Right In Retrospect

Presidencies in the Rear View Mirror, Newsday, November 19, 2018. "Presidents are often hailed in retrospect for what were condemned as failures while in office. The converse is true, too: victories in the Oval Office are frequently ephemeral. President Donald Trump may be the exception to many rules, but in this regard, he is conforming to the pattern of his predecessors."

Accountability Time

My Questions for the New Year, Newsday, January 1, 2017. "Commenting on current affairs is an ongoing lesson in humility. It’s a big world, and anyone who writes about it should be prepared to be wrong a lot. So at the end of the year, I like to practice some accountability by looking back to my last New Year’s column, and forward to the coming year."

His Challenges, Unfortunately, Are Ours Too

Foreign Crises Weaken Obama at Home, Yorkshire Post, November 3, 2014. "The conventional wisdom is that US voters don’t care about foreign policy. Even on its face, this is silly: Korea, Vietnam, 9/11, and Iraq mattered in the ensuing elections. But voters don’t just care about wars. They care about perceptions of strength. And since 2013, President Barack Obama has looked weak."

The Economic Case for and Against TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): Economic Benefits and Potential Risks, with Luke Coffey and Bryan Riley, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2952, September 17, 2014. "The United States and the European Union are negotiating a trade agreement—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—that politicians and commentators on both sides of the Atlantic hail as the answer to the woes of the transatlantic relationship, as a solution to the EU’s economic difficulties, and as heralding the creation of a new institution that will reinvigorate the Western alliance. But no U.S.–EU agreement can do all that has been claimed of the TTIP, and there are reasons to believe that its benefits have been oversold. The U.S. should support all measures that would promote growth and employment by increasing economic freedom, but it should not accept any agreement that could increase government regulation in the name of promoting free trade and create a transnational regulatory body that could infringe on U.S. sovereignty."

The Rise of the Part-Time Job

“U.S. Must Learn Jobs Lesson from the Plight of Part-Time Europe,” not available online, Yorkshire Post, May 25, 2013. "Part-time jobs aren’t all bad. But Europe’s reliance on them rests on its failure to be flexible enough to create full-time jobs. One of the secrets of the U.S.’s success has been its extraordinarily flexible economy. Obamacare was inspired by Europe’s example. It’s no surprise that it mirrors Europe’s destructive pattern of inflexibly pricing full-time work out of existence."

Too Much Is Never Enough, Apparently

A Bottom Up Look at the Top Down, Centre for Policy Studies, May 30, 2012. "If you believe that it is not possible to demonstrate that any particular level of taxation, welfare spending, or redistributive policies are economically counter-productive, and if you are in principle in favor of these things, then when do you say “enough,” and why do you decide to say it? A reliable way to get liberals excited is to say that they’re socialists. Fine, they’re not. But if Britain – where the government currently spends 50 percent of the nation’s GDP – is not verifiably well past the point of diminishing returns on state spending, where does that point lie? Is it 60 percent? 70 percent? 99 percent? If neither evidence nor principle tells you when to stop – and to go into reverse – then what does? At what point does the distinction between a really big government and socialism become irrelevant?

American Geographic and Electoral Mobility

Americans Move, But Will the Result Change?, Centre for Policy Studies, December 8, 2011. "The political effects of this shift are equally stark: in 2012, the Republicans will gain a net total of six electoral votes, if the states vote as they did in 2008. Of course it is unlikely that the state votes will remain unchanged, but the fact remains that President Obama will have to run harder in 2012 just to stay in place. The long-run trends of American geographical mobility are telling, slowly, against him."

Obama Uses Another Bad Historical Analogy

Oh, Man, Not Another Sputnik Moment . . ., Contentions, January 26, 2011. "I keep a list of historical analogies — derived from years of grading papers — that tell me that the individual using them is (to be polite) more interested in rhetorical impact than historical accuracy. Before last night, the list began with “we need a Marshall Plan for X,” where X usually equals Africa or the Middle East, and ended with “the United States is a young country.” Both are fallacies: the Marshall Plan was a pump-priming program, not an effort to rebuild the infrastructure and remake the culture of half a continent; and while European settlement of North America is fairly recent, the U.S.’s political institutions have a longer continuous existence than those of any other country except, arguably, the United Kingdom. Now, thanks to President Obama, I’ve got a third analogy to add to the list: 'Sputnik moment.'"

