Posts Tagged ‘American Politics’

With the stock market down more than 300 points and interest rates rising for the first time in years, pundits are focused on short-term jitters in a nervous stock market. But, not everyone lives in the short term. Indeed, there is growing anxiety about the long-term effects of Clinton-Gore policies in other areas. These include…

The Clinton plan for healthcare reform is dead. The coup d’grace was administered by Robert Reischauer, economist and chief of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO report was devastating. It showed the Clinton proposal to be a budget buster. While the Administration said the reform would save $59 billion during the first five years,…

Remember when a “joint” was a beer hall, “hash” was the dinner just before payday, “switch hitter” was a guy who could bat left or right-handed, and “crack” was the space between two sidewalk slabs — as in “step on the crack and break your gramma’s back”? Times change. Remember the survey released a few…

Assessments of President Clinton’s first year are all over the place. Liberal media savants — from commentator Lars-Erik Nelson to New Yorker editor Sidney Blumenthal — support Clinton and work nearly full time defending, explaining or advocating the new president to the American people. Conservative media mavens — from talk radio and TV superstar Rush Limbaugh to National…

For the past two weeks, NAFTA and APEC have dominated the news. As the global economy expands, we are increasingly exposed to stories about how it works. So here’s a lexicon of key institutional players in the Asia-Pacific region, the newest region on America’s international radar screen. APEC: The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum met in…

The North American Free Trade Agreement debate took a sharp turn last week. For the first time, pro-NAFTA forces are on the offensive and gaining momentum. The primary difference is the President, who has come out four-square for NAFTA. He blasted his friends in the labor movement for strong-arm tactics, which include muscling Democrat members…

As President Clinton fights to win approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the most vocal and effective opposition comes from the president’s own party — led by House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri and House Whip David Bonior of Michigan — and organized labor, which is pouring millions of dollars of union…

Some people–who properly recall from 11th grade civics that treaties are ratified by the U.S. Senate, not the entire Congress — are asking why both houses of Congress are passing judgment on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Because Congress must pass implementing legislation for NAFTA (signed on Dec. 17, 1992) and for the side…

Although the secrecy surrounding the Clinton administration’s health security “initiative” was more like the premiere of Jurassic Park than the Manhattan Project, people are still being surprised by what they are finding. Some economists are now forecasting that the “employer mandate,” which requires employers to pay 80% or more of each employee’s health insurance premium, could cost…

The Clintons’ health-security plan is now on the table. Though many stakeholders are nibbling around the edges — e.g., physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical and insurance companies — the real opposition will come from small business and the people they employ. Reason: The new health-security plan imposes a huge new “employee tax” on American business. This so-called…

Last week’s news had a familiar ring. On Wednesday, President Clinton outlined his health-reform plan. The plan, straight from the playbook of Franklin D. Roosevelt, is Old Democrat to the core: more taxes, more spending, a new entitlement, a new bureaucracy to run “the system,” and new powers to the federal government to run our…

NAFTA is in trouble in Congress. There is no question about that. But, to put all this in perspective, since Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s reciprocal trade agreements in the 1930s, trade pacts have almost always had problems when they first hit Capitol Hill. Last week, The Wall Street Journal said that “Clinton’s task in selling NAFTA…

The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and other national environmental organizations have joined forces to derail the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Some are organizing opposition in Congress. Others have filed suit in federal court to obtain a court order to prevent consummation of the pact until an environmental impact statement has been…

Treats this week include NAFTA foe Ross Perot’s newest book, “Save Your Job, Save Our Country,” his latest attack on the North American Free Trade Agreement. When Perot wants to limit government and reduce the deficit, he wins the support of many Americans — in part because many Americans think government is too big and…

Taxes up. Violence up. Out-of-control school bureaucracies. Excuses by people in high places for uncivilized behavior. Intrusive government. Plummeting property values. What does it all add up to? The takeover of America’s largest city, Los Angeles, by Richard Riordan, a white, conservative Republican male — the antithesis of political correctness in the world’s most multicultural…

