Affordable Care Act’s many benefits
When the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the Affordable Care Act later this month, it will not be the first to consider its constitutionality. Congress carefully weighed its authority in writing the law. And a majority of lower-court judges who have ruled on it, including some of the leading conservatives on the bench, have agreed […]
The bond between Camp and Baucus
The payroll tax deal that became law this month attracted a slew of headlines. There was election-year politics as Democrats seized on the issue. Republicans, meanwhile, had to backtrack from their demands to offset the tax cut. But the overlooked story was how two low-key but powerful lawmakers struck the deal. The relationship between House […]
A Rare Deal
There’s nothing like a deadline — and the prospect of acute political embarrassment — to concentrate the mind. With Congress about to go on recess, and with Republicans fearing a voter backlash, negotiators on Wednesday were putting the finishing touches on a deal to extend the payroll tax cut and federal jobless benefits through 2012. […]
The Payroll Tax Fight
Republicans in Congress seem to have forgotten the embarrassment they suffered late last year for trying to block a payroll tax cut for millions of wage-earners. The two-month extension they reluctantly approved will run out in three weeks, yet, again, they are stalling a full-year’s tax cut with extraneous issues and political ploys. The need […]
Congress in 2012: Whose brand of ‘change’ will it be?
Having concluded one last partisan melodrama — the fight over a stopgap extension of the payroll tax cut — Congress can now put a miserable year of bickering and brinkmanship behind it. Lawmakers may not have much to look forward to, however. The looming presidential election threatens to make legislating in the new year even […]
Super shameful on Capitol Hill
Conceived in cowardice, Congress’ deficit reduction “super committee” has lived down to expectations by failing to reach a bipartisan compromise. Even if it had succeeded in cutting its goal of $1.2 trillion over the next decade, it would have fallen short of the $4-trillion reduction over the same period that experts say is necessary to […]
Will Republicans let the supercommittee fail?
THE CLOCK is ticking on the congressional supercommittee. The prognosis for a serious debt reduction deal was never good; the greatest sticking point is Republican unwillingness to accept the reality, fiscal and political, that new tax revenue must be part of any deal. The outlook appeared even more dire last week with South Carolina Republican […]
Breaking Grover Norquist’s spell
Opinions differ about what sparked the fall of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the mid-1950s and the ending of the anti-communist witch hunts he spearheaded, but some historians peg the moment at June 9, 1954, when chief Army counsel Joseph Welch uttered his famous rebuke: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have […]
Free Trade Can Lift Labor Standards Abroad
THE passage this month of free trade agreements may be a victory not only for President Obama, but also for workers in Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Although the anticipated economic consequences of these agreements are small, these pacts also offer a mechanism for improving workers’ rights in partner countries. Some of the delay in […]
Long-delayed free trade deals give U.S. an economic boost
IT TOOK HALF a decade, but bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate have finally approved free-trade agreements between the United States and three key nations: South Korea, Colombia and Panama. This is cause for celebration — but also for reflection. First, the celebration: South Korea is a stable democracy in Northeast Asia and a […]