It has been 100 days since President Enrique Peña Nieto took office in Mexico, restoring the Partido Revolucionario Institucional ‘s (PRI) seventy-year rule after a brief twelve-year pause. Today Mexico is in shock, not by the number of deaths and criminal incidents that still harass the Mexican population on a daily basis, but because several … Continue reading
President Obama has been strongly promoting his plan for an energy security trust fund in recent weeks. It has met quite a bit of opposition and many doubt its viability. In this plan $2 billion of oil and natural gas royalties would go towards advancing electric car batteries, biofuels, fuel cells and renewable energy development. … Continue reading
Today, the consensus is that our immigration system is in dire need of reform. However, there are still those who do not wish to acknowledge the precedence that this matter should take. Apart from being merely a matter of doing the right thing, it is crucial to understand that some sort of earned legal status … Continue reading
In early February, the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) hosted their 25th annual policy research conference on “Medicare and Social Security in a Time of Budget Austerity.” It was a two-day event and I gladly participated in one of their several sessions on a Friday afternoon. The session that I chose to attend was … Continue reading
After housing indicators showed positive growth signs for the housing market last month, the first housing numbers released this month, from NAHB/Well Fargo, reported their third consecutive decline in their housing market index (HMI), with a decrease of two-points to 44. A suffering housing market suggests a struggling economy. The chart below shows the drastic … Continue reading
President Obama has made clear that in his second term he will make a concerted effort to raise national awareness of the problem of pollution and begin to structure federal activity to respond to the growing danger of climate change. Striking a defiant pose, the President used his State of the Union speech to make … Continue reading
It’s budget season! Last week, the House Budget Committee released its annual budget proposal for FY 2014, the third iteration of the Ryan budget. But this year, for the first time since 2009, the Senate Budget Committee released its own proposal too. The release of both budgets last week was exciting not just for budget … Continue reading
Social, economic and political problems plague policy makers and focus attention on an array of both domestic and foreign issues. Congress is notably polarized and it seems that the more important an issue may be, the more difficult compromise is. Top environmental issues tend to revolve around energy production, renewable energy technology, food production, water … Continue reading
I rarely write about social policy. In terms of public policy I think it generally pales in comparison to the myriad issues we face as a nation. But in thinking about everything on a macro level, you sometimes lose sight of the human component of all policy issues. This morning, Ohio Senator Rob Portman, a … Continue reading
On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the unemployment report for February. 236,000 jobs were created and unemployment fell to 7.7% (a .2% decrease from January). This is good news for the slowly recovering economy … we think. One aspect that contributed to the lower unemployment rate was a rise in discouraged workers. These … Continue reading
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