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How not to promote democracy in Cuba and at home
Published: Apr 04, 2009
Momentum is growing in Washington for removing the ban on most travel to Cuba and for lifting or lightening other economic sanctions. This is a subject about which reasonable people can disagree. Unfortunately, there appears to be little room for disagreement within the Senate Democratic caucus.
Let’s start with the merits. U.S. sanctions were originally intended to bring down Castro’s revolutionary regime or, alternatively, to marginalize it.
Sanctions failed on the first score, but succeeded on the second. In less than 20 years, Cuba was transformed, even in the left-liberal imagination, from a romantic cutting-edge society to an impoverished backwater. And Castro was...
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Obama's healthcare plan: Not healthy, not wealthy, and certainly not wise.
Published: Mar 07, 2009
In his recent speech to Congress, President Barack Obama touted his administration's "historic commitment" to "the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American." But the plan he's poised to enact would provide care that is neither quality nor affordable, and his commitment is historic largely for its folly.
Obama's first budget calls for a whopping $634 billion to be put into a reserve fund for healthcare reform over the next ten years, but it provides few details on how the money is to be spent. Instead, in hopes of avoiding the political battles over details that bogged down President Clinton's attempts at healthcare reform...
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A Stimulating Debate: Why tax cuts are preferable to a spending spree
Published: Feb 01, 2009
Both political parties are determined to enact an economic stimulus package, and it is not difficult to understand why. In theory, the government can respond to an economic downturn through monetary policy – lowering interest rates – or through a policy of fiscal stimulation.
But interest rates cannot be lowered from zero, and the Federal Reserve Board has already dropped the target value of federal funds to approximately that rate. Hence, the consensus in favor of some form of fiscal stimulus.
One might argue that a fiscal stimulation policy already exists. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), even without any new stimulus package the federal budget...
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The Crisis in Gaza: Seeing the war from a Palestinian perspective
Published: Jan 24, 2009
Last month, I wrote a piece about discrimination against Israel by the United Nations, specifically, by the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, otherwise known as the Durban Conference.
In that piece, I called on the U.S. government to boycott the Conference planned for 2009 because, in my opinion, it may promote anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.
After that piece was published, one of our readers asked me if it was possible to talk about the crisis in Gaza from the perspective of Palestinians. I initially found this to be a difficult endeavor since I could not imagine seeing the issue from anything but an Israeli...
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