I spent six years as a Democratic staffer on the United States Senate Budget Committee. It was during the Reagan Revolution and we valiantly battled the insanely preposterous supply-side economic policies then championed by OMB Director David Stockman, who in his advancing old age now realizes how damaging and wrong-headed...

I am not a religious person but I am a spiritual one. I have tempted fate often and somehow have managed to escape death's calling on two separate occasions. I have experienced more than my fair share of pain and anguish yet have managed to draw strength from misfortune and...

Fifteen years ago I gave a talk at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government entitled "Government Can Work" and having spent my entire professional career, spanning nearly four decades, associated with government, politics, and public policy I firmly cling to the notion that we have a system that while dysfunctional at...

I will not try to match the eloquence of President Obama's reaction to the Senate vote that fell half a dozen votes short of passage this afternoon but I am sure to mirror the outrage felt by him and an overwhelming number of Americans over the sinister and incredibly short-sighted...

Fracking has come to California and may be in a neighborhood near you. And if you happen to live in the Baldwin Hills or Culver City areas it may be happening as we speak. Fracking is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, and although it has existed for over a half century,...

How difficult is it to balance the federal budget? On paper it is simple, match revenues with expenditures and presto you have balance. How difficult is it in practical terms? Extremely difficult if not impossible. How desirable is it to balance the federal budget? Ahhhh that is truly the more...

Welcome to Bizarro World, where black is white, up is down, good is bad, day is night, and right is wrong. The proverbial pickle that Speaker of the House John Boehner is in right now is a consequence of the Bizarro World zeitgeist that has mystically mesmerized those miscreants known...

So today is judgment day, and the Speaker of the House probably wishes that the Mayans prognostications proved true, but we are still here and the real judgment day has come for Boehner and the Republican Party. It is deliciously tempting to launch a broadside at the tan man, but...

Woody Hayes, the legendary football coach at Ohio State, is credited with coining the term "three yards and a cloud of dust" to describe a strategy of grinding out yards on the march to the goal line. Ironic that this Ohio legend's admonition very well could be applied to the...

Enough is enough. As if it has not already been amply demonstrated that Mitt Romney is capable and willing to take all sides of every issue, the latest affront to common decency, common sense, and community comes in the form of his spin around on the issue of disaster relief....

The debates are over. The campaign now enters the home stretch and in two weeks we will know whether President Obama is successful in securing a chance to finish the job he started four years ago. It has become painfully clear that such a prospect will send many folks into...

Okay, everyone -- right, left, center, pundits and populace alike, undecided voters (however many that can actually be at this point) -- EVERYONE just take a chill pill, a deep breath, collect yourselves and assess where we are after Wednesday night's debate. Welcome to the Real World.

For anyone who...

There is a malodorous stench in the air as we enter the final six weeks of the current election season, and it emanates from an insidiously well-funded campaign to squash the most basic of all American rights; namely, the right to vote. A carefully orchestrated campaign has been afoot by...

The current political environment is riven with partisanship and the subsequent polarization of the country lends itself to an air of pessimism, cynicism, and distrust. Whether it is the result of or in reaction to the systematic dysfunction in our governmental institutions and processes is debatable, but what is beyond...

So I have taken a weekend to decompress and try to put a little distance between the event and something approaching a realistic if not objective assessment of it. For eight days I and dozens of my colleagues worked behind the scenes of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte as...

11 years ago yesterday I was awakened by incessant sirens piercing the New York City morning. Even for New York the sounds seemed oddly out of place and extraordinary. Nineteen floors above Lexington Avenue at 50th Street the noise was palpable. Since I had a late morning meeting I had...

As a transplanted Pennsylvanian now safely within earshot of the Pacific Ocean I can only gaze with sheer horror on the utterly detestable state of affairs unfolding in my former home state. While some might argue you could take your pick of travesties, whether it be the Penn State imbroglio,...

A good friend of mine who is also a fellow parent posed this question the other day to her Facebook friends: How would they recommend handling a mother-daughter talk on what it means to be an adult and assume the responsibilities and posture of an adult? Now ordinarily I do...

It is with a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment that I watch the current machinations of the presidential political campaign and question the seriousness and resolve of a large portion of the American people. As an individual who has spent over three and a half decades devoted to the propositions...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority is listening and has heard the complaints, criticisms, and suggestions of local and state officials, individual citizens, and communities, and concluded that many of those concerns are valid. Subsequently, the Authority has put forth a revised business plan that makes significant changes in...