation? No Problem By John Stossel
In the short time since President Obama was re-elected, government has issued hundreds of new regulations. The bureaucrats never stop. There are now more than 170,000 pages of federal regulations.   
January 2, 2013The Wrong Republicans By Froma Harrop
"The damage may have already been done," starts a Wall Street Journal news story about the fiscal cliff. This is damage a fix at this point can't fix. That Washington couldn't stop big automatic spending cuts and tax increases in an orderly manner marked another hit on the psyche of American business and consumers. Feeling captive to a bizarre political game is not pleasant, and yes, the damage can already be measured in dollars.
December 31, 2012When Government Offers to Help, It Often Makes a Mess By Michael Barone
There's a natural human impulse to help people who need a hand. In the political world, that often translates to an impulse to have government help people who need a hand. Who wants to argue with that?
December 28, 2012The Politics of Threat By Froma Harrop
The people are sad. If holiday shopping is any measure of public mood, the joy vanished this year. The grade-school massacre depressed everyone, and now our rapid approach to the Fiscal Cliff has many scared and afraid to spend money.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                
                
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                            December 28, 2012Tax Reform Works for Voters, Not for Political Class: By Scott Rasmussen
Tax reform with lower rates and fewer loopholes would be good for America and popular with voters. But substantive reform won't come any time soon. To understand why, it's helpful to remember that America's political heritage did not begin in 1776 but on the streets of London in the 16th to 18th centuries. Those were the formative years for the political ideas embraced by our Founding Fathers. Like America today, those years in London saw a high level of tension between the general public and the elites.
December 27, 2012Obama's Numbers Went Down, but Romney Never Inspired Voters to Vote By Michael Barone
In combing through the results of the 2012 election -- apparently finally complete, nearly two months after the fact -- I continue to find many similarities between 2012 and 2004, and one enormous difference.
Both of the elections involved incumbent presidents with approval ratings hovering around or just under 50 percent facing challengers who were rich men from Massachusetts (though one made his money and the other married it).
In both cases, the challenger and his campaign seemed confident he was going to win -- and had reasonable grounds to believe so.
December 27, 2012Veterans Denounce Neoconservative 'Swiftboating' of Chuck Hagel By Joe Conason
If Chuck Hagel is nominated by President Obama to serve as Secretary of Defense, there will be at least three compelling arguments in his favor. He served with distinction in the military and would  -- like Secretary of State nominee John Kerry -- bring a veteran's perspective to his post. He has adopted and articulated a sane perspective on the grave foreign policy blunders whose consequences still haunt the nation, including the Iraq and Vietnam wars. And as we have learned ever since his nomination was first floated, he has made all the right (and right-wing) enemies.
December 26, 2012Charity Begins With Wealth Creation By John Stossel
Charity -- helping people who have trouble helping themselves -- is a good thing two times over. It's good for the beneficiary and good for the donor, too. Stephen Post's fine book, "The Hidden Gifts of Helping," reveals that 76 percent of Americans say that helping others is what makes them most happy. Giving money makes us feel good, and helping face-to-face is even better. People say it makes them feel physically healthier. They sleep better.
Private charity is unquestioningly better than government efforts to help people. Government squanders money. Charities sometime squander money, too, but they usually don't.
December 26, 2012Getting More for Less in Health Care By Froma Harrop
Sad, sad, sad that in talking about budget cuts, we use painful words like "extracting billions from Medicare" or "slashing the Medicare entitlement." Has it ever occurred to the gladiators that improving the quality of health care can also save money? If Medicare spends less on a patient because the hospital does a good job the first time, that's what we call a win-win situation. The patient gets better care. The taxpayers get billed only once. Yay.
December 24, 2012Here Comes the Cliff By Michael Barone
Last week, Republicans proved they are not a governing party. Next week we will see whether Democrats are.
A governing party would have, reluctantly, passed Speaker John Boehner's Plan B, which would have preserved the current tax rates on everyone with incomes under $1 million.
Passage would have put Senate Democrats on the spot, since they voted for a similar measure in 2010. They might have engaged in negotiations with Boehner that could have been more productive than his negotiations with Barack Obama this month and in the summer of 2011.
December 21, 2012What Americans Should Learn From the 'Republican Apocalypse' By Joe Conason
What may finally consume the House Republicans is their boundless contempt for the American public -- a contempt bluntly demonstrated in their refusal to consider any reasonable compromise with President Obama to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" on Dec. 31. They know from the election results (and every poll) that the public believes taxes should be raised on the wealthy. They know that the public wants bipartisan compromise. And they know that the approval rating of the House Republicans, in contrast to the president's upwardly trending numbers, are veering toward historic lows.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                
                
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                            December 21, 2012Boehner’s Plan B Hurt the GOP By Scott Rasmussen
President Obama and congressional Democrats are still winning the messaging battle in the debate over the impending "fiscal cliff."
December 20, 2012Tim Scott and Daniel Inouye Show a Better America By Michael Barone
On Monday, the U.S. Senate got its newest member and lost its most senior member.
December 20, 2012Online and in Your Face By Froma Harrop
They don't like the crowds, the traffic, the parking chaos. They dislike the sameness -- the same mall chain stores piping in the same holiday music and selling the same made-in-China sweaters, whether in Spokane, Indianapolis or Raleigh. They stress out when waiting for someone to take their payment. Small wonder that 45 percent of consumers are doing at least some holiday shopping this year via the Internet, according to the Deloitte consulting firm.    
December 19, 2012It's the Spending, Stupid! By John Stossel
Listening to progressive media pundits, I'd think the most evil man in the universe is Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. His crime? He heads a movement that asks political candidates to pledge not to raise taxes.
I think Grover accomplished a lot. But I wish he'd convinced politicians to pledge not to increase spending.
President Obama says raising taxes to cut the deficit is a "balanced" approach.
Balanced ...