American Infrastructure Initiative: Latest Articles

Are we in danger of discouraging the best and the brightest from entering public service? According to Richard Haass, the former Bush administration official who now heads the Council on Foreign Relations, prosecuting former Bush administration lawyers who argued that torture was legal under domestic and international law would deter talented Americans from careers in public service. Haas, who served as director of policy planning in the State Department, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on May 1 that while in the Bush

What will the world look like when the present emergency has passed? The safest prediction is that the post-crisis financial sector will be downsized and more heavily regulated, nationally and internationally. The financial sector as a whole, which peaked at 40 percent of corporate profits in the United States in 2006, may shrink as much as 50 percent in the aftermath of the emergency.

The Administration is coming up to that magical 100-day mark, at which point measures are taken of how a new president is doing. As a university professor I'm accustomed to giving grades. So here's my report card on Obamanomics so far:

Two presidents for the price of one? That was the joke when Bill and Hillary Clinton made their respective presidential bids. In the case of Barack Obama's victorious quest for the presidency, the joke became reality. There are two Obamas. One is the foreign policy president whom America needs at this moment in history. The other is a domestic policy president who has yet to find his way.

If the debate over the global economic crisis seems confusing, it's because the debate is confusing. Proponents of different cures can't even agree on the diagnosis of the disease.