WASHINGTON — American consumers aren’t what they used to be — and that helps explain the plodding economic recovery. It gets no respect despite creating 14 million jobs and lasting almost seven years. The great gripe is that economic growth has been held to about 2 percent a year, well below historical standards. This sluggishness […]
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Make America a more just nation again
WASHINGTON — The first rule in elections is: Go for the votes you can get. By that measure, Hillary Clinton is right to try to put the old Obama coalition on steroids. Donald Trump will expand the Democrats’ opportunities among non-white Americans, and produce Clinton landslides among Latinos. They have good reason to fear and […]
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Have to give Trump his due
Every Trump critic had “Oh, hell” moments during the primary season. They were when Donald Trump demonstrated a keen, gut-level political instinct that even an exceptionally talented conventional politician would be hard-pressed to match. An example: During a Republican debate in Florida in February, Trump was asked about former Mexican President Vicente Fox’s comment that […]
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Republicans are architects of their present misfortune
So it has come to this: Trump 2016. What first seemed a joke, then an unsettling possibility and then a troubling likelihood, became a grim certainty last week as Donald Trump, real estate developer turned reality show ringmaster turned would-be president, won an emphatic victory in Indiana’s Republican primary. His last remaining rivals, Ted Cruz […]
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What Trump must do to beat Clinton
By Ramesh Ponnuru Bloomberg View In the last four presidential elections, the Republican nominee has never won less than 90 percent of the Republican vote. Republicans won the popular vote only one of those times, in 2004, and when they did they carried 93 percent of Republican voters. Donald Trump has defied the odds before, […]
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Do not see Trump as the new ‘normal’
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s Republican primary triumph means that this cannot be a normal election. Americans who see our country as a model of tolerance, inclusion, rationality and liberty must come together across party lines to defeat him decisively. Many forces will be at work in the coming weeks to normalize Trump — and, yes, […]
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Socialism gaining in popularity
Given its track record, one wonders why socialism is gaining in popularity in the U.S. and what appeal it has to a generation that, apparently, knows little about it. A recent survey from Harvard University has found that 51 percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 29 do not support capitalism. Just […]
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Maine’s representatives must stand up for Maine’s workers
As the former co-chairs of Maine’s Citizens Trade Policy Commission, we have heard heartbreaking hours of testimony from Maine people whose lives were torn apart by trade deals negotiated in Washington. Now, yet another trade deal is on the verge of approval and, once again, its language was written — in secret — by multinational […]
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Education funding mandate being ignored
During this season of school budgets and the associated discussions, conversations and debates, I feel as though a bit of background and context will be invaluable to taxpayers, town managers, boards of education and selectpeople. All of the stakeholders will be trying to navigate the treacherous waters of financial responsibility and responsiveness to the needs […]
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Give new life to Cold War nuclear missiles
The following editorial appears on Bloomberg View: In the tradition of turning swords into plowshares, it’s an appealing idea: converting the U.S.’s ballistic missiles into rockets for civilian space transport. It’s also a sensible one — and Congress should change the law to make it happen. For two decades, on national security grounds, Congress has […]