Getting Financial Reform Right
Earlier this week, the Senate Banking Committee endorsed regulatory-reform legislation that would (among other things) launch a Financial Stability Oversight Council to monitor and tackle systemic...
View ArticlePledging to Repeal
The same day that President Obama signed health-care reform, Sen. Jim DeMint introduced legislation to repeal it. “This fight isn’t over yet,” vowed the South Carolina Republican. “The American people...
View ArticleBennett Agonistes
Some of his fiercest critics are tea-party activists. He is being grilled over his support for bank bailouts and health-care legislation. The free-market Club for Growth is urging his defeat. A...
View ArticleA Republican Financial Reform
Democrats view financial reform as a winning issue, and with good reason. Though Americans remain divided over whom or what to blame for the post-2007 credit crisis, anti–Wall Street sentiment...
View ArticleJapan's Geriatric Future
In the 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, conducted last spring, only 18 percent of Japanese said they expected economic conditions in their country to improve over the next year. Remarkably, that...
View ArticleCan Japan Avoid a Debt Crisis?
Last week, the Fitch credit-rating agency issued a warning about Japanese public finances: “In the absence of sustained economic recovery and fiscal consolidation, government debt will continue to...
View ArticleThinking Bigger on Financial Reform
In a recent article, I discussed three financial-reform ideas that Republicans should champion: (1) the one-page mortgage form designed by American Enterprise Institute scholar Alex Pollock; (2) the...
View ArticleRand Paul Victorious in Kentucky
Why did Rand Paul triumph so easily in the Kentucky GOP Senate primary? The Occam’s Razor answer is that he campaigned as an anti-establishment, libertarian-minded outsider and successfully painted his...
View ArticleThe End of Peter Pan Fiscal Policy
The bond vigilantes have pulverized Greece, and New York University economist Nouriel Roubini (a.k.a. “Dr. Doom”) is warning that they may eventually target the United States. Southern Europe’s...
View ArticleCurbing an EPA Power Grab
With oil still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and partisan recriminations flying on Capitol Hill, the Senate today will vote on a measure to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from...
View ArticleOil Taxes and Fiscal Honesty
Every so often, members of Congress are given the chance to cast a vote in favor of fiscal honesty. Such an opportunity presented itself last month, when Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) introduced a...
View ArticleRe: Soccer and the Metric System
Jay: No need to apologize! (I should be the one apologizing, for my belated reply.) America’s quadrennial soccer debate is in full swing, and I’ve been meaning to add my two cents (or more).The debate...
View ArticleWe Wuz Robbed!
Dan: The outrage over that phantom foul call in the U.S.-Slovenia match is wholly justified. What a miserable piece of officiating. Thankfully, it sounds as if FIFA (soccer’s global governing body,...
View ArticleThe Volcker Dilemma
Of all the financial-reform ideas that have been entertained over the past year, few have aroused as much vigorous opposition on Wall Street as the proposal to outlaw or restrict “proprietary trading”...
View ArticleStraight Talk on Fannie and Freddie
Here’s one thing you won’t find in the 2,300-page financial-overhaul legislation that passed the Senate Thursday afternoon: any serious reform of housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the longtime...
View ArticlePunting on Financial Reform
Sen. Ted Kaufman (D., Del.) supported the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation, but he also expressed “significant reservations” just before casting his vote. “This was a time for Congress to draw...
View ArticleA Call for Energy Realism
In the summer of 2008, at a time of widespread anger over historically high oil prices, Al Gore challenged his countrymen “to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy...
View ArticleThe Optimism Gap
Discussions of race in modern America often focus on gaps between blacks and whites -- the income gap, the education gap, the marriage gap, the incarceration gap. Recent polling suggests the emergence...
View ArticleSweden’s Quiet Revolution
There is something about Sweden that provokes a mix of envy, horror, and bewilderment among American observers. Liberals have traditionally celebrated its cradle-to-grave safety net, while...
View ArticleThe Tea Party in Central Jersey
Atlantic Highlands, N.J. -- Ah, gerrymandering. The time-honored tradition that explains why some congressional boundaries look as if they were drawn by a hyperactive toddler using a deformed crayon....
View ArticleWhat Obama and Bush Have in Common
Back in August, White House press chief Robert Gibbs voiced frustration with liberal Obama critics, telling the Hill newspaper that the “professional left” would “be satisfied when we have Canadian...
View ArticleEuropean Modeling
France has been convulsed by violent demonstrations against modest pension reforms. Britain is imposing a tough fiscal “austerity” regime to plug a cavernous budget gap. Crisis-torn Greece is...
View ArticleMcCain: ‘Who Will Follow an Uncertain Trumpet?’
Freshly returned from a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) discussed the respective challenges facing both countries yesterday at a conference hosted by the Foreign Policy...
View ArticleCautious Optimism on Taxes
Just chatted with a pair of senior Republican Senate aides, both of whom are guardedly optimistic that Congress and the White House will strike a deal on the Bush tax cuts prior to their expiration on...
