Last week, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of the Moment of Truth Project, released a new budget plan, titled “A Bipartisan Path Forward to Securing America’s Future.” This updated plan is the latest attempt by these two men to restore some sanity to our nation’s fiscal situation. While it leaves much to be desired, the plan is a step in the right direction as Congress moves into yet another phase of the ongoing budget debate.
10:12 AM 02/28/2013
While the world sees our sequestration controversy as evidence of America’s receding primacy and Americans look on with disgust, Washington politicians keep blaming each other rather than solving our budget impasse.
3:25 PM 01/08/2013
When people imagine the world’s most successful innovators, they often imagine them starting out isolated in their garages, toiling away at their latest gadgetry or endeavor. The truth is, successful entrepreneurship relies not on isolationism, but on assembling the right team. That is becoming increasingly difficult in the United States thanks to federal inaction on immigration reform.
6:33 PM 12/18/2012
The fiscal cliff is looming, and many of us are looking to our elected officials for answers. While Washington’s action is required to address the combination of tax increases and spending cuts expected to hit in the new year, we need to look elsewhere for real leadership.
3:04 PM 12/05/2012
This year’s election consumed and divided America. While those who supported President Obama can revel in their victory and enjoy the policy fruits of their success, the 47 percent of the American electorate that voted for Gov. Romney must also move forward with the feeling that they too are contributing to improving our nation.
5:23 PM 10/11/2012
In the classic Hans Christian Andersen fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a beloved but inept emperor is convinced to wear “special” clothes that are invisible. Neither the emperor nor his subjects will admit to not seeing the clothes. Finally, a young boy blurts out the unspeakable truth that the emperor is naked.
12:09 PM 09/20/2012
Disparaging Governor Romney’s record at Bain Capital is a large part of President Obama’s campaign strategy. I find this baffling as Romney’s record at Bain is stellar. Even former President Bill Clinton has noted that Romney was a successful business leader and is qualified to be president. Unfortunately, the media usually echoes the attacks on Bain rather than checking their veracity.
2:44 PM 09/07/2012
As the Democrats leave Charlotte, N.C., after rallying behind President Obama, they face an uphill battle. Americans are concerned about jobs, entitlements and the growing federal deficit --- the three things that Obama and the Democrats don’t want to talk about. But they must if they’re going to have any chance of keeping the White House.
9:59 AM 07/25/2012
The Obama campaign’s latest line of attack is to suggest that Mitt Romney committed a felony by lying about his involvement with Bain Capital during the three-year period between 1999 and 2002 when he was running the Salt Lake City Olympics. Romney has always said --- and continues to say --- that while he retained the title of “managing director” of Bain during his stint running the Olympics, he had no operational control over the company during that time. But the Obama campaign insists otherwise. On the July 15 broadcast of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said, “Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony, or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments.”
1:46 PM 07/05/2012
While the political parties engage in vicious and often unfair combat, taking extreme positions, Americans thirst for a more moderate, honest and fact-based discussion --- not to mention a functional government. Thankfully, despite this hyper-partisan environment, we have witnessed over the last several weeks an emerging trend --- every so often extremists have been checked by members of their own party.
10:19 AM 06/19/2012
The ominous attack ads pouring out of the Obama and Romney campaigns highlight an important question: What qualities do Americans desire in a president?
9:29 PM 05/31/2012
When elephants fight, the grass suffers. In the fight between our two major parties on how to help college students, the facts suffer.
6:17 PM 05/07/2012
A recent survey of more than 100 companies found that 60 percent of them had lost employees to what’s known as government “insourcing.” According to the study, this was a 13 percent increase from the previous year. But what exactly is government “insourcing”?
12:31 PM 04/09/2012
Our nation has a problem: Students are graduating with huge amounts of debt and bleak job prospects. With the average loan size at $12,800, college graduates collectively now shoulder over a trillion dollars in debt. With 60 percent of recent college graduates unable to find full-time jobs in their chosen professions, many have little hope of paying off these loans.
2:55 PM 03/23/2012
Considering the mainstream media’s consistently harsh coverage of Republicans and light touch on Democrats, I think it’s time to propose some journalistic standards of fairness. Otherwise, we might have to endure another New York Times-style hit piece, like the one the paper printed four years ago alleging an adulterous relationship between John McCain and a lobbyist. There were zero facts to support the claim.
12:50 PM 03/08/2012
When government implements job-creation policies, sometimes it ignores the obvious. Take retail employment. Retailers with actual storefronts employ 1.9 million Americans, more than any other category, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
10:39 AM 02/21/2012
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes the will of the people is powerful enough to influence Congress. Last spring, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed well-meaning legislation that sought to combat digital piracy --- a very real problem. Two senators (who were not even on the Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Rand Paul) objected and, along with a number of their colleagues, their filibuster threat delayed the bill and prevented easy Senate passage.
12:21 PM 02/09/2012
In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama identified innovation as the cornerstone of “winning the future.” By my count, he devoted the first half of the speech toward outlining a strategy that would make innovation the focus of America’s economic and employment rebirth. It was an inspiring speech, even if we can disagree on the details.
11:12 AM 01/23/2012
It’s not every day that a Republican and a Democrat find common ground to solve a very real problem. But at this month’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) stood side-by-side to promote legislation that seeks to combat digital pirates --- the ones who let you illegally download movies and songs. The two legislators were on hand at this cavalcade of innovation and progress to garner support from the technology community for their bill, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, or OPEN, which they officially introduced on Friday.
3:23 PM 12/30/2011
When ambiguous laws cause one of America’s largest companies to lose billions of dollars because it tried to address our wireless problems, grow its business --- and thus grow the economy --- it is a bad day for the country. This is precisely what happened when the U.S. government blocked AT&T’s $39 billion bid to purchase T-Mobile.