Osborne's Doing Better Than Obama

Osborne Has A Long Way To Go, But At Least He’s Started, Yorkshire Post, June 30, 2010. "According to the Left, there is never a good day to cut government spending. When the economy and tax revenues are growing, the Left wants to spend more because it can. When the economy is stagnant and tax revenues are shrinking, the Left argues it has no choice but to spend more, in order to cushion the blow. The result is that progressive governments transfer money from savers to spenders, from the productive economy to the unproductive state, and from the unborn to the living. For progressive governments, the economy is a goose that will keep on laying golden eggs, no matter what they do to it."

If At First You Don't Succeed . . . .

The Most Active Recovery Act Season Yet!, Heritage Foundation Foundry, June 18, 2010. "As Mike Allen of Politico reports, Vice President Joe Biden has kicked off what the Obama Administration calls its “Recovery Summer.” According to senior adviser David Axelrod, “This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet.” It sounds like Axelrod has never heard the popular saying about what to do when you’re in a hole: stop digging."

Rising Taxes, Declining Jobs

Less Economic Freedom = Fewer Jobs for Americans, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 31, 2010. "What does America’s declining economic freedom mean for you? It means that America will create fewer jobs. And that means that Americans will be poorer, as well as less free."

American Leadership on Economic Goes AWOL

U.S. Can't Lead on Economic Freedom When It's Retreating, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 28, 2010. "The news is out: the U.S. is falling behind on economic freedom. In the 2010 edition of the Index of Economic Freedom, the United States, for the first time, dropped out of the ranks of the free, and into those of the ‘mostly free,’ ranking eighth in the world and behind Canada in North America."

The Index of Economic Freedom on Britain

The Mostly Free Anglo-American Alliance, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 26, 2010. "The 2010 edition of the Index of Economic Freedom poses a frightening paradox. Around the world, the economically freest countries are, by and large, those with a British legacy. Indeed, the top five – Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland – were either founded or influenced by the British. Of the top ten states, only Denmark, Switzerland, and Chile were not, at one point, governed from London. The lesson should be clear: economic freedom, born of the thought of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, spread round the world with the English-speaking people, to the immense benefit of both their children and those who learned from them. And yet the two most important English-speaking countries today are sliding backwards."

The Diplomacy of Solipcism

Time for Action, Not Words, Mr. President, Yorkshire Post, November 4, 2009. "What, in the year since he was elected, has Barack Obama actually done? Making speeches doesn't count. It's certainly part of the President's job to make them, and he's not disappointed. According to CBS News, in mid-July – and less than six months after his inauguration – he gave his 200th speech, and, if anything, the pace has only accelerated since then. But it's a cardinal error to mistake giving speeches for getting things done." This op-ed was written in my personal capacity.

Financial Myopia from Finland

Why Europe Fears 'Tax Competition,' Heritage Foundation Foundry, June 29, 2009. "Back in April, after the G20 Summit, we at Heritage warned that the Summit’s attack on tax havens was, at best, an irrelevancy. At worst, it was “the start of a broader campaign to find new sources of money to tax and stigmatize as international wrongdoers states that, as an expression of their national sovereignty, have chosen to have lower taxes.” The idea that states that have lower taxes are committing a crime could not be more wrong. These states are using their political freedom to promote economic freedom. They are benefactors, not malefactors."

Brown's and Obama's Economics

Brown-onomics?, Contentions, May 29, 2009.

Government Pay Up, Private Pay Down

In Britain, Government Pays Out While Private Pay Shrinks, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 14, 2009.

How Much Does Local Government Matter in Britain?

Britain, the U.S., and the End of Local Government, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 7, 2009.

On Obama's 100 Days

A long hundred days for anyone seeking substance from Obama, Yorkshire Post, April 28, 2009.

Wrapping Up the G-20 Summit

The G-20 Summit: Mistakes and Missed Opportunities, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #2392, April 10, 2009.