Columnist.
Republicans are finally getting smart on Obamacare. It took one of the savviest Republican senators — Ted Cruz of Texas, with an assist from Mike Lee of Utah — to get the GOP to figure out how to replace Obamacare, reduce premiums and save money for the government, all without alienating millions of voters. He's pulled the Republicans' fannies out of the fire, flipping a losing strategy into a big-time winner.
Let's stretch our imaginations for a moment and assume that the left is right that global warming will bring apocalyptic warming by the end of the century and that the only way to save the planet from extinction is to stop using fossil fuels right now.
No nation is better poised to exploit the new global age of shale energy.
At the Unleashing American Energy event last week, Donald Trump renewed his promise of an era of American global energy dominance. He said that this energy superpower status would be gained by using all of our energy resources. He also noted that in just six months, we've reduced the petroleum share of the trade deficit by 5 percent. What a welcome change from Barack Obama, whose administration took every possible step to stop American fossil fuel development.
The media has hyperobsessed over the Kansas tax hike this year and sold it as a repudiation of supply-side economics. But the real story in the states has been the catastrophic effects of tax-and-spend fiscal policy in Illinois.
Every day, legions of economists dismiss Donald Trump's economic agenda and forecast of 3 percent growth as a wild-eyed fantasy. The consensus is that the economy "can't possibly grow at 3 percent," according to The Wall Street Journal. "Slow growth is the new norm, so get used to it," wrote Rucir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley, in Foreign Affairs magazine this month.
I'm technically disabled — but not mentally disabled the way some of my foes on CNN seem to believe I am. No, my disability is hearing loss. In one ear I'm nearly deaf.
Maybe the most laughable reaction to Donald Trump's pulling out of the Paris climate accord came from European and Chinese leaders who blasted Trump and America for "surrendering its world leadership" role.
It's finally official. The Affordable Care Act is a public-policy flop of epic proportions. That's the only possible conclusion from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City announcement last week that it will drop out of many markets in Kansas and Missouri.
A recent front-page story in The Wall Street Journal proclaims that 3 percent economic growth isn't achievable. We are told that 2 to 2.5 percent growth is the best we can do, because of low labor-force and productivity growth. If that were true it would be dismal news for the country.
In many ways, the Affordable Care Act was a massive tax increase masquerading as a health reform plan.
Almost every promise made eight years ago about Obamacare turned out to be a falsehood. That is first and foremost why the law must be repealed.
As sure as the cuckoo clock chimes at midnight, the Left is bloviating that Donald Trump's tax plan will blow a $5 trillion hole in the deficit. Many of the people complaining loudest were in the Obama administration and helped preside over a $9 trillion tidal wave of new debt. Now they are fiscally chaste. Sure.
President Donald Trump's assertion this week that the "dollar is getting too strong" led to a sharp decline in the value of the greenback.
Buried in an otherwise-humdrum jobs report was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Department of Labor that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016, and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has added 35,000 jobs.
For all the obsessing in Washington over income inequality, why isn't there more outrage over government policies that exacerbate the problem? T
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more poorly designed program in the federal budget than Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans. The costs are shared between the states and the feds, which means that the more money a state wastes under Medicaid, the bigger the check Washington writes to the state. No wonder the program costs keep spiraling out of control.
Last week on CNN I debated a liberal commentator who complained that the problem with President Donald Trump's budget blueprint is that it lacks "compassion" for the poor, for children and for the disabled. This woman went on to ask me how I could defend a budget that would cut Meals on Wheels, after-school programs and special-education funding, because without the federal dollars, these vital services would go away.
Everyone in Washington hates Donald Trump's new budget. So it must have something going for it. This is a budget plan that will surgically remove trillions of dollars of wasteful spending from the obese $3.9 trillion federal budget. Many agencies will have to live with cuts of 5, 10 and 30 percent, while other outdated, duplicative or unproductive programs will go to the graveyard.
If you listen to the media narrative on climate change and "clean energy," you'd think that the rest of the world has moved smartly and seamlessly toward 21st century green energy while the U.S. is the high-polluting laggard that just won't get with the program to save the planet. Think again. The green energy revolution around the world has turned into a big green meltdown, with many nations sprinting away from "renewable" energy with the speed of Usain Bolt.
