Third Way Perspectives
Archive for the ‘General Interest’ Category
U.S. must step up on Mexico drug wars
August 25th, 2010
This piece was originally published in Politico.
News reports out of Mexico grow grimmer each month.
Four decapitated bodies were found on Aug. 22, hanging from a bridge in Cuernavaca as a warning from one drug gang to another — adding to the grisly toll of more than 28,000 killed by drug-trafficking violence in Mexico since 2006.
Bush tax cuts reverse party lines
August 24th, 2010
This piece was originally published in Politico.
The next big issue on the congressional agenda is a real humdinger: the Bush tax cuts.
This is one issue on which Republicans can’t “just say no.” If Congress fails to act by the end of the year, the Bush tax cuts will expire. And Republicans will have enabled a major tax hike.
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For energy reform advocates, lessons from health care
August 2nd, 2010
This piece was originally published in The Washington Post.
With the United States struggling to recover from a job-killing recession, a Democratic president asks a Democratic Congress to pass sweeping reform of a major sector of the economy. “We can no longer afford to continue to ignore what is wrong,” he explains. “We must fix this system, and it has to begin with congressional action.” The public, however, rejects this plea. The proposal dies in Congress, and recriminations begin. Chastened and disappointed, advocates regroup and seek a new path forward.
Poland has chosen modernity
July 8th, 2010
That was the message of Sunday’s Polish presidential election. And the view of the politicians, journalists and academics I interviewed when I visited Poland as a guest of the Polish Press Agency.
Most notably, it was the view of Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity and former Polish president.
Politics trumps economics on deficit
July 7th, 2010
This piece was originally published in Politico.
The recovery has hit a wall. In June, the U.S. economy lost jobs for the first time this year. Existing home sales plunged 30 percent in May. Time to pump money into the economy!
But wait. The national debt is projected to jump to 62 percent of the economy by the end of this year. That’s the highest level since just after World War II. Time to cut back!
Looking forward – beyond November
June 18th, 2010
This piece was originally published in Politico.
By: Gov. Jack Markell and Jim Kessler
From Nevada to South Carolina, from Kentucky to Maine, a new political reality is dawning. As establishment Republicans bend over backward to appeal to the most extreme tea-party-type elements of their base, they’ve upended last year’s conventional wisdom that an anti-Democratic fervor was beginning to sweep the nation.
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