Chicago Tribune (July 23)
“Six months after seizing complete control of the federal government, the Republican Party stands divided as ever plunged into a messy war among its factions that has escalated in recent weeks to crisis levels.” On top of that the executive and legislative branches are more frequently at odds. “Frustrated lawmakers are increasingly sounding off at a White House awash in turmoil and struggling to accomplish its legislative agenda.” In return, “President Donald Trump is scolding Republican senators over health care and even threatening electoral retribution.”
Tags: At odds, Crisis, Divided, Executive, Factions, Frustrated, Government, Lawmakers, Legislative, Republicans, Scolding, Trump, Turmoil
USA Today (June 21)
“You’d think that if there was one step both parties in Washington could support in the wake of the nation’s worst mass shooting, it would be to close a yawning gap in federal gun background checks…. Yet in an extraordinary act of cowardice,” over 50 “spineless lawmakers voted against advancing a commonsense measure to expand background checks to virtually all sales of guns, not just those sold by federally licensed dealers.”
Tags: Background checks, Commonsense, Cowardice, Dealers, Guns, Lawmakers, Mass shooting, Spineless, Washington
Bloomberg (March 25)
There are lots of questions for the Bank of Japan about its negative rate strategy, which “has caused bond yields to fall below zero, money market funds to stop accepting money, and lawmakers to summon Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to parliament a record number of times to explain it.”
Tags: BOJ, Bond yields, Kuroda, Lawmakers, MMF, Negative rates, Parliament, Strategy
Chicago Tribune (November 20)
“How many refugees from Syria, Iraq or anywhere, for that matter, have committed acts of terrorism in the United States? Well, zero seems to be the answer.” And yet, out of an abundance of caution, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to restrict Syrian refugees. Talk about misplaced priorities. “When it comes to an actual threat — the near certainty that thousands of Americans will be slaughtered next year and every year going forward by guns in the wrong hands and by guns designed for the efficient killing of human beings — our lawmakers and state chief executives are inert.”
New York Times (July 1)
“Sometimes the bottom line matches the common good.” In the U.S., corporations are increasingly taking the lead as “agents of what’s practical, wise and even right.” The companies are interested in ensuring “that laws and local customs don’t prevent them from attracting and retaining the best work force” as they seek to strengthen their brands. These self-interested efforts “have produced compelling recent examples of companies showing greater sensitivity to diversity, social justice and the changing tides of public sentiment than lawmakers often manage to.”
Tags: Bottom line, Common good, Corporations, Diversity, Lawmakers, Laws, Right, Social justice, U.S., Work force
Los Angeles Times (September 12)
In the U.S. a fiscal cliff is approaching when tax cuts expire on January 1, government spending is scheduled for automatic reduction and limits on government borrowing will be reached. “The message from the analysts at Moody’s and S&P is that lawmakers can’t keep putting off the day of reckoning. Moody’s set a reasonable condition for avoiding a downgrade: adopting policies that stabilize, then reduce the debt as a percentage of the U.S. economy over the next several years.”
