Reihan Salam

As the architect of America's overwhelming victory in the Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush spent most of 1991 as a prohibitive favorite for reelection. But after the economy entered a short, sharp recession, Bush looked increasingly vulnerable, not least due to restlessness among Republicans. He caught a big break in December of 1991 when his most formidable potential challenger bowed out of the presidential race. Just weeks before the New Hampshire primary,…… More »

Congressional Republicans are all but united in their opposition to President Obama's domestic program. But on foreign policy, where the Obama White House has taken a number of dramatic steps, Republicans have said virtually nothing, as Spencer Ackerman reports in The Washington Independent. … More »

Though Hillary Clinton never made it to the White House, this should be a good moment for Democrats in the Empire State. The Democrats appear to have a lock on Congress, thanks in no small part to Chuck Schumer, the state's senior senator. President Obama's cabinet is full of New Yorkers, and his first budget promises to be much friendlier to New York than any we've seen during the long era of Republican dominance. So why is it that New York Democrats seem to be in…… More »

In an excellent post on Barack Obama's fiscal policy, one that builds on arguments recently made by Matt Yglesias and Clive Crook, The Atlantic's Ross Douthat suggests that Barack Obama is offering his own version of "starve-the-beast." What you see in [Obama's] budgeting proposals, I think, is the liberal equivalent of the conservative attempt to "starve the beast." In both the Reagan and Bush eras, Republicans passed tax cuts and ran up large deficits while…… More »

Update: As Megan McArdle notes, this story appears to be completely bogus. Was Rick Santelli's "Chicago Tea Party" a spontaneous expression of populist outrage? Or was it a carefully orchestrated media campaign that was planned long before Santelli's now-famous socialist-bashing CNBC rant? Mark Ames and Yasha Levine suggest that Santelli's mini-movement was in fact bought and paid for by a network of right-of-center moguls led by the Koch family, best known for…… More »

In his essay on "How the Crash Will Reshape America," Richard Florida argues that the financial crisis will ultimately prove beneficial to New York and other "creative class" meccas. Megan has pushed back against Florida's optimism, suggesting that the credit bubble may well have been the key driver of New York's renaissance. But while digesting the news from President Obama's new budget, I wonder about the long-run effect of changes in the tax code. We don't know…… More »

Earlier this month, Harvard Kennedy School economist Dani Rodrik, who rose to prominence and a brilliantly quirky critic of the Washington Consensus, wrote a column about "the next capitalism," the political-economic regime that will emerge after the latest round of reforms and bailouts. His central and not unfamiliar point is that the "mixed-economy" model proved was badly undermined by globalization.… More »

President Obama has crafted what looks like a sober, responsible budget, one that gives us a clear sense of the fiscal challenges ahead. But as The Economist notes, he relies on an optimistic economic forecast. What if the downturn last for longer than two years? Using reasonable policy assumptions, Alan Auerbach of the University of California at Berkeley, and William Gale of the Brookings Institution, think the deficit will bottom out near 5 percent of GDP in…… More »

In yesterday's Washington Post, Tara Bahrampour filed a dispatch on dating in an economic downturn. From investment bankers to real estate developers to construction workers, no job means no buying rounds of $15 martinis for a pretty woman and her girlfriends. No hosting parties in the bachelor loft. And often, no idea how to present one's new self on the dating market. "It's been incredibly stressful for me," said Neil Welsh, 27, the guy in the suit, who until…… More »

William Haseltine is convinced that the answer is yes. I'm less certain. … More »

Anya Kamenetz has an interesting take on Google's reboot of Google.org over at Fast Company's blog. Larry Brilliant is leaving his role as head of Google.org to become the company's "Chief Philanthropy Evangelist," and he'll be replaced by Megan Smith. He says:By focusing my energy outwards I hope to be able to spend more time motivating policy makers, encouraging public and private partnerships, and generally advocating for the changes that we must make as a…… More »

Matt Yglesias notes that John Makin, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, favors nationalizing the banks, in large part because Makin fears that we are repeating the mistakes made by Japan at the beginning of its long economic clump. This is noteworthy because conservatives, fearing a government takeover of the economy, have been hostile to the idea of nationalization, or, more accurately and palatably, receivership. But as MIT's Simon…… More »

No, I'm not referring to a modern-day Anna Karenina throwing herself under an oncoming subway car. Bear with me.Jay Yarow at Green Sheet wants to know why there is so little money for mass transit in the stimulus package.If the stimulus is supposed to create jobs and--when possible--help the environment why not pour funding into the financially destroyed public transit already in existence? New York City, for example, is firing 1,500 transit workers and limiting…… More »

Last summer, Jonathan Rauch wrote a brilliant piece for The Atlantic on the evolution of the American automobile industry that focused on GM, then and now a lumbering industrial giant on the verge of collapse, and Tesla Motors, a small and nimble start-up backed by Silicon Valley veterans. The two companies were as different as night and day -- only now both companies are looking to Washington to stay afloat. Jason Calacanis, serial technology entrepreneur and…… More »

As Clive Crook and Arnold Kling remind us, even the most brilliant economists are not very good at settling basic questions over how the world works. To a greater extent than most of us would care to admit, we're relying on gut instincts, crude heuristics, and, yes, ideological biases. I'll be the first to admit that I have a favorite guru. When media outlets are looking for an optimistic, heterodox voice amidst the economic gloom, they are increasing turning to…… More »

During the transition, when President Obama unveiled his economic policy team, I think we were all struck by the number of highly impressive Clinton veterans who were taking what had been considered minor roles. For example, Gene Sperling, a key architect of Bill Clinton's domestic successes, agreed to serve as a a "counselor" to Tim Geithner in the Treasury Department. Then of course there was the much-noted fact that the new head of the National Economic Council,…… More »

What Democrats and Republicans can learn from Canada's Stephen Harper… More »

Why wage stagnation hasn't led to a political revolt—until now.… More »

Can Republicans find a way to compete on the Web?… More »