In his opening line of questions for Janet Yellen at the Senate Banking Committee today, Senator Richard Shelby asked about the use of monetary policy rules and the Taylor Rule, apparently referring to the recent policy rules bill (Section 2 of HR 5018) that would require the Fed to report its strategy or rule for policy.
The Club for Growth is right about a bunch of issues, but they’re wrong about the pending House bill to replace No Child Left Behind with something far better. HR 5 (the “Student Success Act”), slated for floor action a few days hence, would, if enacted, be the most conservative federal education move in a quarter century.
I promised a few weeks ago to "write a further note explaining a more-sophisticated way of understanding the harmful effects of the minimum wage." This isn't it.
Putin’s goal is the destruction of NATO. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an integral part of this strategy, it is only a sideshow to the main event. If Ukraine decides to stop fighting, NATO, Europe and the United States are all on their own.
The hunt is on for a new head of the FDA. The incumbent should be an experienced manager, familiar with the agency’s functions, independent and distanced from politics, and committed to regulatory reform. I’m betting that President Obama’s nominee falls short.
In a recent debate between NSA director Mike Rogers and Yahoo Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos, the topic of law-enforcement restricted access to encrypted communications once again came up.
Too often, we talk about cybersecurity as though it were a single good. We treat it, that is to say, like airline security, where our policy objective is zero civilian jetliner or general aviation vulnerabilities.
What does the Common Core portend for America’s high-achieving and gifted students? Quite a kerfuffle has erupted in many parts of the country, with boosters of these rigorous new standards declaring that they’re plenty sufficient to challenge the ablest pupils and boosters of gifted education fretting that this will be used as the latest excuse to do away with already-dwindling opportunities for such children.
Anyone unfamiliar with the quality of Stephen Kotkin’s four earlier books on the Soviet Union might well question whether we need a new, voluminous tome about the first fifty years of Joseph Stalin’s life. Stalin, like Hitler, has been the subject of numerous biographies, ranging from Boris Souvarine’s pioneering work to Robert C. Tucker’s multivolume study. Is there anything important to add?
On a Tuesday conference call, climate policy champion Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) predicted that the toxic politics of global warming will change “because of the public’s growing awareness” of the issue. Many people who want action on climate change share the same hope.
London—In the 1840s, after receiving his first telegram, then British foreign minister Lord Palmerston reportedly exclaimed “My God, this is the end of diplomacy!”
Climate change warriors of all stripes were focused on the White House on Tuesday, where President Obama vetoed a bill that would have authorized construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
