Virtually alone among major world economies, the United States has a debt ceiling which limits how much money the government can borrow to pay the bills it has already incurred. From the time Congress created the debt limit in 1917 to simply the massive borrowing need to fund the U.S effort in World War I […]

To my Republican friends willing to trigger a global economic catastrophe by refusing to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling, let’s engage in a little thought exercise. Imagine for the moment that Donald Trump actually won reelection in November 2020. (That shouldn’t be hard, given polling that shows that 66% of Republicans already wrongly believe […]

Zombies have gripped American popular culture for years. In books, television shows, and films, the undead are regularly resurrected for your entertainment. (Even Jane Austen fans were treated to Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy butchering those from beyond the grave in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.) But whatever their reanimation story, the zombie's Achilles' heel […]

"Both sides do it" may well be the most dangerous and deceitful phrase in U.S. politics. The lazy analyst's substitute for actual journalism doesn't merely misdiagnose what plagues the American body politic, but fails to correctly identify the source of the disease. As Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein put it in their 2012 book, It's […]

As the New Year begins, imagine that this is how your 2018 ended: You work at a company where the CEO and the management team are notoriously corrupt. They began the year by taking on $150 million in new debt for the purpose of rewarding themselves and their shareholders with a massive stock buyback. But […]

As 2018 draws to a close, there is growing concern about what the next year will bring for the American economy. President Trump's twin self-inflicted wounds of an ongoing trade war with China and a needless government shutdown helped send stock markets into a December panic. The expanding global economy, too, shows signs of a […]

In the future, historians and political scientists will speak of the "Ryan Gap." That moniker will be used to measure the yawning chasm between the shining image a politician manufactures for him or herself and the brutal truth of their failed ideas and meager accomplishments. Of course, the inspiration for that damning delta between perception […]

And now for today's thought exercise. Imagine you are a member of Congress. Recent assessments from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warn that the budget deficit for fiscal year 2018, which ended on Sept. 30, jumped to $779 billion and annual trillion-dollar shortfalls will return beginning in FY 2020. But then you learn of […]

A new Gallup poll last week once again confirmed that Americans are decidedly unimpressed by the GOP's "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" passed in December. Coming just weeks after a Fox News survey found Obamacare enjoyed greater popularity than the Republican tax cuts, Gallup's latest tally revealed that respondents continue to disapprove of President Trump's […]

Like a recurring biblical plague, they descend across the country. Despite the repeated warnings from both experts and lay persons of good faith and common sense, the media and tens of millions of people are nevertheless still shocked by their arrival. As predicted, they devastate everything in their path, leaving a swath of destruction in […]