President Obama needs to make it clear that the second half of the bank bailout will be radically different (This will require more than finger-wagging; it'll require disgorging). And his administration needs to rethink a stimulus bill that currently misses a huge opportunity to both arrest our economic free-fall and create a 21st century economy. How about creating an advisory cabinet of economic thinkers, starting with those who sounded the alarm about our current financial crisis? All of them -- Nouriel Roubini, Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz, Niall Ferguson, Ann Pettifor, etc. -- are critical of the short-sighted, ad-hoc nature of the stimulus bill. Instead of bailing water out of the sinking ship, they could help construct a replacement appropriate for navigating the economic seas of the 21st century -- and steer it in the right direction.
What the administration needs, and what its senior advisers proved so adept at during the campaign, is a simpler, more compelling, campaign-style message for what this legislation is really about.
Don McLean saw February 3, 1959 as The Day the Music Died, but really it was the day the legend of Buddy Holly was born.
It seems the American public now largely takes in stride the knowledge of someone having smoked marijuana, but there is a completely different threshold for the image of it.
As the Senate begins to debate the stimulus package this week, our elected leaders must ensure that any plan fully supports the newest generation of veterans and their families.
The economic crisis may be the catalyst that sorts out the best non-profits from the also-rans, leading to a sharp increase in the overall effectiveness of the sector.
It's no contest. Rod Blagojevich's corruption is way more entertaining than Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe's. We tend to care about people who are, one way or another, like ourselves.
There's nothing that prevents the public from getting their fair share of any future bank profits appropriate to the high risk investment they are being forced to make.
I am losing patience with congressional Democrats' innate instinct to capitulate, something that has been evident since the November 2006 mid-term elections.
I wonder if there's some confusion in the debate about bipartisanship stemming from the oddly chummy atmosphere inside the Beltway.
I'm hoping that we're finally entering into an era that I've been dreaming of my entire life: the rise of the bookish black.
Going after China "aggressively" on its exchange rate policy would not be wise. It won't help address the job losses which have made this a hot issue, and it will strain relations with a major world power.
If "illiquidity is the core economic problem," as policy makers argue, why is then the government's injection of enormous amounts of liquidity failing to unfreeze the credit market?
In the VH1 show Tool Academy, the contestants are told that they're tools in need of desperate rehabilitation. Can we sign up certain former presidents, congressmen and pundits?
Anti-abortion groups are generally the biggest opponents of government-financed family planning. There are a few reasons for this, and each comes with its own moral dilemma.
Remember when people always used to say that the Super Bowl was "boring?" After last night, and last year, it should take at least at least a half-decade of clunkers for that cliché to take hold again.
Wanted: a framework for comprehensive health reform that provides near-universal coverage, reduces costs, and fosters continued improvement in medical care. Oh -- and the plan must be politically achievable.
There exists a leadership gap in the Republican party with no strong frontrunner for 2012 and evidence of growing division between the leading candidates. Steele must fill this leadership vacuum.
Selecting Steele is designed to help position the Republicans more advantageously in their effort to fight off charges of "using the race card" when their attacks on the president become really tough.
