Solutions & Reforms

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 [...]

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. [...]

President Obama has frequently justified his policies—and judged their outcomes—in terms of equity, justice and fairness. That raises an obvious question: How does our existing system—and his own policy record—stack up according to those criteria? Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal [...]

On November 14, 2011, the Supreme Court agreed to review the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care act. The central question is, What limits does the Constitution — specifically, the Commerce Clause — impose upon the federal government’s exercise of power? This health-care act is the defining legislation of the president’s [...]

Last week, the White House issued a new “study” on the supposed progress states have made in implementing the “health exchanges” that are central to constructing the Obamacare system. According to the administration’s spin, some 28 states are “on their way” toward establishing the exchanges, so everything is apparently well under [...]

Remember the moment in 2008 when Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked Senator Barack Obama why he would support raising the capital gains tax even though “revenues from the tax increased” when the rate fell? Mr. Obama’s famous reply: “I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes [...]

Does Detroit’s fate foretell the end of American democracy? In becoming the first major American city to die before our eyes, Detroit is the prime case study of the destructiveness of the traditional liberal model of governance, public-sector-union rapacity, and the abandonment of any sense of civic responsibility by a [...]

Run up spending and debt, raise taxes in the naming of balancing the budget, but then watch as deficits rise and your credit-rating falls anyway. That’s been the sad pattern in Europe, and now it’s hitting that mecca of tax-and-spend government known as Illinois. Though too few noticed, this month [...]

Conservatives can be a grudging lot. That’s especially true when it comes to President Obama. Even where he’s been in the right—whether it be killing Osama bin Laden or promoting charter schools—we can be stingy with praise. So let us now, in full public view, credit his greatest public service [...]

The political season has barely begun, and yet we already know that class warfare will be President Obama’s key issue in the 2012 general election. It’s even reared its ugly head in the Republican primaries, with the candidates trying to paint front-runner Mitt Romney as a cold-hearted capitalist and Rick [...]