How Bad Policies Brought Us a New Gilded Age

The great economic crisis has given birth to a smaller and tighter monetary union in Europe, under the influence of a Germany that is undergoing a certain estrangement from its European partners. This amounts to a possibly dangerous wager on what the European Union will ultimately become, which not everyone may like.

Two pols who speak their minds

The problems the United States faces are large but not insoluble. Yet sensible solutions can't be enacted. Why? Because an ideological bloc that sees every crisis as an opportunity to reduce the size of government holds enough power in Congress to stop us from doing what needs to be done.

The small-government movement has created resistance to the reasonable proposals in the recent Vatican statement on financial reform. Yet, separate from the many strengths of the statement and the many problems in the way it’s been received in this country, there remains a significant hole in official Catholic social teaching on the economy.

The deficit hawks in Congress are ardent promoters of the economic well-being of future generations. And yet, when you look at the cuts, both those proposed and those enacted by these wizards of finance, you have to ask what kind of future they imagine will follow from their slashing frenzy, if not for their own children and grandchildren then for everyone else’s.

How Americans can save themselves from plutocracy

If Congress simply fails to act between now and January 1, 2013, the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire, $1.2 trillion in additional budget cuts go through under the terms of last summer's debt-ceiling deal, and a variety of other tax cuts also go away. Are you still sure that a "failure" by the congressional supercommittee to reach a deal would be such a disaster?

This week's elections around the country were brought to you by the word "overreach," specifically conservative overreach. Given an opportunity in 2010 to build a long-term majority, Republicans instead pursued extreme and partisan measures. On Tuesday, they reaped angry voter rebellions.

Nearly three years ago Dennis Blair, President Obama’s director of national security, garnered headlines when he reported to Congress that the most serious threat to the United States and to world peace was not terrorism, or Iran, or the rise of China, but the economic crisis. Blair worried about a backlash against the United States, and especially against its promotion of increasingly unregulated financial and commercial markets. The Vatican, as it turns out, appears to agree with much of this assessment.

Americans are waking up to income disparity

Can Americans Save Their Country from Plutocracy?

Paul Ryan Decries the Politics of Division

When the Vatican Confounds Conservatives

This is a party that was once innovative in thinking about affirmative uses of government. The GOP instituted the Homestead Act and created land grant colleges, the interstate highway system, student loans, the Pure Food and Drug Act and, yes, a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. What happened?

In which our reporter joins Wall Street's new occupants

Zero and 9.1. Those figures aren’t the won-lost record of the Red Sox during the final week the season. They are the Labor Department’s statistics for the number of jobs created in August, followed by the official unemployment rate for the same month. No wonder President Obama belatedly hastened to propose a major job-creation plan to a joint session of Congress.

Why Elizabeth Warren Makes George Will Nervous

Why hasn't there been a Tea Party on the left? And can President Barack Obama and the American left develop a functional relationship? That those two questions are not asked very often is a sign of how much of the nation's political energy has been monopolized by the right since Obama took office.

When socialism saves capitalism

Our political system is not accustomed to the kind of battle that is going on now. President Barack Obama has been slow to adjust to it. The voters are understandably mystified and frustrated by it. In the meantime, the economy sits on the edge between stagnation and something worse.

How workers vanished from our national consciousness

President Obama should not be constrained by what the Tea Party might allow subservient Republican leaders in Congress to do. He should state plainly, eloquently, and in detail what he thinks needs to be happen. Neither history nor the voters will be kind to him if he lets caution and political calculation get in the way.

The first week of August 2011 will be remembered as a singularly irrational, wasteful, and shameful moment in the political and economic history of the United States. It reflected much of what is wrong with the priorities of our political elites and the obsessions of those who now hold effective veto power over our government.

Up with moderation

The debt 'crisis' distracts from the real problem: unemployment

In the second part of the interview, Cardinal Francis George discusses the recent study of the "causes and context" of the sexual-abuse crisis, the bishops' role in assessing the Catholic identity of institutions, and retirement.

Time for the GOP to cut the Tea Party loose

The debt 'crisis' has kept the government from doing its job

Danger remains in the the debt debate

Four myths about government spending

When the Tea Party comes home to roost

Why won't the GOP budge in the debt talks?

Why Paul Ryan is losing the argument

The atomization of American society

The U.S. government faces few challenges more important than renewing people’s trust in the honesty and fairness of our financial institutions and economic system.

