President Biden delivered a powerful and passionate State of the Union address last night, recapping his accomplishments and asking Congress to work with him to strengthen our economy, protect our freedoms, preserve our democracy, advance racial justice and stand by our foreign friends.
The speech, one of the best of Biden’s long career, was an eloquent statement of why he deserves reelection. The president looked strong and fit as he appealed for national unit...
Opinion
The power of Congress’s purse is facing heightened scrutiny
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. The act, enacted in July 1974, was the last major piece of legislation that President Nixon signed into law before leaving office under the certainty of impeachment and conviction.
The act has two parts. One that directly applies to the legislative branch’s “congressional” budget process and the second — its raison d’être — presidential power to impound monies appropr...
Biden cannot ignore the Latino State of the Union
Tomorrow night, President Biden will give his third — and possibly final — State of the Union address. With the eyes of the nation upon him, he will lay out his accomplishments and future agenda.
Watching closely will be Latinos, who comprise nearly 1 in 5 Americans. The Pew Center reports that a record 36 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in November.
But how has the president done on issues that matter to members of the country’s larges...
Congress can’t seem to solve its spending problem — we need a fiscal commission, now
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released its 10-year budget and economic projections, and the outlook appears dismal.
After years of warnings about the growing unsustainability of our debt, the CBO now projects that we are hitting a tipping point. Even using the most conservative measurement — $27 trillion— our debt will exceed the size of our entire economic output (GDP) next year, and will grow to over 170 percent of GDP in three decades. CBO also projects ...
With solar, we can solve non-profit hospitals’ carbon and community benefit problem simultaneously
Hospitals account for a significant amount of health care’s enormous 550 million metric ton greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. That is largely because hospitals are remarkably energy inefficient.
In 2023, just 37 — substantially less than 1 percent — were Energy Star certified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Scope 1 and 2 energy efficiency. The innumerable and unrelenting health harms associated with GHG emissions disproportionately harm Medicare and Medicaid b...
Can Biden overcome his low approval ratings, à la Obama and Bill Clinton? Not likely
Can Joe Biden successfully reboot?
It’s possible; approaching their successful reelection campaigns, both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton also faced poor ratings. But their low ratings were not as low as Biden’s. He heads into election season with the lowest approval ratings — 41 percent — of any president going back to the 1950s, according to Gallup.
Only 46 percent of the public thought Obama was doing a good job in January 2012; by Ele...
Trump’s circus is stealing the show: How Democrats can shift the narrative
In an era where Donald Trump's presence dominates the news cycle, vacuuming up attention with relentless force, it's imperative that Democrats cut through the noise with unwavering focus and discipline. Amid a barrage of headlines that often veer into sensationalism, Democrats have a critical mission to steer every policy conversation back to their foundational commitments — addressing income inequality, expanding health care access and championing compassionate, orderly immigration ref...
Let’s listen to what Trump is saying about how he’d govern
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There are better ways to address drug costs than importing socialized medicine
Today, Johnson & Johnson, Merk and Bristol Myers Squibb are testifying in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Listening to what the drugmaker executives have to say about medicine prices would ordinarily be a valuable exercise. But under the proverbial interrogation lamp of HELP Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the proceedings will be more akin to the Salem witch trials.
The committee hearing is set to focus on price disc...
If Republicans abandon Ukraine, don’t expect Europe’s support on China
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