Dr Donald Berwick is gone. The man who was appointed by President Barack Obama last year to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services would not be confirmed by Republicans in the Senate so the administration is nominating his deputy instead. The White House deemed it “unfortunate that a small group of senators obstructed his nomination, putting political interests above the best interests of | Read More »
Leftists are lining up to blame the riots that began in London last week after the fatal shooting of a man by police but quickly spread to other parts of Great Britain in the days thereafter on the austerity measures that have supposedly been implemented by the Liberal-Conservative Government. That is “supposedly” because whereas cuts have been planned, most have yet to be enacted. Writing | Read More »
Writing for The Washington Post, E.J. Dionne argues that the debate about government spending in America is distracting people from the question how public and private resources can best be brought to bear in an effort to enhance the nation’s competitiveness. Other countries, he believes, are way ahead of the curve. While the United States is not even sure we should have gone halfway toward | Read More »
n his latest New York Times column, economist Paul Krugman criticizes the “pain caucus” in Europe, notably the European Central Bank (ECB), for insisting that sound money and balanced budgets will somehow fix all of the continent’s fiscal woes. Austerity, he argues, is failing and American policy makers would be ill advised to repeat it in their own country. Krugman’s column is unfortunately so filled | Read More »
What will it take for the government to admit that it’s utterly and inherently incapable of efficiently providing “affordable” housing? A comprehensive investigation undertaken by The Washington Post uncovered nothing but waste and fraud and suffering for the scores of neighborhoods and tens of thousands of people who were supposed to benefit from the efforts of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The | Read More »
“I’m rooting for everybody to get rich,” President Barack Obama said last week, speaking at a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada. “But I believe that we can’t ask everybody to sacrifice and then tell the wealthiest among us, well, you can just relax and go count your money, and don’t worry about it. We’re not going to ask anything of you.” The president urged | Read More »
The United States, like most nations in the developed world, maintain a progressive federal income tax system, meaning people not only pay a given percentage of their income in taxes but that percentage increases for high income earners, from 10 percent for individuals making a little more than $8,000 a year to 35 percent on incomes over $370,000. As a result, in 2008, the top | Read More »
Earlier this week, Britain’s National Health Service Ombudsman came out with a grim report about the current state of health care in the United Kingdom. A number of terrible instances of neglect can be read in The Telegraph. Here is how the ombudsman summed it up: The findings of my investigations reveal an attitude—both personal and institutional—which fails to recognize the humanity and individuality of | Read More »
What is the purpose of government? The public debate in America has once again turned to this all important question and for the first time in a long time, the country elected legislators last fall who adhere to a radically different view about the role of government than is the consensus. Most politicians—and voters—left and right agree that government should not only provide basic security | Read More »
Since President Barack Obama’s budget for the fiscal year 2012 only cuts domestic discretionary spending and leaves entitlements and defense untouched, the Federal Government will remain in the red for probably this entire decade unless Congress pushes for deeper spending cuts. Domestic discretionary spending doesn’t even account for 15 percent of the president’s $3.7 trillion budget. Only by reining in entitlement spending or dramatically raising | Read More »
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