Two unions are on strike against Verizon Communications in protest of proposed company policies that the unions themselves helped bring about. The new Obamacare law, which both unions supported, dramatically hikes the cost of Verizon’s employee health care plan. Efforts to pass some of that cost on to employees have sparked outrage, and now a strike. Continue reading
Here’s what President Barack Obama said about our high rate of unemployment in an interview with NBC’s Ann Curry: “The other thing that happened, though — and this goes to the point you were just making — is there are some structural issues with our economy, where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers,” adding that “you see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM; you don’t go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.” The president’s statements suggest that he sees labor-saving technological innovation as a contributor to today’s high rate of unemployment. That’s unmitigated nonsense. Let’s see whether technological innovation causes unemployment. Continue reading
The Democratic governor could teach Washington a thing or two about being adult.
A newly elected governor just persuaded his dysfunctional state legislature to close a multi-billion-dollar deficit, keep taxes in check, and limit annual Medicaid spending. Surely, these must be the misdeeds of stone-hearted Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s GOP chief executive, or that ax-wielding alumnus of the Gingrich Congress, Governor John Kasich (R., Ohio).
Actually, these and other reforms are the handiwork of none other than Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Democratic governor. Continue reading
Editorial Board Opinion
With the House poised to vote Wednesday on legislation to reestablish a voucher program that allows low-income D.C. students to attend private schools, the Obama administration issued a strongly worded statement of opposition. The White House of course has a right to its own opinion, as wrongheaded as we believe it to be. It doesn’t have a right to make up facts. Continue reading
The missile strikes that inaugurated America’s latest attempt at regime change were launched 29 days before the 50th anniversary of another such — the Bay of Pigs of April 17, 1961. Then the hubris of American planners was proportional to their ignorance of everything relevant, from Cuban sentiment to Cuba’s geography. The fiasco was a singularly feckless investment of American power.
Does practice make perfect? In today’s episode, America has intervened in a civil war in a tribal society, the dynamics of which America does not understand. And America is supporting one faction, the nature of which it does not know. Continue reading
A union defeat in Wisconsin could hurt the president’s re-election bid.
During the past eight days, thousands of Wisconsin teachers walked out of classrooms, shutting down schools. Tens of thousands of public employees staged an apparent wildcat strike, flooding Wisconsin’s state capital in a round-the-clock protest. And Democratic legislators engaged in a most undemocratic action, fleeing Wisconsin to deny the state Senate the supermajority required for a quorum.
They did this to oppose Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to require public employees to increase contributions to their retirement and health-insurance plans, and to rein in their collective-bargaining power to negotiate for higher benefits. Continue reading
