<![CDATA[ - Articles - RealClearPolitics]]> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/rss/archive/19252.xml Author <![CDATA[President Obama Should Sue Right Back]]> Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:00:00 -0500 So House Speaker John Boehner wants to sue President Barack Obama for his executive orders? Good. Let him. What better time for Obama to challenge the gerrymandering that Republicans have made into a high art form? After all, it’s Boehner’s party that has pulled off the constitutional coup by manipulating district boundaries in state after state—essentially rigging elections in its favor. In Ohio, for example, about half the votes in the House races of 2012 went to Democrats, but the GOP took 12 of the 16 seats. In Pennsylvania, it was more than half, but the GOP grabbed 13 of the 18 House seats.

]]> <![CDATA[Medicare Spending as Economic Stimulus]]> Sun, 26 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500 If U.S. President Barack Obama wins re-election, let him thank his lucky stars that entitlements are out of control. If Medicare was capped and couldn't shoot up automatically, unemployment would probably be in double digits.

Out-of-control health-care spending is the only stimulus the Republicans can't stop. What else is there? Go out late at night in some of the darkest American cities. Whether it's Cleveland, Baltimore or St. Louis, it seems the only thing left to light up the gloom is a big hospital, shining like a 12-gated city, inlaid with MRIs like precious jewels, and for that we can give thanks to Medicare and Medicaid.

]]> <![CDATA[What Would Keynes Do?]]> Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500 After the Obama stimulus seemed to fail, a Washington Post headline gibed: John Maynard Keynes, the GOP’s Latest Whipping Boy. On the left, of course, he’s still our guy, even if, like some “Keynesians,” we have never read a word of Keynes. Some pundits say that in the 2012 presidential election, the real candidates will be Keynes and Friedrich Hayek, the Austrian economist who raged against all forms of state planning (though Hayek liked national health insurance). If that’s the real presidential election, wouldn’t it behoove some of us true believers to ask, in this moment of double-dip despair, “My God, what would Keynes...]]> <![CDATA[10 Things Dems Could Do to Win]]> Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500 Yes, the country is in a foul mood, with 15 million unemployed. The Democrats may get clobbered in 2010. And even if we survive, how do we hang on for the long term? If our great founder, FDR, could come back to us, he might remind us of the three simple rules that once, long ago, Democrats used to follow:

]]> <![CDATA[What We Can Learn From Europe]]> Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500 A young member of the IG Metall union protests during a rally at the Opera Square on September 5, 2009, in Frankfurt, Germany. (Photo by: Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)

Americans may believe the United States is set up for the middle class, and Europe is set up for the bourgeois. Or let’s put it this way: America is a great place to buy kitty litter at Wal-Mart and relatively cheap gas. But it is not designed for me, a professional without a lot of money. That’s who Europe is for: people like me.

 

]]> <![CDATA[Use of Filibuster is Unconstitutional]]> Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Chicago

ABOUT the Senate, a college professor of mine used to say, “One day, the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional.” He was joking, I think.

But the Senate, as it now operates, really has become unconstitutional: as we saw during the recent health care debacle, a 60-vote majority is required to overcome a filibuster and pass any contested bill. The founders, though, were dead set against supermajorities as a general rule, and the ever-present filibuster threat has made the Senate a more extreme check on the popular will than they ever intended.

This change to the Constitution was not the result of, say, a formal ...]]> <![CDATA[The Case for Busting the Filibuster]]> Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500