Big Government

We in America have created suicidal government; the threatened federal shutdown and stubborn budget deficits are but symptoms. By suicidal, I mean that government has promised more than it can realistically deliver and, as a result, repeatedly disappoints by providing less than people expect or jeopardizing what they already have. But government can't easily correct its excesses, because Americans depend on it for so much that any effort to change the status arouses a firestorm of opposition that virtually ensures defeat.

Neera Tanden is president and chief executive of the Center for American Progress , where Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin are senior fellows. It is not surprising that House Republicans have chosen to embrace sequestration's arbitrary reductions and promote even harsher cuts to government health and education services. Reducing government's size has been the central goal of the conservative coalition in Congress for at least a decade. But the so-called sequester may well be the beginning of the end of the budget wars ...

Don't expect anybody to throw a tea party, but Big Government finally got one right. On Monday, six years to the day after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and obliterated the notion of a competent federal government, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate offered an anecdote that showed just how different things were with Hurricane Irene. On the podium in the White House briefing room, he recalled the satellite images of Irene's path. "Do you remember seeing the satellite, how big...

RICHMOND A display case in the lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank here might express humility. The case holds a 99.9 percent pure gold bar weighing 401.75 troy ounces. Minted in 1952, when the price of gold was $35 an ounce, the bar was worth about $14,000. In 1978, when this bank acquired the bar, the average price of gold was $193.40 an ounce and the bar was worth about $78,000. Today, with gold selling for around $1,600 an ounce, it is worth about $642,800. If the Federal Reserve's primary mission is to preserve the currency...

CORRECTION: This column misidentified the Jim Manzi who authored the lead article in the winter edition of the magazine National Affairs. It was Jim Manzi, the executive chairman of Applied Predictive Technologies in Arlington, Va., not Jim Manzi, the former chief executive of Lotus Development Corp. and chairman of ThermoFisher. If you step back and look at the big economic policy issues-- health care, financial regulation, immigration, education reform, the budget deficit -- they appear to boil down to one...

Just before noon Jan. 14, Mitch Daniels ceased to be governor of Indiana. By 2 p.m. he was in West Lafayette conducting a meeting as the soon-to-be president of Purdue University . A true Hoosier calls that a promotion. But his elevated new stage is a smaller one. And as national Republicans contemplate the second half of the Obama era, they wonder what might have been. Daniels pronounces himself "at peace" with his decision not to run for president — the sort of thing a man says after many restless nights.

Some years, they speak of "the final eradication in America of the age-old evil of poverty," and then other years, the Democratic Party shifts its focus to "those who work hard, pay their bills, play by the rules  . . . " In 1972 , the party promises "a guaranteed job for all," offering to "make the government the employer of last resort. " But 20 years later , the Democrats pivot and nearly apologize for themselves, appealing to "Americans who may have thought the Democratic...

Beneath all the folderol about job creation and destruction at Bain Capital or President Obama's alleged war against success and free enterprise, there's actually a legitimate debate to be had about what kind of capitalism we want in the United States. It turns out that capitalism, like ice cream, comes in many flavors. These different capitalisms can be combined, in the same way chocolate and coffee produce mocha. There are also all sorts of mix-ins and swirls that add to the variety.

RICHMOND A display case in the lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank here might express humility. The case holds a 99.9 percent pure gold bar weighing 401.75 troy ounces. Minted in 1952, when the price of gold was $35 an ounce, the bar was worth about $14,000. In 1978, when this bank acquired the bar, the average price of gold was $193.40 an ounce and the bar was worth about $78,000. Today, with gold selling for around $1,600 an ounce, it is worth about $642,800. If the Federal Reserve's primary mission is to...

Even Jonathan Swift, who said that promises and pie crusts are made to be broken, might have marveled at the limited shelf life of Barack Obama's promise of a "balanced" deficit-reduction plan — substantial spending cuts to accompany revenue increases. Obama made short shrift of that promise when he demanded $1.6 trillion in immediate tax increases and mostly unspecified domestic cuts. He also promised to cut $800 billion from 10 years of war spending that will end in two years, which is like "cutting" $800 billion by deciding not to...