We’re still debating whether what we’re doing in Libya can rightly be described as war, though bombs dropped amid an “intervention” are just as deadly. But where’s the debate over whether it’s fair or accurate to assert that Republicans in Congress have not-so-stealthily declared a “war on women”?

Saving Motown worked

The GOP candidates might be more formidable if President Obama were less strongly favored. And over time, what Congress does will be shaped by the campaign's direction. Views of 2012 are heavily influenced by the metaphors that prognosticators invoke. Will it be 1984, 1988, or 1992?

The American ruling class is failing us—and itself.

President Obama has finally decided to take his own side in the philosophical struggle that is the true engine of this nation's budget debate. After months of mixed signals about what he was willing to fight for, Obama laid out his purposes and his principles.

In the weeks since Japan’s massive earthquake and tsunami, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has spewed contamination and displaced thousands. It has also rekindled fears across the globe about the risks of nuclear power and at least temporarily slowed the industry’s revival in the United States.

What budget cuts can tell us

In no serious country do threats to shut down the government become a routine way of doing business. Yet in our repertoire of dysfunction, we are on the verge of adding shutdown abuse to the abuse of the filibuster in the Senate. The GOP, however, was rewarded for going to the brink.

Will Obama take on the GOP's irresponsible budget plan?

The GOP is using a bogus metaphor to cut programs & bust unions

What Wisconsin can teach Washington

Wisconsin is said to have a large budget deficit, which makes it no different from the federal government, most other states, and probably most municipalities in the United States. What makes Wisconsin different is that Gov. Walker is trying to cut costs by redefining the relationship between the state and public-sector unions.

This book proposes a new narrative for understanding the past three decades of our democratic life, a “thirty-year war” in which a long slow struggle through much of the 20th century for greater equality of income and wealth has been reversed.

The rich have recovered—the country hasn't

What can we do to prevent another Tucson?

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has chosen the low road.

Consider the political conversation in our nation's capital. You'd never know that it's taking place at a moment when unemployment is at 9 percent, when wages are stagnating, and when the United States faces unprecedented challenges to its economic dominance.

Obama & the failure of the deficit hawks

After Obama delivers his budget proposal to Congress today, it will be hard to pretend anymore that the president and House Republicans even live in the same political galaxy, let alone have a chance of reaching lots of bipartisan agreements.

When the paper trail disappears

Are we committing economic suicide?

After a tough 2008 and 2009, Wall Street and big companies made a strong comeback in 2010. By conventional wisdom, that is a harbinger of a broad, strong recovery. But these are strange times, and we may be seeing the economy of the super-rich finally decoupling from the rest of us.

Is the GOP interested in solving real problems?

There is already a standard line of advice to Speaker-to-be John Boehner that goes like this: Democrats overreached in the last Congress by ignoring "the center." Republicans should not to make the same mistake, lest they lose their majority, too. That counsel is wrong.

How are we to square the achievement of so many goals that have long been on progressive wish lists with the resounding defeat suffered by supporters of these measures in November?

Really

The country's desire to reverse its sense of decline was central to Obama's victory. Consider his emphasis on "Hope" and "Change We Can Believe In." Those sentiments were responses to fears of lost supremacy and explain the religious overtones of the Obama crusade.

What does President Barack Obama think of those who fought and bled to pass his bills in Congress (in some cases losing in this year's election for their pains) while also defending him against wild charges from the right wing?

Three defeated Democrats offer their party advice on making Washington work again.

Where is Obama's conciliatory impulse leading the Democratic Party?

Republicans are risking the nation's security for short-term political gain

In mid-November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops discussed a report detailing an extensive “review and renewal” of its domestic-poverty program, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The reevaluation came in response to complaints that the CCHD’s grant recipients were involved in efforts that contradict Catholic teaching.

Nancy Pelosi promised a vote if 14 members of Obama's deficit-cutting commission could agree on a plan. If John Boehner and his new GOP majority are as serious about deficit cutting as they say, he should make clear he'll hold such a vote in the next Congress since there will be little time for debate in the lame-duck session.

The lame-duck session of Congress that kicks off this week will test whether Democrats have spines made of Play-Doh, and whether President Barack Obama has decided to pretend that capitulation is conciliation.

Germans bankrolled the European Union's bailout of Greece. Now they want the EU's governing treaty to be changed to shield them and other better-off countries from shouldering such responsibilities alone. Could their buyer's remorse eventually undo the EU?

