I have a horrible confession to make. I'm an environmentalist who's been hoarding old incandescent light bulbs before they become illegal in January. But it was all unnecessary, so I learn.
When governments want to encourage what they believe is beneficial behavior, they subsidize it. Sounds like good public policy.
In Atlanta, the teachers cheat on exams so the students don't have to. It doesn't raise the knowledge level of our children, but it gets the school system past the next exam -- even as the system continues its death spiral. We will know the spiral has reached its terminal station when there is full unionized teacher employment and complete student illiteracy.
For weeks, the signs were flashing on every freeway in Los Angeles: 405 closed between 10 and 110/July 16-17. EXPECT BIG DELAYS.
If Washington fails to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and default follows, the results won't mirror that of L.A.'s "Carmageddon" weekend (when Angelenos stayed home in response to a major freeway closure and then blamed the media for over-hyping the story). A default on the federal debt means interest rates will rise, the cost of borrowing will balloon -- and the only sure outcome will be that voters will blame Republicans.
Among the Republicans vying for their party's presidential nomination, only former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson had the self-respect to denounce the ludicrous "Marriage Vow" pledge. Such pledges are a means through which small interest groups can make candidates crawl. The intimidation comes from their highly engaged members, who can affect the outcome of unrepresentative political contests -- the upcoming Iowa caucuses being a good example.
As uncertain and unruly and disheveled as the debt-ceiling debate may be, there are still good grounds to reach a deal. It could help the economy. It could keep the policy ball moving in the direction of smaller government. It could add a key business tax incentive for economic growth. And it could even stabilize the dollar.
It's hard to keep up with all the arguments and proposals in the debt limit struggle. But what's at stake is fundamental.
Democratic California state Sen. Loni Hancock is pushing legislation to end California's death penalty. "Capital punishment is an expensive failure and an example of the dysfunction of our prisons," she explained in a statement. "California's death row is the largest and most costly in the United States. It is not helping to protect our state; it is helping to bankrupt us."
At long last, President Obama seems to have run out of patience with the truculent Republicans who have rejected all of his overtures for a budget deal -- just as Moody's and other economic authorities again warned of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a debt default.
President Barack Obama has billed his "grand bargain" as the adult compromise because it has something for everyone to hate. The package would raise the $14 trillion debt ceiling (which the public hates), raise taxes by $1 trillion (which Republicans hate) and cut spending by $3 trillion (which Democrats hate) over 10 years. As the president argued in Monday's news conference, it's time for Washington to eat its peas.
In November 1946, a tall, mustachioed figure stood alone on a railroad platform at Washington's Union Station, waiting for the president of the United States to make his ignominious return to the capital. In victorious times, the platform would have been full of welcomers; as it was then, at the time of their party's defeat, Dean Acheson, the future secretary of state, was the only one waiting for President Harry Truman.
The United States is a country that has been peopled largely by vast surges of migration -- from the British Isles in the 18th century, from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century, from Eastern and Southern Europe in the early 20th century, and from Latin America and Asia in the last three decades.
There are a lot of pieces to the debt-ceiling deal. There are the taxes upon taxes, as The Wall Street Journal editors describe it. That's the roughly $1 trillion in new Obama taxes on top of what he's already signed into law. It's an economy and jobs killer.
So where are the jobs? Job creation has basically flattened over the past two months -- very bad news, as unemployment exceeds 9 percent.
My friend Francie's mother used to be known by all as "the Nation." It was a loving nickname based on her tendency to make pronouncements to one and all about what the nation thought of a particular topic. She would laugh.
Some people can spot a slight in every compliment, whereas others -- the happy ones -- find a compliment in every slight. So last week, as a free-market, low-taxes, constitutional conservative, I happily found an apparently unintended compliment from the liberal New Republic.
Republicans want to make Americans more responsible for their own economic security while curbing the protections that would help them do it safely. A double win for Wall Street operators. Republicans deliver them a new batch of easy marks -- Average Joes who don't understand the small print -- and then let the financiers do as they please. A few guys make a quick buck milking the unsophisticated, and when the music stops, the taxpayer picks up the debris. It happens every time, and it will happen again if Republicans succeed in emasculating the new Consumer Financial Protection Board.
As "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2," is set to hit theaters Friday, consider J.K. Rowling's villains.
Some of us called it the man-cession. In the deep recession that lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, many more men than women lost their jobs.
