Tag Archives: bipartisanship

Take Religion Out of Economics

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I had lunch yesterday with one of the smartest guys I know, Steve Bell. Steve is a long-time Hill budget and tax expert.

I am, as you may know, arithmetically challenged.

This was largely a one-way conversation. Steve talked and I nodded, pretending to understand what he was saying. The part of the conversation I did get was this: The two parties no longer consider each other to be political opponents – each aiming for the same goal but choosing differing paths to get there.

Each of the two parties now considers the other to be not just a political enemy, but an enemy of everything the other believes in. We have traded political ideology for political religiosity. Continue reading →

Economic Recovery A Matter of Culture

BY MICHAEL JOHNSON

“I’m scared.”

That was the response of the guest speaker at a luncheon the other day, after I told him his speech was a little scary.  We were riding down the elevator together and by the time the doors opened to the lobby I was convinced he was serious.

                The speaker was Dr. Alan Greenspan, the man who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve for 18 years and is as much admired as he is despised.   Whatever you think of him and his tenure, his remarks were chilling. 

                 Greenspan’s message was that the short-term economic outlook is pretty decent because the stock market is driving the recovery.  The long-term outlook, however, is grim. That’s because eventually U.S. debt is going to consume so much capital that there will too little left for the private sector to borrow.

When the private sector cannot borrow it cannot produce and when it cannot produce, the economy fails.   

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Fixing the Filibuster Rule

By Robert Walker

Legislation recently has been introduced to change the way the United States Senate conducts its business. That legislation calls for ending the use of the filibuster in Senate deliberations. I agree that the filibuster rule should be changed. I do not agree that the right change is to end its use. Instead, I would argue that the requirements for stopping a filibuster should be made more stringent.
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