Having hesitated to fully enter the fiscal fray, President Obama has at last delivered a plausible, principled response to the budgetary flim-flams of the far right. But one speech, even a very good speech, won't fulfill his obligation in this fateful argument.
Between 1932 and 1994, Democrats controlled the U.S. House of Representatives for 58 of 62 years. Since then, however, party control has changed three times, with Republicans controlling the House from 1995 through 2006, Democrats from 2007 through 2010, and Republicans since then.
If Barack Obama’s political standing is helped by a slowly recovering economy, talk among Democrats will quickly turn to taking back the House. However, control of the House of Representatives after the 2012 elections will still belong to the Republicans.
For years, America’s left-leaning mainstream media outlets have belittled and rebuked members of the new media — questioning their credibility, impugning their integrity and assigning all manner of self-serving motivations to their contributions to the marketplace of ideas.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank attracted some attention when he promised not to mention Sarah Palin for a month. He kept his promise. The republic and the Post survived.
Mitt Romney is too much like Barack Obama. I don't see how he'd win the 2012 GOP nod because he's got too much in common with the guy he wants to replace.
We thought tax reform meant lowering rates and broadening the base by eliminating or cutting back on various deductions, credits and loopholes. That's what the Bowles-Simpson commission proposed. That's what Paul Ryan and David Camp are working on. And that's the pro-growth model.
The great American engine of democracy is beginning to build up a head of steam, and it remains the finest device created by man to organize collective human action.
A friend from out of town asked me what everyone in Los Angeles was saying about the budget crisis and the almost shutdown of the government. Did I know it would be settled? Were people as glued to their televisions as she was?
If you think that academia is not the exclusive playground of the academic left, consider the fate of UCLA epidemiologist James Enstrom.
America's tailspin toward the cultural abyss has gained speed with an ad featuring single-mother celebrity Bristol Palin. Bloggers unfriendly to her mother, conservative entrepreneur Sarah Palin, have bashed a charity for paying Bristol $262,500 to warn against teen pregnancy while doling a pitiful $35,000 to social organizations that actually deal with its problems.
Over the years, the daily tracking of the Rasmussen Consumer Index has shown that a single factor generally tends to drive consumer confidence. In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, national security was the primary factor moving consumer confidence. At other times, it has been things like job creation or gas prices.
One of the things that fascinate me about American politics is how the voices of the voters as registered in elections and polls are transformed into changes in public policy. It's a rough-and-ready process, with plenty of trial and error. But for all its imperfections, the political market seems to work.
President Obama has dedicated his time in office to soaking up applause and shifting blame. Last year, when Democrats owned the White House, the House and the Senate, Congress didn't even bother passing a budget. Obama didn't seem to mind. But when Republicans put together a stopgap measure to fund the military and prevent a government shutdown, Obama promised to veto it. Obama called the measure "a distraction from the real work that would bring us closer to a reasonable compromise for funding the remainder of fiscal year 2011."
Washington shutdown fears are sinking the U.S. dollar, according to some news reports. Surely there's something to this, as investor confusion rises and confidence falls, and as Washington seems to be gridlocked over a few billion dollars.
What the meteoric career of Paul Ryan demonstrates is how easily impressed we are whenever a politician purports to restore solvency by punishing the poor and the elderly (while coddling the rich).
The latest public poll showing Donald Trump running right behind Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination suggests some very serious problems on the Republican side.
With American politicians still refusing to substantively address the looming consequences of their fiscal irresponsibility, it only makes sense that voters are feeling frustrated and powerless.
Of all the discussion about Paul Ryan's big-bang budget plan, the element I like best was caught in this Wall Street Journal op-ed title: "The GOP Path to Prosperity." In other words, it's a growth budget. It has plenty of spending cuts, but it also has significant pro-growth tax reform.
"My worst experience was the financial crisis of September 2008," responded House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan yesterday to a reporter's question about Democrats' attacks on the budget he unveiled earlier in the day.
