Commentary by Michael Barone

Cardinals Would Be Wise to Ignore Journalists' Advice By Michael Barone

The College of Cardinals met in conclave on Tuesday to begin the process of electing a new pope. The cardinals have been getting plenty of advice from American journalists.    

Obama Flails as Republicans Stand Firm on Sequester By Michael Barone

They're flailing. That's the impression I get from watching Barack Obama and his White House over the past week.

Things haven't gone as they expected. The House Republicans were supposed to cave in on the sequester, as they did on the fiscal cliff at the beginning of the year.

They would be so desperate to avoid the sequester's mandatory defense cuts, the theory went, that they would agree to higher taxes (through closing loopholes) on high earners.

Spending Cuts May Be Answer to Slow Economic Growth By Michael Barone

The Dow set a new high on Tuesday, but the larger economy is a different story. What if today's sluggish economic growth turns out to be the new normal? That's the unsettling question asked by some of our most creative economic thinkers.

And the people asking it are not necessarily partisan opponents of the Obama administration. They argue that economic growth rates were disappointing even before the financial collapse and recession of 2007-09.

Take Tyler Cowen, author of the e-book (belatedly published in print) "The Great Stagnation." Economic growth is the product of increases in the labor supply and productivity, he argues uncontroversially.b

For Obama, Politics Always Trumps Governing By Michael Barone

Do we have a president or a perpetual candidate? It's not an entirely unfair question.

Even as Barack Obama was warning of the dreadful consequences of the budget sequester looming on March 1, he spent days away from Washington, apparently out of touch with Democratic as well as Republican congressional leaders.

In the meantime, Obama fans were lobbing verbal grenades at none other than The Washington Post's Bob Woodward.

Discord and Disarray Won't Help Obama Legacy By Michael Barone

Barack Obama is said to believe that he can win the political fight over the sequester. That's certainly the conventional wisdom. 

Calvin Coolidge Gets New Deal in Revisionist History By Michael Barone

For years, most Americans' vision of history has been shaped by the New Deal historians. Writing soon after Franklin Roosevelt's death, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and others celebrated his accomplishments and denigrated his opponents.

They were gifted writers, and many of their books were bestsellers. And they have persuaded many Americans -- Barack Obama definitely included -- that progress means an ever bigger government

GOP Has Trouble Settling on Candidates Who Can Win By Michael Barone

One of the interesting things about recent elections is that Republicans have tended to do better the farther you go down the ballot.

They've lost the presidency twice in a row, and in four of the last six contests. They've failed to win a majority in the U.S. Senate, something they accomplished in five election cycles between 1994 and 2006.

But they have won control of the House of Representatives in the last two elections, and in eight of the last 10 cycles.

And they've been doing better in elections to state legislatures than at any time since the 1920s.

For Dems to Win House, Obama Must Rise in Polls By Michael Barone

Barack Obama has said that he wants to help Democrats win back a majority in the House of Representatives. He says he looks forward to Nancy Pelosi being speaker again.

If he does work hard to elect House Democrats, it will be a change from 2010 and 2012, when he didn't do much at all for them.

But let's say he does. What are the chances of success?

Certainly not zero. Democrats need to gain 17 seats to win a House majority of 218. That's fewer than the number of seats that changed party in 2006, 2008 and 2010.

Obama's Gangster Government Operates Above the Law By Michael Barone

Presidents' State of the Union addresses are delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the Capitol. The classical majesty of this building where laws are made symbolizes the idea that we live under the rule of law.

Unfortunately, the 44th president is running an administration that too often seems to ignore the rule of law.

"We can't wait," Barack Obama took to saying after the Republicans captured a majority in the House and refused to pass laws he wanted. He would act to get what he wanted regardless of law.

One example: his recess appointments in January 2012 of three members of the National Labor Relations Board and the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Congressional Hearings Show Obama Treading Dangerous Global Path By Michael Barone

There were two extraordinary disclosures in Thursday's testimony of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

One is that there was no communication between them and Barack Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the seven hours of Sept. 11, 2012, when Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were attacked and murdered in Benghazi.

At last, Republicans Make Their Case to Main Street By Michael Barone

The House Republicans, in serious trouble with public opinion as they blinked facing the "fiscal cliff" over New Year's, seem suddenly to be playing a more successful game -- or rather, games -- an inside game and an outside game.

The inside game can be described by the Washington phrase "regular order." What that means in ordinary American English is that you proceed according to the rules.

Fewer Dollars and Babies Threaten Social Programs By Michael Barone

Our major public policies are based on the assumption that America will continue to enjoy growth. Economic growth and population growth.

Through most of our history, this assumption has proved to be correct. These days, not so much.

Last week, the Commerce Department announced that the gross domestic product shrunk by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. And the Census Bureau reported that the U.S. birth rate in 2011 was 63.2 per 1,000 women age 15 to 44, the lowest ever recorded.

Better Tools for Immigration Reform Than in 1986 By Michael Barone

Yesterday, as Barack Obama called for a bipartisan immigration bill in Las Vegas and Sen. Marco Rubio called for one on Rush Limbaugh's program, the chances for passage look surprisingly good.

Republican Annihilation Is Not Likely by Michael Barone

These days, our political parties are defined by their presidents. Their policies and their programs tend to become their respective parties' orthodoxies.

Obama Inaugural: Full of Audacity, but Little Hope By Michael Barone

Commentators both left and right agree that Barack Obama's second inaugural speech Monday was highly partisan, with shoutouts to his constituencies on the left and defiance of his critics on the right.   

GOP Puts Spotlight on Feckless Senate Democrats By Michael Barone

Have the House Republicans come up with a winning strategy on the debt ceiling and spending cuts? Or just a viable one? Maybe so.

They certainly need one that is at least the latter, if not the former. Barack Obama is up in the polls since the election, as most re-elected presidents have been. The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows him with 52 percent approval and 44 percent disapproval. Other public polls have similar results.

In contrast, the NBC/WSJ poll reports that only 26 percent have positive feelings about the Republican Party and 51 negative feelings. Toward Speaker John Boehner only 18 percent have positive feelings and 37 percent negative feelings.

Ivory-tower Obama Can't Abide Views He Doesn't Share By Michael Barone

To judge from his surly demeanor and defiant words at his press conference on Monday, Barack Obama begins his second term with a strategy to defeat and humiliate Republicans rather than a strategy to govern.

His point blank refusal to negotiate over the debt ceiling was clearly designed to make the House Republicans look bad.

But Obama knows very well that negotiations usually accompany legislation to increase the government's debt limit. As Gordon Gray of the conservative American Action Network points out, most of the 17 increases in the debt ceiling over the last 20 years have been part of broader measures.

History Suggests That Entitlement Era Is Winding Down By Michael Barone

It's often good fun and sometimes revealing to divide American history into distinct periods of uniform length. In working on my forthcoming book on American migrations, internal and immigrant, it occurred to me that you could do this using the American-sounding interval of 76 years, just a few years more than the Biblical lifespan of three score and 10. 

Obama Lurches Left With Pick of Hagel for Defense By Michael Barone

Barack Obama, we have been told by his admirers on the left and right, is an instinctive centrist, a moderate always ready to negotiate compromises, a politician deeply interested in the nuances of public policy.    

Dodd-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.