Just before noon Jan. 14, Mitch Daniels ceased to be governor of Indiana. By 2 p.m. he was in West Lafayette conducting a meeting as the soon-to-be president of Purdue University . A true Hoosier calls that a promotion. But his elevated new stage is a smaller one. And as national Republicans contemplate the second half of the Obama era, they wonder what might have been. Daniels pronounces himself "at peace" with his decision not to run for president — the sort of thing a man says after many restless nights.

Even Jonathan Swift, who said that promises and pie crusts are made to be broken, might have marveled at the limited shelf life of Barack Obama's promise of a "balanced" deficit-reduction plan — substantial spending cuts to accompany revenue increases. Obama made short shrift of that promise when he demanded $1.6 trillion in immediate tax increases and mostly unspecified domestic cuts. He also promised to cut $800 billion from 10 years of war spending that will end in two years, which is like "cutting" $800 billion by deciding not to...

Two high-profile Republican members of Congress who stand at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the party after a stinging presidential defeat delivered speeches Tuesday night aimed at turning the page with a fresh emphasis on inclusion and a renewed focus on growing the middle class. "Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity now is to create the conditions that allow it not just to survive, but to grow," said Sen. Marco Rubio...

CHARLOTTE Four years ago, Barack Obama was America's Rorschach test, upon whom voters could project their disparate yearnings. To govern, however, is to choose, and now his choices have clarified him. He is a conviction politician determined to complete the progressive project of emancipating government from the Founders' constraining premises, a project Woodrow Wilson embarked on 100 Novembers ago. As such, Obama has earned what he now...

CHARLOTTE Bill Clinton is typically described as the empathetic, feel-your-pain guy. But his greatest political skill may be as a formulator of arguments — the explainer in chief. At the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, he did not disappoint, boiling down Mitt Romney's case to one sentence: "In Tampa," Clinton said, "the Republican argument against the president's reelection was actually pretty simple, pretty snappy. . . . ‘We left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned...

Some years, they speak of "the final eradication in America of the age-old evil of poverty," and then other years, the Democratic Party shifts its focus to "those who work hard, pay their bills, play by the rules  . . . " In 1972 , the party promises "a guaranteed job for all," offering to "make the government the employer of last resort. " But 20 years later , the Democrats pivot and nearly apologize for themselves, appealing to "Americans who may have thought the Democratic...

CHARLOTTE Four years ago, Barack Obama was America's Rorschach test, upon whom voters could project their disparate yearnings. To govern, however, is to choose, and now his choices have clarified him. He is a conviction politician determined to complete the progressive project of emancipating government from the Founders' constraining premises, a project Woodrow Wilson embarked on 100 Novembers ago. As such, Obama has earned what he now...

There is one thing most Americans have long agreed upon, no matter what else divides them: Big is bad. The Occupy Wall Street protests and the tea party movement both oppose what they see as the big, out-of control forces devouring America. But there is no agreement on the identity of the beast that must be slain. The tea party decries Big Government as the enemy. ("Starve the beast!" the anti-tax ideologues proclaim.) The Occupy Wall Street movement wants to slay Big Business, along with the...

So Post journalists were in a feeding frenzy over President Obama's "private sector is doing fine" gaffe . Is that any reason for you to give no real space to Mitt Romney's counter-gaffe, the one where he equates police, firefighters and teachers with Big Government ? Even Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) won't buy into that. Alfred Shpiegelman, Greenbelt

Beneath all the folderol about job creation and destruction at Bain Capital or President Obama's alleged war against success and free enterprise, there's actually a legitimate debate to be had about what kind of capitalism we want in the United States. It turns out that capitalism, like ice cream, comes in many flavors. These different capitalisms can be combined, in the same way chocolate and coffee produce mocha. There are also all sorts of mix-ins and swirls that add to the variety.