The logic of running a foreign-policy campaign in 2012
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 17th, 2011 4:35 am by HL
The logic of running a foreign-policy campaign in 2012
If you watched Monday’s GOP debate, you saw that the Republican presidential hopefuls are pretty sure they know what this election is going to be about: the deficit. The size of government. Jobs. But what if they’re wrong?
In 2000, it was pretty clear that the next administration would mainly be caretakers of our peace and prosperity and managers of our surplus. Then came 9/11, and we realized, in retrospect, that the 2000 election was perhaps the most consequential in memory. The 2008 election was supposed to be about Iraq, but late in the game, the financial sector cracked open. We barely hear about our two wars these days. Who’s to say the 2012 candidates have any firmer grasp on what the issue will be next year, or in the second year of their hoped-for terms?
Obama expresses concern over Sudan violence
UNITED NATIONS — President Obama on Thursday voiced “deep concern” over the widening violence in Sudan as his top envoy prepared to travel to the region this month to help resolve a political and military crisis that threatens to upend one of the United States’ principal priorities in Africa: the peaceful division of Sudan into two states.
The White House statement followed Obama’s meeting with his top Sudan envoy, Princeton Lyman. It came as representatives from northern and southern Sudan continued talks Thursday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to try to settle a disagreement over the fate of the disputed region of Abyei, which was attacked by government forces this month in an operation that U.N. officials think might lead to ethnic cleansing.
Head-spinning job gain (and loss) claims by the DNC and RNC
“When President Obama took office, the month before he was inaugurated, the economy was bleeding 750,000 jobs a month, David. And we were not headed in the right direction. …You fast-forward two and a half years later now, and the economy has created 2.1 million private sector jobs.”
— Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” June 12, 2011
Coming soon: A bigger, costlier Obamacare
Obamacare poses two great dangers to our nation: lower quality of care and runaway costs. It will stifle innovation and lead to rationing. But the overwhelming cost and the damage it will do to our nation’s finances at a pivotal moment in our history deserve greater scrutiny.
The promises Obamacare supporters have made about the ultimate cost of the program are based on highly unlikely premises. Those who support the 2010 health-care law are betting that costs will remain under control largely because its central feature — health insurance exchanges, which amount to a centralized, government-run market of subsidized insurance policies — will not be all that popular. They are counting on the notion that when the government offers “free” money, there will be few takers. This is not realistic.