The results of the midterm elections were both emphatic and ambiguous: a strong message was sent, but no one is entirely sure what it is. It’s easier to say what Americans are feeling right now—frustration, impatience, and, increasingly, anger—than to know what policies they expect their elected representatives to adopt.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calmly assessing the political cyclone that routed her Democratic majority and will, at least temporarily, force her to vacate one of the best offices in the city, with its inspirational view of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

The election was a setback for Democrats, not permanent defeat

The 2010 midterms will go down as one of the most fiercely fought campaigns in our political history. What was this strife all about? Yes, there were policies to fight over. But above all, there was a tsunami of money.

Discuss that and other issues at dotCommonweal's open thread on the midterm election results.

"People want to know you're fighting for them when they're hurting," argues Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy. If enough incumbent Democrats like Murphy survive on Tuesday, they will contain the damage of a difficult night.

What will the nation’s politics look like if, as expected, the Republicans take back the House on November 2? Indiana’s Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, issues a warning and a prediction. “There will be no compromise on repealing Obamacare,” he said. “There will be no compromise on stopping Democrats from growing government and raising taxes. And if I haven’t been clear enough yet, let me say again: No compromise.”

Is Joe Sestak leading a Democratic surge?

Secret money is corrupting our democracy.

Let us contemplate the joys of being in the political opposition when unemployment in your state tops 10 percent. 

It's not as bad as you think

Carl Paladino & the politics of anger

How 'Citizens United' is deforming our elections

Can Virginia Democrat Tom Perriello Run on his convictions & win?

With the unemployment rate still hovering near 10 percent, Americans are understandably dissatisfied with the pace of economic recovery and apprehensive about the country’s future. What is perhaps less understandable is the degree of rancor toward President Barack Obama and the federal government as a whole.

More & more Democrats are running on the reforms

The outsized influence of the extreme Right

Where are the serious Republicans?

Why isn't anyone talking about Obama's tax cuts?

GOP hopefuls Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have much in common: Both are wealthy executives-turned-candidates, both want to dismantle "big government," and both want to win at any cost. Their victories would further frustrate the Democrats—and Obama's reelection chances.

Where have all the moderate Republicans gone?

Instead of acknowledging that the government can no longer afford tax breaks for everyone, conservative politicians are calling for deep spending cuts—at precisely the moment when the private sector and states most need the federal government’s support. The politicians solemnly advertise their anxiety for future generations that will have to repay this debt; they seem somewhat less worried about a generation of children whose schools are being gutted by state cutbacks.

Why the French lost faith in Nicolas Sarkozy

The nation's extraordinary prosperity from the end of World War II to the 1970s was in significant part the result of union contracts that, in words the right-wing hated Barack Obama for saying in 2008, "spread the wealth around." A broad middle class with spending power to keep the economy moving created a virtuous cycle of low joblessness and high wages.

By insisting that "it's time to turn the page," the president was talking about more than Iraq. He was also trying to turn the page on a particularly rough period for the Democrats and for his presidency.

The principled case that must be made is that the brand of conservatism seeking power this year is irresponsible, incoherent, and untrue to the best of its own traditions.

Liberals may lament the administration’s failure to make progress on immigration and climate-change legislation in this congressional session, but it may be time to shift energies to protecting what has already been passed. 

When I sat down last week at the Capitol with Dodd to talk about his thirty-six years in Congress, he didn't change my attitude toward the longest-winded legislative body in the world. But he reminded me of something missing in our public life: an ebullient joy about what democratic politics can accomplish.

Dear Republicans, do you really want to endanger your party's greatest political legacy by turning the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution into an excuse for election-year ugliness?

Don't for an instant imagine that the comeback of the nation's rescued car companies, particularly General Motors, will change the way we debate government's role in the economy. When it comes to almost anything the government does, ideology trumps facts, slogans trump reality, and loaded words ("socialism") trump data.

The notion that when we are fighting two wars, we're not supposed to consider raising taxes on wealthy Americans is one sign of a country that's no longer serious.

The titans of the private sector say President Barack Obama is antibusiness. Many progressives say he coddles business. How does the administration manage to pull that off?

Andrew Linzey was among the first to open up the field of “animal theology." This book is neither his best nor his most original work, but it is still worth recommending to anyone unfamiliar with his arguments.

Barack Obama's campaign promise of change did not include a pledge to transform American conservatism. But one of his presidency's major legacies may be a revolution on the American right in which older, more secular forms of politics displace religious activism.

