Bloomberg News

Japan's experience suggests the U.S. should be cautious about when it decides to start easing up on its stimulus programs. The world's second-largest economy raised consumption taxes in 1997 and fell back into a recession. That's why economist Sherle Schwenninger of the New America Foundation in Washington, says talk about Obama's plan to raise taxes on the wealthy isn't ``helpful'' now. LINK

``I think it helps people understand the various elements of where you can get reductions,'' said Terry Tamminen, a climate change adviser to Schwarzenegger. ``When you look at a watermelon, you can't imagine how you're going to eat it but if you slice it and take one bite at a time, it's not that hard.''  LINK

Daschle, 60, is a ``natural conciliator,'' said Len Nichols, who worked in Clinton's administration and is head of the health policy program at the New America Foundation in Washington. Daschle's book, ``Critical: What We Can Do about the Health Care Crisis,'' calls for an independent agency similar to the Federal Reserve Board to oversee the U.S. health system. LINK

At no point did the witnesses acknowledge errors in judgment, a management ``travesty,'' said Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. He is also a former Wall Street Journal reporter, editor and business columnist.

``Being a leader is about being responsible and not passing the blame. True leaders step up,'' Wartzman said. ``To say you're acting on the best information available is a failure of leadership that reflects a failure of the system.''… more

``The last big surge was after the first Gulf War'' against Iraq in 1991, when the U.S. helped countries in the region upgrade their military, William Hartung, an arms analyst for the Washington-based New America Foundation, said in an interview.

``It's possible that a quarter to one-third of this year's sales could be arming up Iraq, and with the oil price rise, Gulf states can afford to make purchases,'' said Hartung, who is based in New York. LINK … more

A comprehensive national-health program also makes good business sense for three reasons. First, the lost productivity associated with the poor health and shortened life spans of the uninsured cost the U.S. economy $102 billion to $204 billion in 2006, according to a March report published by the Health Policy Program of the New America Foundation.

``The economic cost imposed on the nation by the uninsured is as much as, and perhaps greater than, the public… more

Many U.S. businesses try to contain health spending by encouraging smokers to quit or opening at-work clinics. The two coal companies are pioneers in trying to boost quality of care by directing employees to nationally ranked hospitals, according to Len Nichols. Nichols is head of the health policy program at the New America Foundation in Washington and worked in President Bill Clinton's administration.

Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, two authors in their 20s who wrote Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, argue the party can woo such voters by championing tax breaks for families with children and promoting vocational education, while leaving much of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal intact. LINK

...Health expenditures consume about 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Translated to an individual family, medical insurance claims 20 percent of median income. That's compared with 8 percent in 1987, according to the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute in Washington...

``If we do not make health insurance more affordable, a majority of working Americans will be uninsured by 2020,'' it says in its ``The Next Social Contract'' report... LINK

Hillary Clinton and her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination are promising new domestic programs, tax cuts for the middle class and a return to balanced budgets. One problem: Their numbers don't add up.

The top candidates, Clinton, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, all propose more than $150 billion a year in tax breaks for middle- income earners and new federal spending on health care, energy and education. They also pledge "fiscal responsibility,''… more