Foes of Obamacare often frame such health reforms as “redistribution” schemes. They take money from hardworking Americans and give it to the presumably undeserving. My conservative friends are right that a lot of health reform is about redistribution. What they get wrong are the arrows on the real redistribution chart. Health care reform is beginning […]

There is something truly spectacular about Sheldon Adelson. Witness the parade of Republican supplicants paying tribute in his Las Vegas lair. They would include Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. What’s remarkable is not the aesthetics of possible presidential nominees beseeching a […]

The first shocking headlines after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared revealed that two men had boarded with stolen passports. “Stark evidence of security gap,” blared The Christian Science Monitor. It appears that illegal immigration, not terrorism, was the two Iranians’ intention. But media and governments across the globe shook their heads wildly that an airport […]

The story of Josue Noe Sandoval-Perez, an illegal immigrant recently deported back to his native Mexico, perfectly captures the chaos of our broken immigration system — and for all sides of the debate. Settled in this country for 16 years, Sandoval-Perez appears to have been the good father and hard worker his champions portray. But […]

Beats me how new apps like “Secret” and “Whisper” are going to make big money. Presumably, that is the objective of their Silicon Valley creators. These apps combine social networking with anonymity. “Secret,” for example, lets people post anonymous messages to those on their contact list who’ve also signed on with “Secret.” The thrill supposedly […]

Disapproving of white urban liberals can be a career for right-leaning sociologists. A decade or two ago, their story was that the American future lay in fast-growing exurban counties, with their cheap land and virtuous Republican voters. Now that many American cities have become the hot, hot, hot place for jobs and ambitions, the story […]

Many American cities now enjoy an amazing reversal of fortune. Once hollowed-out shells mainly for those too poor to move — or those so rich they didn’t have to deal with the poor — cities are again filling up with educated and aspiring young people. They are flooding into Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and other […]

A Republican leader is doing something right … and good. He is Rep. David Camp of Michigan. Camp has issued a detailed plan for simplifying the tax code. That’s his duty as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax law. Reforming the 70,000-page abomination that is our tax laws — and […]

A story that captivated New York City: A group of elderly Korean-Americans had been gathering at a McDonald’s in Queens for conversation and fellowship. They’d sit there all day long, sometimes sharing a $1.39 package of fries. The hangout was so popular that friends from other neighborhoods would travel to join them. The restaurant’s management […]