Robert Reich

Shortly after the Senate confirmed John Snow’s nomination as Treasury secretary at the end of January 2003, Snow phoned me. He wanted to thank me for the guidance I had indirectly given him for how to survive a nomination hearing in my erstwhile memoir, Locked in the Cabinet. “Don’t defend yourself. Don’t lecture. Don’t take […]

Here we are six months before a mid-term election, with polls showing only about 20 percent of the American public approving the job Congress is doing. Small wonder. The federal budget deficit is still out of control. We’ve got a war going on that’s not going well, and the military is spending over a half […]

This week, the House is expected to vote on something termed, in perfect Orwellian prose, the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006.” It will be the first real battle in the coming War of Internet Democracy. On one side are the companies that pipe the Internet into our homes and businesses. These include […]

Google is complaining to antitrust officials in Washington and Europe that Microsoft’s upcoming web browser puts Google at a competitive disadvantage. That’s because the browser features a search box on a user’s screen that steers the user to Microsoft’s MSN search engine. Google is playing politics here. Microsoft’s MSN handles only about 10 percent of […]

Wal-Mart wants to start a bank. Well, not exactly a bank. Wal-Mart says all it wants to do is provide customers with its own credit-card service on Wal-Mart sales, so it can trim costs on the millions of payments it processes each year. Wal-Mart has been telling bank regulators it has no intention of expanding […]

A few weeks ago a public-relations firm working for General Motors phoned to ask if I’d say on the media that the buy-back GM was offering its employees was a good deal for them. GM’s public-relations firm said they’d offer me money if I did this, as a show of respect. I told them I’d […]

Forty-five million Americans are without health insurance, and the number keeps rising. Recently the state of Massachusetts unveiled a plan for reversing this trend. It would provide nearly every Massachusetts resident with health insurance — and the plan won’t require any additional state spending. There’s no free lunch and no free health care. So how […]

The Senate Finance Committee opens hearings this week on why Americans have stopped saving. Last year’s savings rate was negative — meaning American households saved nothing and went into debt — for the first time since the Great Depression. So far this year, the savings rate has remained negative. The question is why. You’d think […]

When it comes to allowing low-skilled immigrants into the United States, Americans basically divide into two groups. The first wants to hire them at low wages and doesn’t especially care whether they’re here legally or illegally. The second group is anxious about too many of them coming here — worried they’re taking away jobs of […]