WASHINGTON — We are defining prosperity down — or, more accurately, prosperity is defining itself down. We are eight years into the recovery from the Great Recession, the unemployment rate has dropped to 4.4 percent, the stock market is pushing record highs, and consumer confidence seems robust. And yet, the economy doesn’t feel as good […]
Robert Samuelson
Posted inOp-Eds
Tax plan would lead to larger deficit
WASHINGTON — Let’s be clear: America is an undertaxed society. Our wants and needs from government — the two blur — exceed our willingness to be taxed. This has been true for decades, but it’s especially relevant now because the number of older Americans, who are the largest beneficiaries of federal spending, is rising rapidly. […]
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Posted inOp-Eds
Study indicates adulthood arriving later
WASHINGTON — Growing up isn’t what it used to be. There’s a yawning gap between the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood: a period when millions of 20-somethings and 30-somethings have many adult freedoms without all the responsibilities. A new Census Bureau study compares the experiences of Americans 18-to-34 now with the same […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Trump’s stock boom: Real or an illusion?
The last thing President Trump now needs is for the stock market to go south on him. After all, he’s got worries aplenty: abroad, North Korea, Syria, Russia and Brexit; at home, the stalled effort to repeal Obamacare and uncertainty surrounding “tax reform.” Compared with this tapestry of troubles, the stock market has been a […]
Posted inOp-Eds
It is inevitable — taxes will be going up
WASHINGTON — As Tax Day — April 18 this year — approaches, we are confronted once again with the apparently enduring reality that Americans hate to pay taxes. Few political generalizations seem so indestructible. Gallup has long asked Americans whether their federal income taxes are too high. About 50 percent to 60 percent regularly say […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Parliamentary politics rules in U.S.
WASHINGTON — America’s Congress is quietly becoming a European-style parliament — and the transformation isn’t for the good. Congress is fanning, not defusing, conflict. Witness the acrimonious debate over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch or the stalemated status of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). In a well-functioning parliamentary system, voters pick one party or several […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Is the American Dream killing us?
WASHINGTON — It isn’t often that economics raises the most profound questions of human existence, but recent work of economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton (husband and wife, both of Princeton University) comes close. You may recall that a few years ago, Case and Deaton reported the startling finding that the death rates of non-Hispanic […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Fiscal carelessness became the norm
WASHINGTON — There was bound to be a political commotion when the Trump administration released its 2018 budget. After all, it isn’t every day that the White House proposes deep cuts in agency spending: for 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency would be down 31 percent; the State Department, 29 percent; the Department of Education, 14 […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Salvaging Medicaid will require work
WASHINGTON — It’s time to take control of Medicaid before it takes control of us. Unless we act — and there is little evidence that we will — Medicaid increasingly becomes another mechanism by which government skews spending toward the old and away from the young. In the raging debate over the Affordable Care Act […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web, Uncategorized
'Trumpcare' takes care of 'repeal,' but not 'replace'
WASHINGTON — What we learned from the latest “score” by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) of Obamacare and the Trump administration’s “repeal and replace” plan is what we should have known all along. To wit: If people have health insurance, they will use more health services — visits to doctors’ offices, more tests, procedures and […]