Crushing Those Animal Spirits By Michael Barone
"Animal spirits," said John Maynard Keynes, are the essential spring of capitalism. We depend on the animal spirits of investors, high earners and entrepreneurs for a growing economy.
Political Commentary
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March 7, 2009
March 6, 2009
The Real World of Gay Marriage By Susan Estrich
In an ideal world, gay marriage would be won at the ballot box. Voters would recognize that they have absolutely nothing to lose by allowing their fellow citizens the same rights to marry that heterosexual men and women now enjoy. Even many prominent conservatives (say, Sarah Palin) have come to recognize that it is wrong, heartless even, to deny gay couples the right to sign up for health benefits or to make critical medical decisions for their partners.
March 5, 2009
Plan Obama: Pass the Check By Debra J. Saunders
Twenty-five years after 1984, Doublespeak lives. Last week, President Obama released "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise" -- a 10-year, $3.55 trillion spending plan that represented anything but fiscal maturity.
March 5, 2009
Rich Shouldn't Get Overwrought By Froma Harrop
Amid pleas to spare the rich, the right is accusing the Obama administration of waging vile class warfare. They envision wooden carts carrying the wealthiest 2 percent to the guillotine. Are the critics right? Only in the tumbrels of their mind.
March 4, 2009
Obama Lied; The Economy Died By Tony Blankley
I am trying to capture the spirit of bipartisanship as practiced by the Democratic Party over the past eight years. Thus, I have chosen as my lead this proposition: Obama lied; the economy died. Obviously, I am borrowing this from the Democratic theme of 2003-08: "Bush lied, people died." There are, of course, two differences between the slogans.
March 4, 2009
Rush-Hour Frustration By Susan Estrich
He talks for hours every day. He gets paid to talk. Just talk. Doing it well is no small thing; witness the number of people who have tried to be him, or be the NOT-him, and failed. But he doesn't have to build a coalition.
March 3, 2009
The Heat Is On True Believers By Debra J. Saunders
A Sunday New York Times story described an expected sea change in international global warming policy. The story noted that President George W. Bush, "pressed by the Senate, rejected" the Kyoto global warming protocol in 2001, but now President Obama is eager to negotiate a robust international global warming treaty to be signed in Copenhagen in December.
March 3, 2009
Canada Profits From Bizarre U.S. Bans By Froma Harrop
When a pizzeria closes, the pizzeria down the block usually sees a surge in business. That principle applies to commerce in the larger North American neighborhood. Whenever the United States locks the gate on a plausible economic activity, Canadians move in and profit.
March 1, 2009
B.T. Collins, RIP By Debra J. Saunders
When he worked as a legislative liaison in 1982 for Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, B.T. Collins -- an unlikely Brown hire, as Collins was a Republican and double-amputee Vietnam War veteran who joked that he threw grenades "like a girl" -- had choice words for the California Legislature. He used to call the Assembly "an adult day care center."
February 28, 2009
Obama’s War By Lawrence Kudlow
Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget. He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.
February 28, 2009
Liberals Turning Blind Eye to Human Rights By Michael Barone
On the last day of her trip to East Asia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke briefly of the place of human rights in American policy toward China. "Our pressing on those issues" -- issues she didn't identify any more fully -- "can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis."
February 27, 2009
Senate 2010: Part Three By Larry Sabato
Two weeks ago we discussed the basic framework for 2010's thirty-six Senate elections. Last week we reviewed the seventeen Democratic Senate seats that are on the ballot in the midterm year.
February 27, 2009
With All Due Respect By Susan Estrich
One of my favorite federal judges used to laugh whenever I began a sentence "with all due respect," because he knew I was about to tell him I thought he was wrong.
February 26, 2009
Cutting Off Your News To Spite Your Face By Debra J. Saunders
A couple of years ago, when speaking to a local group, I mentioned that The Chronicle was losing money.
February 26, 2009
Pushed To the Margins, Finally By Joe Conason
At the brink of global ruin, many Americans suddenly seem willing to consider sensible ideas that were always deemed unthinkable, and to reject foolish notions that were once deemed brilliant. Soon we may be mature enough to observe how other developed countries address problems that have baffled us for generations.
February 26, 2009
GOP Keeps Avoiding Its Fiscal 'Principles' By Froma Harrop
How big should government be? The answer is: As big as it has to be -- and for small-government types, no bigger than it has to be.
February 25, 2009
The Price of Playing by the Rules By Susan Estrich
The president deserves the high marks he is getting from the public for his first month in office. Most presidents get to spend their first month putting up the draperies.
February 25, 2009
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life By Tony Blankley
I hate to admit it, but I miss Bill Clinton. At least that lecherous old charmer was more amusing than his successor as a Democratic president, our new mortician in chief, Barack "End of the World" Obama.
February 24, 2009
Let Bankruptcy Courts Change Mortgages By Froma Harrop
Let bankruptcy courts modify the terms of home mortgages, says President Obama and legislation now before Congress. Banks don't like the idea, but it's a good one, possibly even for them.
February 22, 2009
Bad Times Visit Our Betters in Europe By Debra J. Saunders
LONDON -- Think that credit collapse that triggered the Bush administration's $700 billion bank bailout was necessary because of Republican hostility to regulation and the ineptness of President George W. Bush?