Democrats should feel a lot better than they do. They enacted major health-care reform, pulled the country out of economic spiral, and are about to pass the biggest reform of Wall Street since the New Deal. The GOP seems to be making itself unelectable. Yet Democrats are petrified—and this was true before the oil spill made matters worse.

Might the USCCB be wrong about the health-care law?

It will take some time before a new array of justices on the Court rethinks the labored departure from precedent made by the majority in Citizens United. Meanwhile, much corporate mischief will have been done.

An interview with Larry Summers

It should become the philosophical shot heard 'round the country. In a speech that received far too little attention, former Supreme Court Justice David Souter took aim at conservatives' favorite theory of judging. Souter's verdict: It "has only a tenuous connection to reality."

Behind the jobless recovery

The fact that the answer to that question seems as murky as the water around the exploded oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico suggests that this is an excellent moment to recognize that our arguments pitting capitalism against socialism and the government against the private sector muddle far more than they clarify.

Why Washington's conventional wisdom of impending Democratic catastrophe is one of the best things Obama's party has going for it.

The European Union doesn’t know where it stands at the moment. NATO thinks it knows and is gambling.

A review of John Cassidy's book How Markets Fail

Arizonans have plenty to be anxious about, but indulging in a crude nativism won’t stop the flow of undocumented immigrants or prevent violent crime along the border.

This year's elections may exacerbate the difference between our two political parties, but not in the way most people are talking about. Republicans will end the year a more philosophically coherent right-wing party. But the Democrats will, if anything, become more ideologically diverse.

Ever heard the one about the guy who hated government until a deregulated Wall Street crashed, an oil spill devastated the Gulf of Mexico, a coal mine collapsed, and some good police work stopped a terrorist attack?

Among elected officials, journalists, and average citizens, intensifying partisan polarization is thought to be one of the dominant political trends of our times. Yet it has proved remarkably controversial among political scientists.

The Democrats’ financial-reform plan doesn't go far enough.

Maybe the next time someone calls Barack Obama a socialist, the president shouldn't issue a denial. He might instead urge his accuser to read the hearing transcript of this week's congressional testimony from the Goldman Sachs guys in their beautiful suits.

Europe is on to something with proposed financial reforms

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli seems determined to use an attack on health-care reform to bring us back to the 1830s. Cuccinelli, to cheers from the Tea Party crowd, went to court this week to overturn the new law, which he says conflicts with a Virginia statute "protecting its citizens from a government-imposed mandate to buy health insurance."

The health-care debate has been costly for prolife groups.

From the archives: the life & death of Oscar Romero

There is a pathetic quality to our discussion of deficits and fiscal responsibility because we never face up to how much we need government to do. Our debates are also characterized by a politically convenient amnesia.

Joe Biden on the Economy & American Power

Who on the national stage today would knowingly blow up his or her political future for the common good, no matter how important the issue? Pushing through health-care reform could be politically perilous for today’s Democrats, but wouldn’t that be better than caving on such an important moral issue?

Why abortion shouldn't derail health-care reform

Time to turn indignation at what happened on Wall Street into prudent reform.

The stars may—just—be aligned to squeeze a national health-care bill out of Congress within the next month or two. Both houses have (barely) passed bills, and now they must cobble together a lowest-common-denominator consensus that can survive one more vote in each house. President Barack Obama is almost certain to sign anything they send him.

Meeting the nation’s long-term obligations won’t be possible without a stable economy.

Could the issue of abortion derail health-care reform legislation?

Solidarity and subsidiarity in Benedict XVI’s ’Caritas in veritate’

What is it about Afghanistan, possessing next to nothing that the United States requires, that justifies such lavish attention?

The biggest obstacle to health-care reform is political escapism.

  How well is Team Obama handling the crisis?

 Civilization & its discontents

  "Our present straits require a basic reordering of national priorities."

  American-style capitalism & the demise of free-market fanaticism

  How should we talk about the financial crisis?

  Remember when President George W. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security?

  How to undo thirty years of bad economic policy

  What went wrong, and why is it so hard to fix?

  The fundamentalism of free-market theology

Why Catholics shouldn’t fear faith-based arguments about economic policy

Like Christianity, it’s never been tried.

  The economy is in deep trouble. How did we get here and where are we headed?

Revisiting Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel.

  As income concentration among the wealthiest increases, what about the rest?

The rich are riding high on Bush’s fiscal policy. What about the rest of America?

  Charles Morris reports on the irresponsible tax policy of George W. Bush and the increasing disparity between rich and poor.