Watching the news unfold over the past week, I was reminded of a friend’s comment on the evening of February 17, following Bill Clinton’s first State of the Union Address. My friend, a Clinton political operative disappointed that the President had come down on the side of tax and spend rather than deficit reduction, said,…

Every morning at 6:00 am I wake up to the mellifluous tones of National Public Radio’s Bob Edwards reading the morning headlines. Last week, Edwards opened my day with “President Clinton’s $500 billion deficit reduction package goes to Congress today.” A $500 billion deficit reduction package? This latest example of Washington, D.C., doublespeak — saying…

Even though the President’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform has been in business since January 25, it looks like the wheels are coming off — and it has not yet left the garage. Late last week task force director Ira Magaziner said the group would not make the president’s May 3rd deadline. Sources…

The work of the President’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform is quickly moving to the front burner and controversy is growing — both on the substance of the plan and on the process by which it is being assembled. Process objections are many. But the main issue is accountability — beginning with President…

Clinton’s healthcare reform plan — some form of “managed competition” — now looks like it will be released the first week in May. That’s when the real politics begin. The debate will focus on two issues: (1) what basic or “uniform” benefits will be covered and (2) how much will it cost to provide this…

Under the current employment-based health insurance system, 65% of Americans under 65 obtain health insurance through their jobs. Another 18% are enrolled in other plans — including Medicaid (for poor people) and individual private insurance. Medicare covers those over 65. What remains is the health care crisis — which includes 37 million uninsured people and…

Healthcare is now on the front burner. How this issue is managed could well determine the fate of the President’s economic plan and perhaps his presidency. Putting Hillary Rodham Clinton in charge of the healthcare working group, the president promised a proposal to Congress within the first 100 days. The problems to overcome are many,…

As Congress and the public look under the hood of the Clinton economic plan, they’re finding a clunker. Despite initial public optimism about the plan, the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment showed increased public anxiety about the economy’s long-range prospects following the President’s speech. The Clinton Plan is a familiar tax and spend…

As the Clinton Administration assembles its economic package for the President’s state of the union address on February 17, it’s clear the package will include new taxes. There will certainly be the promised “tax on the rich.” But an energy tax of some kind also appears likely. Because energy fuels our industrial and transportation systems,…

The election is over. But cynics and skeptics are already taking aim. Clinton’s agenda, they say, will be captured by the tax and spend leadership of the Democrat Congress or by the liberal forces of McGovern and Mondale that populate the policy haunts of Washington’s Democratic government-in-waiting. Or: interest groups that dominate the Democratic party…

“Lone Eagles” is our name for a growing group of freelance professionals who are abandoning life in large cities and their positions in the 9-to-5 world (usually in large corporations) to move back to small town America or an adjacent rural area. These Lone Eagles are writers, analysts, brokers, consultants, manufacturer reps and others who…

Bill Clinton says we need a national “economic strategy” to revitalize the U.S. economy. Ross Perot speaks with admiration of the “coordinated” way the Japanese seem to run their economy and advocates a similar approach to “reindustrialize” America. Favorable stories on “industrial policy” have been given prominent attention by the national media. Whatever you call…

At the recent Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, President Bush and the U.S. government were said to be “isolated,” “out of sync,” with the world community, “out of step” and “going against the tide of history.” In fact, the opposite is true. It was the Earth Summit and the United Nations Summiteers who…

We must take out the trash and clean the barn. It’s time to take back ownership of America.” With that overarching theme, Texas industrialist Ross Perot, the 61-year-old billionaire populist, announced to the National Press Club his willingness to run for president of the U.S. There’s only one hitch: His supporters must get him on…

The 1992 presidential campaign is now in full swing. It started with Saturday’s non-binding “beauty contest” in Florida, where Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the presumptive frontrunner, garnered 54% of the 2,000-plus convention delegates. Iowa Sen. Tom Harking came in second with 31%, followed by Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas. The…