If the election were held today, I believe American voters would back the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney or even Newt Gingrich. Why is this so, given the dismal record of the last Republican Administration on jobs, deficit spending, and costly mismanaged wars? Primarily because white middle class Americans, especially men,...

The economic story that the Republican Party is peddling to American voters is profoundly unpatriotic and dead wrong. It says that the U.S. government is "broke" and helpless and that there is nothing it can do to reduce joblessness. They pretend that less regulation and cutting corporate taxes would somehow...

Is the United States "broke"? John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, says it is. According to Boehner, the U.S. is like a family in desperate need of a loan, or like Greece that can only borrow at exorbitant interest rates and therefore needs a bailout from...

Republican presidential candidates are confused when they attack the Fed for "printing money." So are many others. The Fed was created in 1913 precisely to "print money" when it was needed because leaders 100 years ago understood that when goods and labor are plentiful and money is scarce...

It took the United States 10 years to recover from the Crash that ended the stock speculation of the late 1920s. It may take longer to emerge from the aftermath of the housing crash of 2007 because today's politics makes it impossible to imagine a massive spending program like the...

The Wikipedia paragraphs on the prophet Jeremiah fit my recollection of his warnings. They are relevant today as Tea Party radicals contemplate forcing the United States to default on its debt. Jeremiah, Wikipedia says, "rejected the idea (widespread among the Hebrews and their kings) that Jerusalem and the Temple had...

Environmentalists are often attacked from the political right for favoring too much regulation even though most Americans agree with their larger objectives. Given these attacks from the right it behooves those of us who want to clean up the air and water to think carefully before pushing regulatory initiatives that...

Everyone is looking for ways to reduce healthcare costs while also improving care. Healthcare expenditures in the U.S. surpassed $2.3 trillion in 2008. For a variety of reasons, many Americans under-use or lack access to low cost over-the-counter (OTC) medicines that can effectively treat minor ailments preventing them from becoming...

A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans view unemployment as the biggest economic problem facing the country. So why are Republicans letting Tea Party zealots put out in their name a draconian plan to cut the deficit that would do nothing to bring joblessness down?

Today's painfully...

In January 1958, I flew to Washington for the first time to see Walter Reuther, then president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and a hero of mine, testify before the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee.

Reuther wanted the Big Three U.S. automakers to build small cars to compete...

If you want to understand what the U.S. faces today with no prospect of bringing unemployment down to 3 or 4 percent you need to read Since Yesterday, Frederick Lewis Allen's book written in 1939 about the Depression years in America. Allen was the editor of Harpers magazine. In 1930...

Failure to solve the unemployment problem cost Democrats the 2010 election. Fifteen million Americans are out of work. Nine million more are involuntarily working part time. Many with jobs also feel threatened. Voters don't understand why jobs are scarce so they vote against those they believe are in power. Under...

I am worried. The election in Massachusetts shows that American voters want action from Washington to bring unemployment down. The problem is that many of these voters think that the right action is to slash government spending and the federal deficit, which will make the problem worse. Of still greater...

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, staked out a clear position for the upcoming debate over financial regulation at the American Economic Association on January 3. Bernanke had to make his case because the role of the Federal Reserve Bank is central to financial reform, and that debate starts...

If Pearl Harbor were attacked today as it was on Dec. 7, 1941, would the government have the money to defend the country? This question was answered 70 years ago. In 1939 opponents of Roosevelt and the New Deal were wringing their hands about budget deficits in exactly the words...

Conservatives say that the United States cannot afford to spend money on bridges, roads, schools, parks and other public works even though we clearly need them. More stimulus, they claim, will be inflationary.

14.5 million Americans are out of work. 8.8 million are working part-time but want full-time jobs and...

The Congressional Budget Office made Republicans cheer on July 16 when it said that health care reform proposals will raise, not lower, costs. The CBO economists are wrong. In the 1970s and '80s, economists thought inflation in many industries was an immutable fact, as they think it is in health...

Does anyone know a way to quickly reduce America's health care costs by billions of dollars while improving the Nation's health? The answer is "yes" and it may be starting to happen. Some prescription drug purchasers, many without drug insurance, are saving billions of dollars already although only a small...

Ben Bernanke's speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on March 10 was important both for what he said and for what he did not say. I want to pass quickly over what he said and get to the second category --- what he did not say.

What he...

It is sobering to read the transcript of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's press conference this week. Stimulus is mentioned, but there is not a word about who will step forward to borrow the money to make jobs and restore growth to the U.S. and World economy. This tells us where...