Last week, a bipartisan delegation of legislators went to California to meet with big tech companies. The visit was led by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) who chairs the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Their meetings with Apple, Microsoft and other industry heavies focused on trade, intellectual property, technology and related […]
Put the people back in the People’s Hous
The Social Security Administration’s latest report confirms that retirement benefits will have to be cut in 12 years. Far more money is going out of Social Security than is coming in. Over the next three decades, benefits will outstrip revenues by $21 trillion. Congress needs to do something or retirees will face a 23% cut […]
A must-have for spending negotiations: p...
The congressional fight over the House S...
Now that a couple of weeks have passed and the noise has begun to subside, we can take a broader view of what McCarthy’s election suggests about Congress and the state of American politics. The media had it wrong: to equate Mr. McCarthy’s struggles to win the Speakership with political dysfunction is to grossly misunderstand […]
Can we put to rest the myth that Congres...
Last week, I attended a closed-door event that featured a speech by someone who works in state politics. He held forth quite thoughtfully and exuded an energetic mix of angst and hope for the future of our constitutional republic. The audience was rapt, most likely because we shared his concern about the health of our representative […]
Can the House Freedom Caucus revive the ...
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the Speaker in waiting, reportedly has promised to shift some power over policymaking back to committees. This is good to hear. The history of the House of Representatives over the past 50 years is a story of power flowing upward to the Speaker. As Don Wolfensberger recently pointed out in this publication, for much of the […]