U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is promoting the “Prevent Government Shutdown Act of 2019.” The goal of the act is to prevent disruptive government shutdowns. Since Sen. Johnson arrived in Washington in 2011, partisan congressional standoffs have led to “three … Continue reading
President Donald Trump has had (what else?) a publicly tempestuous relationship with the Federal Reserve System. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has adhered to the Fed’s official traditional position of being apolitical. Typical of Powell’s statements is the unequivocal assertion, “Political considerations … Continue reading
I feel badly for the people of the United Kingdom. Brexit – the move to withdraw the UK from the European Union – has left the United Kingdom anything but united. Even families are being ripped apart. The most notable … Continue reading
On July 22, President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a two-year budget deal that suspends the debt ceiling, and will raise federal spending $320 billion over amounts agreed to during the Obama years. The agreement was unusual … Continue reading
The “hook” of the story intrigued me: “This hasn’t happened in all of modern history…” An email from “The Crux” last month blared, “Global population growth to virtually stop by 2100.” According to a Pew Research Center analysis, “the world’s … Continue reading
This will sound like the start of a bad joke, but please bear with me: What do Everett Dirksen, Otto von Bismarck, H.L. Mencken, and “the Preacher” in the book of Ecclesiastes have in common? Well, if you’ve been gone … Continue reading
Recently, a student came to me in a state of perplexity. His liberal friends were insisting that President Obama deserves much credit for today’s favorable economic news of higher GDP growth and lower unemployment, while his conservative friends give President … Continue reading
In case you haven’t heard of her yet, Greta Thunberg is a 16-year-old Swedish girl who has been manufactured into the new face of climate change. Credited with being the founder of the Youth Strike for Climate movement (a publicity-seeking … Continue reading
Thank you, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Green New Deal (GND) she has unveiled is most illuminating. It is now unmistakably clear that AOC, Bernie Sanders, and other democrat socialists in the Democratic Party don’t want “socialism lite” but rather they … Continue reading
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has proposed raising the legal minimum wage to $12 per hour on July 1, 2019, and then an additional 50 cents per year until the minimum wage reaches $15 per hour in 2025. Laws mandating a minimum wage … Continue reading
Whatever else you may think of her, first-time Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is a great American success story. Hers is a classic “triumph of the underdog” tale. Nobody expected her to upset 10-term incumbent Congressman and Chair of the House … Continue reading
The New York Times obituary opened with a simple recitation of facts: “Zhores A. Medvedev, the Soviet biologist, writer and dissident who was declared insane, confined to a mental institution and stripped of his citizenship in the 1970s after attacking … Continue reading
The financial health of the federal government has been deteriorating for decades. Unable to break free from our bipartisan addiction to deficit spending, the national debt has continued to rise relentlessly. This has brought us within sight of a grim … Continue reading
Last week I was chatting with a friend who asked me the current status of the Keystone XL pipeline project. This is the pipeline that would transport over 800,000 barrels per day of oil from Alberta, Canada to Nebraska. There … Continue reading
On October 9, President Donald Trump announced that he was lifting the EPA’s ban on summertime sales of E15—a motor fuel blend consisting of 15% ethanol instead of the usual 10%. Trump’s announcement is telling. It teaches much about politics, trade policy, … Continue reading
First, the good news: “Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet.” As reported by Ben Steverman on Bloomberg.com, Census Bureau data show that millennials’ divorce rate is so much lower than baby boomers’ divorce rate that the overall … Continue reading
We are constantly bombarded with bad news. There are disasters, dangers, challenges, and woes. On the political scene, we find perpetual discord peppered with lurid denunciations and shrill condemnations. Media reports are alternately dismaying, disappointing, distressing, disgusting, or depressing. But … Continue reading
When I commented in March about President Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on imported steel, I was hoping that he would back off from imposing tariffs on our allies. That is because the danger to our national security isn’t steel or … Continue reading
Full disclosure: I have never seen an episode of the long-running PBS children’s show called “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” The only reason I went to see “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the documentary about Mr. Rogers and his show, was because … Continue reading
This weekend, I will celebrate the 50th anniversary of my high school graduation with most of the surviving classmates of the Cranbrook School Class of 1968. They became accomplished men (it was an all-boys school then), whose greatest common achievement … Continue reading
