Can You Hear Me Now? The Limits of Government Power

The President assures us that no one is listening to our calls, but does that settle the debate?

The Pres­i­dent assures us that no one is lis­ten­ing to our calls, but does that set­tle the debate?

“Progress does not com­pel us to set­tle cen­turies-long debates about the role of gov­ern­ment for all time, but it does require us to act in our time. For now deci­sions are upon us and we can­not afford delay. We can­not mis­take abso­lutism for prin­ci­ple, or sub­sti­tute spec­ta­cle for pol­i­tics, or treat name-call­ing as rea­soned debate. We must act, know­ing that our work will be imper­fect. We must act.”

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Sec­ond Inau­gur­al Address, Jan­u­ary 21, 2013. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Tortured Politics of the Health Care Law

Boehner and Reid

Putting aside per­son­al ani­mos­i­ty for the greater good.

House con­ser­v­a­tives yes­ter­day scut­tled a bill that would have denied the White House mon­ey it urgent­ly needs to imple­ment the new health reform law. But a promi­nent Sen­ate Demo­c­rat, who helped write the law, maneu­vered to deny the Admin­is­tra­tion those des­per­ate­ly need­ed funds. Mean­while, Speak­er Boehn­er and Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid are locked in qui­et talks to exempt them­selves and their staffs from the new law.

Got all that? Con­tin­ue read­ing →