| America's deficits: The problem is more than fiscal Jan 22nd 2013, 01:14 Since the November election the U.S. public policy debate has been focused on prospective budget deficits and what can be done to reduce them. The concerns are partly economic: There is a recognition that debts cannot indefinitely be allowed to grow faster than incomes and the capacity to repay them. There is a heavy moral dimension with regard to this generation not unduly burdening its children. There is also an international and security dimension, with worries that the excessive buildup of debt would leave the United States vulnerable to foreign creditors and lacking flexibility to respond to international emergencies. Read full article >>   |  | Editorial Board: Attending an inaugural is 'part of being an American' Jan 22nd 2013, 00:49 THERE WERE not the historic numbers that four years ago watched Barack Obama take the oath of office to become this country's first African American president, but everywhere you looked around Washington on Monday, there were people. Hundreds of thousands of them overflowed the grand expanse of the Mall and lined Pennsylvania Avenue to be part of a ritual American moment. That it was also a day to be enjoyed and remembered is testament to their good spirits and the largely glitch-free planning by a phalanx of local, regional and federal officials. Read full article >>   | | Editorial Board: Following the elections in Israel, a reset Jan 22nd 2013, 00:48 TO LOSE favor in Washington was once political poison for Israeli prime ministers. Twice during the 1990s, Israelis voted out leaders who quarreled with the U.S. president; the second one was Benjamin Netanyahu. So one of the more remarkable aspects of Israel's current election campaign, which ends at the polls on Tuesday, is that Mr. Netanyahu hasn't been afraid to play up his notoriously bad relations with President Obama. Read full article >>   | | Obama's failure in Syria Jan 22nd 2013, 00:44 There are two kinds of wars, we are told — wars of choice and wars of necessity. The former is to be avoided and the latter fought with appropriate reluctance. World War II was a good and necessary war but Vietnam was not. The war in Iraq was a matter of choice (also of imbecility) but Afghanistan was not — although it now may be. Wars can change over time. The one in Syria certainly has. It has gone from a war of choice to a war of necessity that President Obama did not choose to fight. A mountain of dead testifies to his mistake. Read full article >> | | Frank Lorson, a consummate public servant Jan 22nd 2013, 00:33 With its speeches, balls and parades, Inauguration Day presents Washington at its grandest and, some would say, most grandiose. Amid the pomp and exaltation, I found myself thinking about someone who wasn't in the crowd this year, though I suspect he would have wanted very much to take it all in: Francis J. Lorson, who passed away a few days ago at the age of 69. Read full article >> | | Preaching to the choir Jan 22nd 2013, 00:28 President Obama began his second inaugural address with a reminder that this ceremony, like the 56 inaugurations before it in U.S. history, was a unifying symbol. "Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution," he said from the West Front of the Capitol, his voice echoing across the Mall, where hundreds of thousands of people waved American flags. "We affirm the promise of our democracy." Read full article >> | | Washington Warriors would serve the NFL team well Jan 21st 2013, 23:31 People who work up a high dudgeon over the name of Washington's NFL team have suffered enough. First, they have endured countless years on a planet beset with woes such as famine, disease, earthquakes and tsunamis, etc., that eclipse their No. 1 complaint. As if that were not enough, consider that they have had to endure no fewer than three Super Bowl victories under an unrepentant coach, Joe Gibbs. Read full article >>   | | The health advantages of sick days Jan 21st 2013, 23:30 The Jan. 14 editorial "A bad flu season" was correct that the nation should be preparing for flu outbreaks worse than the one we are now experiencing, but we must remember that paid sick days are a critical part of the solution. A key component of flu treatment and prevention, paid sick days reduce health-care costs by reducing contagion. They also strengthen the economy by helping to stabilize the workforce. Yet more than 40 percent of U.S. workers today cannot earn a single paid sick day. Read full article >>   | | India and the United States are in similar straits Jan 21st 2013, 23:29 Fareed Zakaria's thoughtful Jan. 18 op-ed column, "The Indian spring," which implicitly compared the United States and India, brought to mind other parallels. We have in these two countries the largest democracies in the world, people rich and poor who value freedom and are keen to exercise their vote, and perhaps the world's most diverse, bright and ambitious young people, intensely proud of their culture and country. Read full article >>   | | Create