Posts Tagged ‘President Obama’
Obama: The Foreign Policy President? Part 2
In my last post, I examined Obama’s potentially crippling defeat in the midterm elections. I suggested that one way presidents typically deal with domestic problems is to turn to foreign affairs, where their latitude for unilateral action is far greater. I also suggested that Obama, unlike Clinton and more like Reagan, faces an international environment that offers him plenty of room for decisive action. Let us examine these windows of possible action, weighing their costs and benefits from a political standpoint. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama: The Foreign Policy President? Part 1
By Guest Blogger Ryan Berg
In last week’s midterm elections, Republicans made significant inroads in the House and Senate, governorships, and state legislatures across the country. In the words of the President himself, he received a “shellacking.” Whether voters delivered President Obama an ideological repudiation or gave Republicans a wide-sweeping “legislative mandate” is not my interest; rather, I am interested in what Obama can do moving forward, with an outlook to his prospects in the 2012 presidential election. Read the rest of this entry »
A Philosopher President?
By Guest Blogger Ryan Berg
Harvard historian and prominent intellectual James T. Kloppenberg spent the last two years of his research reading an impressive corpus of literature on President Obama. Kloppenberg poured through Obama’s books; his essays; his speeches; every article published in the Harvard Law Review during Obama’s three years there; and even interviewed his former professors. What is Kloppenberg’s theory after all his research? He posits Obama “is a true intellectual—a word that is frequently considered an epithet among populists with a robust suspicion of Ivy League elites.” Read the rest of this entry »
Obama Idolatry
My friend Jack Carlson wrote a provocative piece in American Thinker about President Obama and ‘the power of images.’ Definitely worth reading.
The Desperation of Keynesianism
By Guest Blogger Ryan Berg
Shortly after Barack Obama became President, his first legislative victory was passage of a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package with various infrastructure projects, state aid, and pork-barrel projects. Senators McCain and Coburn have come up with a list of 100 particularly egregious spending projects in the stimulus package—my personal favorites being money for:
- Improved methods to predict the weather on other planets
- The emotional response of monkeys to inequality
- $700,000 for Northwestern University researchers to develop “machine generated humor” (finally a reliable joke machine!).
“Fairness” and the Bush Tax Cuts — An Appeal to Political Philosophy
By Guest Blogger Ryan Berg
Yesterday, I posted on the policy-side of the Bush tax cuts. Today, let’s examine the philosophical issues involved with them—to wit, the idea of “fairness” and what constitutes the government’s definition of “rich.” Read the rest of this entry »
Policy Implications of Ending the Bush Tax Cuts
By Guest Blogger Ryan Berg
A debate is currently raging between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. No, it is not financial regulation or healthcare reform—these debates seem ancient now, given the haste with which President Obama and Congressional Democrats are implementing their agenda. This debate surrounds the expiring Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Read the rest of this entry »
