There is much going on in our great republic, very little of it good. Political violence runs rampant and authoritarian rule is on the rise.
But national public opinion polls continue to demonstrate that the sad state of the economy is still President Trump's Achilles heel. Congressional Democrats have ably addressed this economic imperative in their fight over federal spending and the possibility of a federal government shutdown.
Congressional Democrats have wis...
Opinion
The pandemic is over — let Biden’s health insurance handouts expire
Ronald Reagan once quipped that “nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”
He could have been talking about the effort to extend — for a second time — former President Joe Biden’s Affordable Care Act-enhanced tax credits, a set of extremely generous federal health insurance subsidies intended to help Americans get through the COVID-19 crisis.
That crisis ended two years ago. Biden’s extra help, enacted by a Democratic-majority Congress in 2021 and ex...
If Trump wants to cut health spending, he’s defunding the wrong agency
The second Trump administration has made it a core mission to cut spending on public health programs. But ironically, one agency in its crosshairs is pivotal to cost-effectiveness research in health care delivery.
The Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, housed within the Department of Health and Human Services, is aimed at helping health care organizations and providers to deliver safe, high quality and equitable health care.
Despite this vital mission ...
Democrats haven’t won a positive campaign since Obama
Democrats haven’t won a national election without running against Trump since 2012.
This poses a problem for them: In 2028, Trump will be off the ballot. This span of more than a decade epitomizes the breadth of the Democrats’ dilemma: In three years, do they want to run on the past and what has worked, or positively on the future, which hasn’t succeeded for them in 16 years?
The last time Democrats won a national election running for someone, that someone was Barac...
Tinkerbell politics won’t save progressive Democrats
In J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” Tinkerbell, the little blond fairy you might picture from the 1953 Disney adaptation, can only live if others believe in her existence. In the play, she’s revived from near death by the audience’s applause. To my knowledge, no production has ever denied her that ovation. Luckily for her, it’s in the script — she survives to the final curtain whether the audience truly believes or not.
A variation of this “Tinkerbell effect,” the idea that be...
Bad news awaits Republicans returning to DC
Related video: Jeffries, Schumer Call For 'FOUR CORNERS' Meeting with GOP Leaders To AVOID Shutdown | SUNRISE
Remember back in July when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) abruptly adjourned the House of Representatives for summer recess? The quick exit gave Republicans an escape from headlines about the Trump administration’s refusal to release files on Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased sex offender.
Now, Congress is about to return. And the Epste...
Buttigieg has a flip-flop problem that could hurt in 2028
No one can deny that Pete Buttigieg is a highly skilled and articulate politician. While mayor of South Bend, Indiana’s fifth-largest city with a population of 100,000, he became a major contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, narrowly winning the Iowa caucuses and finishing a strong second in the New Hampshire primary.
Buttigieg’s swift political rise catapulted him into President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, where he served as Transportation secretary for four yea...
Trump is cutting Medicaid based on a flawed study
Our country is poised to take health coverage away from millions of low-income Americans largely based on the findings of a flawed and flagrantly misleading study.
President Trump’s budget reconciliation bill recently produced the largest cut to Medicaid health insurance in its 60-year history.
Claiming to reduce “fraud and abuse,” it will cut essential medical services for at least 12 million low-income people through unachievable work requirements, unaffordable out...
Obamacare faces a subsidy cliff — don’t bail it out without reform
The controversy over the 2010 Affordable Care Act dominated Barack Obama’s presidency. The implementation of ObamaCare caused health insurance premiums to soar and nearly collapsed the market entirely. The Biden administration responded by flooding the system with expanded federal subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of 2025.
To stop premiums for older workers with pre-existing conditions from suddenly leaping by $10,000, Republicans will need to extend part of this a...
Republicans are making boogeymen of their own voters on Medicaid
Republicans love their boogeymen; the grotesquely exaggerated villains they use to justify their worst policy ideas. President Trump loves to parade his favorite boogeymen: the “criminal aliens,” the dishonest media, the Democrats, and so on. These dehumanizing caricatures help him rile up his base and lead them to back his cruelest initiatives.
As the GOP-controlled Congress argues the merits of the cuts included in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” act — which is deeply&nb...