Republicans have vehemently complained that President Biden and Democrats are taking the country and the economy in the wrong direction. But now that Republicans control the House of Representatives, what specifically do they intend to do instead? Your guess is as good as mine, because Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) never laid out a detailed plan.
It’s not a new problem for Republicans.
Remember when Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, in March...
Opinion
Messy new Congress and coming gridlock: Founders intended governing to be difficult
With Democrats holding the narrowest possible majority in the Senate (one seat) and Republicans holding a slim majority in the House of Representatives (nine seats out of 435), you would expect to see the two parties working together. More likely, we will see even greater polarization in Congress, with conservatives wielding greater influence among Republicans and a more assertive progressive left in the Democratic Party.
That’s because more and more states and districts are d...
Joe Biden, welfare king
The derogatory term “welfare queen” was so 1980s and ‘90s, when Republicans and even some Democrats were looking to reform welfare programs. President Biden, by contrast, is doing all he can to expand the number of people receiving means-tested welfare. That makes him the welfare king.
The irony is that historically politicians liked to boast that their leadership had created jobs and grown the economy, thereby reducing the number of people on welfare. Biden also says he’s gro...
For Joe Biden, results matter most
In December 1962, John F. Kennedy sat for an interview with the three television networks. The nationally broadcast program, titled “After Two Years: A Conversation with the President,” saw Kennedy reflecting on the presidency two years after being hired.
The conversation took place shortly after Kennedy diffused a potential World War III over the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear weapons in Cuba. A year earlier, he disastrously erred when Cuban insurgents were slaughtered a...
For Joe Biden, results matter most
In December 1962, John F. Kennedy sat for an interview with the three television networks. The nationally broadcast program, titled “After Two Years: A Conversation with the President,” saw Kennedy reflecting on the presidency two years after being hired.
The conversation took place shortly after Kennedy diffused a potential World War III over the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear weapons in Cuba. A year earlier, he disastrously erred when Cuban insurgents were slaughtered a...
Healthcare justice for Puerto Rico
It has become a bit of an end of year tradition: Congress is scrambling again to enact legislation to keep the federal government open. Unfortunately for the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico, Congress is also scrambling to provide additional funding for the island’s Medicaid program and avoid a so-called “Medicaid cliff.”
Medicaid is a core pillar of the U.S. healthcare infrastructure that helps ensure that everyone — regardless of income — can have access to quality care. This supp...
Healthcare justice for Puerto Rico
It has become a bit of an end of year tradition: Congress is scrambling again to enact legislation to keep the federal government open. Unfortunately for the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico, Congress is also scrambling to provide additional funding for the island’s Medicaid program and avoid a so-called “Medicaid cliff.”
Medicaid is a core pillar of the U.S. healthcare infrastructure that helps ensure that everyone — regardless of income — can have access to quality care. This supp...
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s legacy: Seize power to do good
Many years ago, having just finished a detailed conversation in the Democratic cloakroom in the U.S. Capitol about next steps for trying to pass legislation through the House and Senate to create a 9/11 Commission, Nancy Pelosi inquired about my family. I conveyed the progress of each of my four kids through school and sports programs and ended by mentioning to her that I had sent a book to Willie Mays (we are both avid San Francisco Giants fans) for an autograph but it must have been los...
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s legacy: Seize power to do good
Many years ago, having just finished a detailed conversation in the Democratic cloakroom in the U.S. Capitol about next steps for trying to pass legislation through the House and Senate to create a 9/11 Commission, Nancy Pelosi inquired about my family. I conveyed the progress of each of my four kids through school and sports programs and ended by mentioning to her that I had sent a book to Willie Mays (we are both avid San Francisco Giants fans) for an autograph but it must have been los...
Intensive care: America’s patients need prevention, not procedures
With the recent rise in flu cases and the increase in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases nationally putting a strain on the health care system, the burden on health care professionals across multiple professions is rising to levels last seen during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Through each wave of the pandemic, in intensive care units (ICU) across the country, teams worked to pull patients back from the brink of death using invasive, life-sustaining therapies.
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