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.
While the president's top advisers are currently most worried about the public judgment in November 2012 on his Libyan war actions, they might be better advised to worry about his actions in Iraq.
As he announces his bid for re-election, President Barack Obama is facing some tough poll numbers. According to the Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll, the president's approval index, as of April 4, was a not so stellar -14, which means that 14 percent more of us strongly disapprove of him than strongly approve.
SINGER ISLAND, Fla. -- The Florida sun flashes off the row of oiled bodies, their owners largely unmindful of the politics being played on this strip of sand. The ocean waves are eating the beach. Residents of the luxury condo towers behind us fear losing the currently ideal sand-surf balance. They pressed Palm Beach County to stop the erosion by building a 1.2-mile series of breakwaters parallel to the shore. The county commissioners have just said "no."
The New York Times reported last month that General Electric earned $14.2 billion in international profits, including, $5.1 billion in the United States. Yet GE did not pay a dime in federal income taxes last year.
Are whites on the verge of becoming a minority of the American population? That's what some analysts of the 2010 Census results claim. Many go on, sometimes with relish, to say that this spells electoral doom for the Republican Party.
"No blood for oil" was a popular slogan chanted by the left in opposition to President George W. Bush's push to send U.S. forces into Iraq. Now that President Obama authorized Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya, I have been waiting to hear chants of "no blood for oil." I am happy to report, I don't hear them.
Did the big March jobs report put President Obama back on the road to re-election? If so, he can thank the GOP, whose tax cuts saved him from himself.
J Street, the pro-peace, pro-Israel lobbying group, is circulating a petition calling on President Obama to go to Israel in the very near future. In my view, they are absolutely right. Such a trip is absolutely essential for two reasons.
Scarcely any news story induces sleep as swiftly and surely as congressional budget negotiations -- a topic that features politicians bickering loudly over huge dollar amounts that lack meaning for most people, while their public posturing reflects little of what is actually going on in the back channels.
California Gov. Jerry Brown won the blame game and lost the budget.
As the world keeps a watchful eye over the badly-damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan, a radioactive threat much closer to home is being deliberately downplayed by our government.
