Economic Policy

Some liberals worry that trade with low-wage countries will depress American wages. But globalization not only helps lift Third World people out of poverty; it also benefits American consumers and workers. Instead of pursuing protectionism, domestic policies should assure that the benefits of trade are equitably shared.

For at least a generation the U.S. has propped up the global economy by absorbing the world’s surplus of goods. That’s not good for the U.S. or its trading partners.

Liberals ought to start playing offense on taxes. Progressive tax policy can be good politics.

Defense experts with impeccable conservative credentials say we could cut the Pentagon budget without endangering our security. So why is no one listening?

H ow the national debate is framed, and what options are put before the public, can be more important ultimately than the immediate choices made. The framing defines the breadth of the nation’s ambition, and thus either raises or lowers expectations, fires or depresses imaginations, ignites or deflates political movements. A future generation pondering the […]

Despite the lowest unemployment rate ever reported in Ohio, a record number of Franklin County residents turned to food pantries for assistance in 1997, 11 percent more than the year before. With more than 2,000 households requiring at least a month’s worth of food–an unprecedented level of chronic need–food banks scrambled to raise the funds […]

O ne might have thought (or at least hoped) that the revelations of scandalous fundraising practices in the 1996 campaign would improve prospects for enacting much-needed reforms, much as tales of the outrageous behavior by the Committee to Reelect the President provided the impetus for the last major rewrite of campaign finance law in 1974. […]