Medicare for all Jan 21st 2013, 23:29 Harold Meyerson ["America flunks its checkup," op-ed, Jan. 16], citing the recent report of the Institute of Medicine, provides an excellent commentary on the failings of our health-care system — failings that will, in too many cases, persist under the Affordable Care Act. While Mr. Meyerson's diagnosis of the problem hits a home run, however, his prescription for a remedy unfortunately stops at third base. Read full article >>   | | Editorial Board: Obama's concrete goals at home, wishful thinking abroad Jan 21st 2013, 22:35 PRESIDENT OBAMA inaugurated his second term Monday with something approaching a liberal manifesto: a clear statement of what he hopes to accomplish over the next four years. Mr. Obama's second inaugural address was such a departure from the soaring generalities of some predecessors' speeches that at times it sounded as though he were still running against Mitt Romney: when he hailed "the broad shoulders of a rising middle class," for example, or when he rejected the notion that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security "make us a nation of takers." Read full article >>   | | Jonathan Bernstein: 'A decade of war is now ending' Jan 21st 2013, 22:08 I think one of the least appreciated aspects of President Obama's first term has been that the United States is still at war. In fact, I'd say it stretches back to George W. Bush's second term; from the peak of the surge in Iraq, and perhaps even before that, political pundits stopped treating war as something extraordinary. It's been treated, far too often, as just part of the general background noise of modern life. Read full article >> | | Obama shoves idealism into its grave Jan 21st 2013, 22:07 A young reporter who has covered only President Obama's first term has already witnessed several political epochs. Obama's election was a symbol of reconciliation in America's longest, bloodiest conflict — the one that produced Antietam. It was followed by a partisan lunge to fulfill the dreams of the Great Society by delivering universal health care. Which was followed by an ideological backlash that shifted control of the House, led by activists who talked as if the whole welfare state might be undone. Which was followed by Obama's victorious reelection campaign, which turned the mobilization of partisans and ethnic groups into an exact science and reengaged the culture war on abortion. Read full article >> | | Greg Sargent: An expansive case for progressive governance, grounded in language of Founding Fathers Jan 21st 2013, 19:08 Halfway through President Obama's inaugural address, James Fallows tweeted: "I believe this is the most 'progressive' speech he's ever given." I would take that a step further. Obama's speech lacked signature lines and was more direct than soaring, but it was nonetheless enormously ambitious. It drew a direct line from language of the Founding Fathers straight through the great progressive presidents of the 20th Century, linking the founding language of liberty directly to the great debates of the present. Obama made the case for still more progress in the arena of civil rights -- and for expanded progressive governance to combat inequality and protect our "citizens" from economic harm -- by grounding it directly in the nation's founding values. Read full article >>   | | The black president no longer Jan 21st 2013, 19:03 President Barack Hussein Obama's second inauguration was every bit as historic as his first — not because it said so much about the nation's long, bitter, unfinished struggle with issues of race, as was the case four years ago, but because it said so little about the subject. Read full article >>   | | Jennifer Rubin: Really, that's it, Mr. President? Jan 21st 2013, 17:46 If there had been any doubt, the president's second inaugural address did confirm he is a dogged collectivist with little appreciation for the dangers we face in the world. After some overwritten references to the Founding Fathers he proclaimed that "preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action." Really? Economic prosperity may require it. The goal of economic equality may need it. Advancement in mass transit may demand it. But personal freedoms are obtained by limited government, the rule of law and a free market (relatively speaking) where one can achieve his aims and fulfill his personal goals. But this is not the America President Obama envisions. Read full article >> | | Jennifer Rubin: Obama's search for greatness Jan 21st 2013, 16:00 President Barack Obama's greatest achievement remains his 2008 election. It is not his only accomplishment, but what seemed like major first term advances (Obamacare, the killing of Osama bin Laden) are now seen in a different perspective. Health-care costs are rising and Obamacare remains unpopular and fraught with implementation problems. The resurgence of al-Qaeda throughout North Africa is arguably a more important development than the assassination of bin Laden. Read full article >>   | |
No comments:
Post a Comment