The debates of recent days over extending Bush-era tax cuts and funding government operations for 2011 make clear the contradictions within Republican fiscal policy – lower taxes and lower deficits, simultaneously – that will plague federal policymaking in the coming years. Until they choose the latter, U.S. fiscal problems will only grow worse. Consider the …
Continue reading “GOP Fiscal Fissures will Plague Policymaking”
The strange terminology and arcane ways of Washington often leave Americans bewildered and unsure of who to blame for a particular legislative decision. So we should welcome the occasions when differences between the political parties become crystal clear and there is little doubt about what each will fight for. One such occasion has arrived with …
Any story with the provocative title “Down and Out on $250,000 a Year,” like this week’s piece from The Fiscal Times, is bound to generate reaction. In my case, it’s a mix of sympathy and disdain toward the “down and out” – some shaped by my personal experiences, some by my observations of human behavior, …
President Obama’s hope for positive pay-offs from his deal with Republicans to temporarily extend tax cuts and unemployment benefits rests on questionable political and fiscal assumptions. Regarding his political assumptions, Obama says the polls show the American people support his position to not permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000 …
Continue reading “For Obama, a Deal of Questionable Assumptions”
You know the old story about Americans who, traveling in a non-English speaking country, try to get the local folk to understand them not by speaking in their native language but, instead, by speaking English louder? That‟s apparently how leading progressives approach the issues of taxes and spending, jobs and health care, housing and the …
Visiting family in New York for Thanksgiving, scanning the New York Daily News for a dish of local sports, I came upon the latest obsession of Big Apple scribes and fans – contract talks between the New York Yankees and their iconic shortstop, Derek Jeter, whose 10-year, $189 million contact ends this year. Tis often …
Henry Kissinger famously asked whether Iran sees itself as a “nation” with a role in the international system or a “cause” that seeks to overturn the system through a global populist revolution. Iran’s activities not just in its own backyard but also south of our border – specifically, in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua – …
Continue reading “Iran’s expanding alliance with Latin America must be nipped”