View ArticleFour Governors
The 50 states may be “laboratories of democracy,” but sometimes their experiments go awry. Many of America’s newly elected governors will be inheriting severe budget deficits that demand root-canal...
View ArticleNew START in the Lame Duck
Recent comments by various members of the GOP Senate caucus -- including John McCain, George Voinovich, Lindsey Graham, and Bob Corker -- have given supporters of the New START treaty hope that it...
View ArticleThem’s the Rules
Amid fierce wrangling over the Obama-GOP tax deal, House Democrats have granted themselves blanket authority to circumvent the standard rules process and expedite floor votes through December 18....
View ArticleDesigning a Better Tax System
Tax hikes, in one form or another, are simply unavoidable. That’s the blunt message conveyed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, chairmen of the Obama deficit commission, in their much-ballyhooed...
View ArticleWill McCain Support New START?
White House hopes of securing New START ratification during the 111th Congress may ultimately rest with Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential opponent. Yesterday afternoon, John McCain joined 65 other...
View ArticleGOP Senate Aide: ‘The Bill Wasn’t Going to Be Read’
At one point yesterday, according to a Senate Republican leadership aide, Democrats were telling reporters to “watch the floor” for action on the omnibus bill. GOP critics had pushed for all 1,924...
View ArticleIn Praise of Hillary Clinton
At the end of 2009, President Obama was weathering criticism for his excessively deferential approach to China and his shortsighted neglect of India. At the end of 2010, his administration deserves...
View ArticleTom Coburn’s Achievement
No question, the biggest Capitol Hill story of the pre-Christmas week was the Senate’s ratification of the New START treaty. But let’s not overlook the remarkable achievement of Oklahoma senator Tom...
View ArticleUnemployment Goes Up and Crime Goes Down
Around this time last year, the estimable Heather Mac Donald took to the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages to analyze a curious development: The recession-induced surge in unemployment had been...
View ArticleThe Return of the ‘Nuclear Option’
The first “legislative day” of the 112th Senate began at noon, but it will technically extend through January 24, when members return from their two-week recess. Writing in the Washington Post, New...
View ArticleThe NFL’s Dickensian Moment
In so many ways, these are the best of times for the National Football League. As TV reporter Bill Carter recently affirmed, its games are “by far the most popular form of programming on American...
View ArticleThe Way We Weren’t
Back in the first season of Mad Men, while pitching a new ad campaign to the suits from Eastman Kodak, creative whiz Don Draper describes nostalgia as “a twinge in your heart far more powerful than...
View ArticleThomas Jefferson, Martin Luther, and the Muslim Brotherhood
Like Reihan and Alex Massie, I’ve been curious to know what Reuel Marc Gerecht -- former CIA officer, Islam expert, and robust supporter of Arab democracy -- thinks about the extraordinary events...
View ArticleThe Egyptian Democracy Dilemma
Stan, Jonah, and Dan: Thanks for the kind words and thoughtful replies. Here’s the fundamental dilemma, as I see it: The vicious repression meted out by Mubarak & Co. has radicalized a hefty chunk...
View ArticleWhy Wall Street Collapsed
At long last, the ten-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) has issued its gargantuan report on the credit meltdown that pulverized Wall Street and triggered the worst U.S. economic slump...
View ArticleEgypt, Without Illusions
What is the best possible outcome in Egypt? Short term, the ideal scenario is a nonviolent, military-brokered transition led by a reformist government that will spearhead major constitutional changes,...
View ArticleColombia Deserves Better
Once upon a time, the United States and Colombia signed a free-trade agreement. The date was Nov. 22, 2006 -- a moment when Don Rumsfeld was still U.S. defense secretary, John Bolton was still U.N....
View ArticleGordon Gekko, Lou Gehrig, and the NFL
First, a few numbers. The NFL’s annual revenue take stands at approximately $9 billion, which means that Commissioner Roger Goodell presides over far and away the most lucrative sports league on the...
View ArticleThe Bad and the Good in El Salvador
Barack Obama’s Latin American tour concluded yesterday in El Salvador, a shockingly violent country that, outside of neighboring Honduras, has the highest murder rate on earth. The figures are just...
View ArticleShould College Athletes Get Paid?
Maybe it was the annual spectacle of March Madness. Maybe it was the Jim Tressel imbroglio at Ohio State. Maybe it was the lingering aftereffects of the Cam Newton scandal. Maybe it was Ed O’Bannon’s...
View ArticleMexico Agonistes
In May 2005, New York Times correspondent Ginger Thompson filed a harrowing dispatch from the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, “a fast-growing hub of drug smuggling that has been transformed from a tough...
View ArticleEconomic Reality Check
In the raucous debate over how to boost U.S. economic growth and prevent a fiscal tsunami, it is not difficult to find politicians who subscribe to one or more of the following beliefs: (1) The...
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