Ruth Marcus
2/16/2011

Marcus cites recent examples of House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama failing to lead effectively. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Boehner dodged questions about his role in leading Republicans toward the facts about Obama’s citizenship and religion. Boehner claimed it was not his job to tell Americans what to think, yet Marcus contends that he tells citizens what to think about other issues, such as Obamacare. As for President Obama, his leadership failure comes in the form of a hands-off approach to the budget. The president would not directly confront the tax code or entitlement spending, leaving the issues hanging and sending the message that discussions would not resume until 2013. Apparently, the “cowardly state of politics” in modern America is not exclusive to any political party.

Marcus is an editorial writer for The Post, specializing in American politics, campaign finance, the federal budget and taxes, and other domestic issues.

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Charles Krauthammer
2/18/2011

Despite Obama’s claims that he is imposing “painful cuts” on spending, Krauthammer runs the numbers to reveal that these cuts actually result in government spending on “stratospheric levels.” The cuts themselves come from an emergency-level, inflated base, and the amount of the cuts ($1.1 trillion over the next decade) is accompanied by $7.2 trillion in new spending (with $2 trillion of that coming from tax increases) over the same amount of time. At the end of the decade, the US will be burdened with a deficit three times the level it was when Obama took office. Yet the president continues to ignore entitlement spending and proposals of tax reform and presents a “cynical” budget that forfeits the future while setting Obama up for re-election.

Krauthammer is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign and domestic policy and politics.

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Michael Medved
2/14/2011

Some conservatives call the president the political equivalent of a suicide bomber: so consumed with hatred that he’s willing to blow himself up in order to inflict casualties on a society he loathes. Against this, Medved says the White House record of more than 200 years shows plenty of bad decisions but no bad men. For all their foibles, no president ever displayed disloyal or treasonous intent. He criticizes Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin for hyperbole in criticizing Obama. For 2012, Medved says Republicans face a daunting challenge in running against the president, which becomes impossible if they’re also perceived as running against the presidency.

Medved hosts a daily, nationally syndicated radio show and is the author of “The 5 Big Lies About American Business” (recently out in paperback by Three Rivers Press).

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Joseph Nye
2/14/2011

Nye reflects on whether the US is in decline. He considers the rising power of China and other future challengers to American hegemony. America, he writes, is likely to remain more powerful than any single state in the coming decades. At the same time, it will certainly face a rise in the power resources of states and nonstate actors. America’s capacity to maintain alliances and create networks will be an important dimension of its hard and soft power. What it needs now is a vision that combines domestic reforms with smart strategies for the international deployment of its power in an information age.

Nye is a professor at Harvard and author of “The Future of Power” (Public Affairs, 2011).

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David Abraham
2/11/2011

Late last month, Japanese PM Kan proclaimed 2011 to be the “third opening of Japan”, equating his agenda to the great waves of transformation that swept the country in the mid-19th century and in the years after World War II. That will sound hyperbolic to anyone familiar with economically moribund, politically fragmented Japan, but his aspirations should not be dismissed out of hand. Kan can reopen his nation’s economy–the world’s third largest–to competition, and Kan has shown that he understands Japan’s competitiveness problem and has managed to push forward some substantive changes. This suggests that Kan has at least some capacity to address it.

Abraham is a Hitachi international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and previously worked as a sovereign analyst at Lehman Brothers.

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Daine Coyle
2/8/2011

Bankers are once again doing well in the financial sector but businesses and consumers are not, which is leading to popular anger, especially as the bonus round is about to be paid. Coyle says that Project Merlin, which the British government hopes will smooth relations between the country’s banks, politicians, and the electorate, does not address the fundamental problem that Britain’s banks are uncompetitive. Competition reform, along with replacement of the complex regulations that act as barriers to entry, are now the only ways forward for the banking industry. Coyle says we need a healthy undergrowth of smaller financial institutions to balance the existing monoculture of vulnerable giants, but Project Merlin will not deliver this.

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Alan S. Blinder
1/31/2011

President Obama’s call for a major technological push for cleaner energy could be realized if decision-making is left in private hands and the jobs created will be in the private sector. Such a policy would not cost taxpayers a dime and would eventually reduce the federal budget deficit. Blinder says the “bang for the buck” from a phased-in CO2 levy would be infinite at first–lots of jobs at zero cost to the federal budget. Up to now our country has done next to nothing to curb CO2 emissions. A stiff tax would make a world of difference. Blinder promises that the US will eventually succumb to the inexorable logic of a phased-in CO2 tax, if you’re young enough to live that long.

Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and vice chairman of the Promontory Interfinancial Network, is a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.

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Steven Rattner
1/31/2011

Job creation is slow and difficult, especially in the aftermath of a recession. Companies are understandably reluctant to invest a great deal in new employees. In the president’s State of the Union speech, he used the word “jobs” 31 times but did not offer specifics on investment, competitiveness, and the deficit. Nonetheless, the economy is on a decidedly upward track and America’s productivity is still high (it grew 20 percent between 2000 and 2009). We should not “tinker with the labor market,” Rattner advises, nor should American leaders balk at addressing those necessary specifics (such as higher taxes and entitlement spending) that are essential to confronting the budget deficit.

Rattner, a co-founder of the investment firm Quadrangle Group, served as counselor to the Treasury secretary and lead auto adviser in the Obama administration.

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Matthew J. Slaughter
1/26/2011

Slaughter welcomes the news that President Obama has created a Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. This is a positive development, as America has much to do to address its jobs crisis. To succeed in helping create good jobs, the administration’s new council should recognize that excessive government backing of particular companies and industries often squanders taxpayer resources and stifles sustainable growth. Three principles can guide the council away from repeating past errors: the focus should be on American jobs, imports do not represent failure, and a globally competitive America must invest abroad as well as export there. Slaughter argues that US workers win when industries are free to invest where they are the most productive.

Slaughter, associate dean at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was a member on the Council of Economic Advisers from 2005 to 2007.

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