Newsletter

“I HAVE learnt that marathon is indeed a Greek word.” Thus spoke Olli Rehn, the European monetary affairs commissioner, at the end of a 14-hour negotiating session that produced a second bailout package for Greece this morning. This had been agreed in principle at a European summit in July last [...]

Many Republican House members, and the bloggers and tea partiers who cheered their victory in gaining a majority in November 2010, seem to be seething with discontent and eager for confrontation. They believe, reasonably, that their victory represented a repudiation of the vast expansion of government by the Obama Democrats. They want [...]

Mitt Romney has had a tough week, Newt Gingrich a tough month, Barack Obama a tough three years. But hey, they could be Ron Wyden. Ticked off by Washington’s failure to tackle big problems? Spare a moment for Oregon’s senior senator. Mr. Wyden is the Democrat who in December had [...]

AMERICANS love to laugh at ridiculous regulations. A Florida law requires vending-machine labels to urge the public to file a report if the label is not there. The Federal Railroad Administration insists that all trains must be painted with an “F” at the front, so you can tell which end [...]

“The rate of unemployment in the United States has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, making the past three years the longest stretch of high unemployment in this country since the Great Depression. Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent until [...]

The United States Department of Treasury will reach the the statutory limit it is allowed to borrow money before election day, according to a new study by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio., former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. “Following the contentious debt ceiling last August, President Obama promised [...]

Back in the dog days of George W. Bush’s second term, when each month seemed to bring new lows for the president’s approval ratings, there was almost always this consolation: The surveys would show that Congress was even less popular than he was. In general, that’s going to be the [...]

Rioters torched shops and offices, with banks and foreign businesses the main targets. Pensioners wearing gas masks joined a blockade of Parliament and squared off against some 4,000 police officers. The city’s best-known cinema was burned to the ground, along with nine other national-heritage sites. This was Athens on Sunday [...]

Federal budgets are by definition political documents, but even by that standard yesterday’s White House proposal for fiscal year 2013 is a brilliant bit of misdirection. With the abracadabra of a tax increase on the wealthy and defense spending cuts that will never materialize, the White House asserts that in [...]

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin is starting to feel surrounded. On her state’s southern border, Texas has no income tax. Now two of its other neighbors, Missouri and Kansas, are considering plans to cut and eventually abolish their income taxes. “Oklahoma doesn’t want to end up an income-tax sandwich,” she quips. [...]