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Columns/Opinion

Deficits come home to roost

Last week, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office updated its estimates for the federal budget deficit. CBO now estimates deficits in excess of $1 trillion for next year, and every year thereafter for the next decade. Twenty-one cents of every dollar the federal government spends is borrowed, and that will remain true for the next 10 years (the outer boundary of the CBO estimate). These annual deficits add to the total debt the federal government owes. As a nation, we owe $22 trillion today, of which $6 trillion is owed to federal trust funds, like Social Security. At the end of ...

Farmers need a bill of rights

Jim Goodman And Anthony Pahnke Chicago Tribune On Jan. 11, 1944, in his annual State of the Union address, President Franklin Roosevelt noted that while the Constitution guaranteed a set of political rights, they were in some respects inadequate. To ensure equality, Roosevelt proposed an Economic Bill of Rights that would guarantee: Full employment with an adequate income Freedom from monopolies and unfair competition Adequate housing Adequate health care Social Security Fair incomes for farmers Adequate education Many items from the Economic Bill of Rights have emerged in ...

Get off the sidelines: It’s time to #StandWithICE

Dear fellow patriots: It’s time to stop making nice with those who are waging war on ICE. Are you sick of your neighborhoods being hijacked by law enforcement-bashing thugs who prioritize every last illegal immigrant over law-abiding families, workers and employers? Are you sick of do-nothing politicians promising to take action while well-funded and well-organized protesters riot in our streets and obstruct criminal arrests? Are you sick of nobody (except for a few demonized Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer activists) standing up on the front lines against the American flag ...

Democrats in need of smarter nominating process

Is anything really wrong with Jay Inslee? Was John Hickenlooper not qualified to be president? And is Steve Bullock a weak candidate? The answers are no, no, no and for all three, “on the contrary.” Any of them could be a remarkably attractive Democratic nominee for president. In a general election, they might do better than the two firebrand senators trailing Joe Biden in the polls: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. But their campaigns never took off. Something in the Democrats’ nominating process isn’t working for their kind of candidacy. Inslee, governor of Washington ...

They must have lost their minds in San Francisco

San Francisco, a city described in song for its natural beauty, is descending into an abyss of homelessness, the use of sidewalks as toilets and a place you might not want to visit, much less live. The latest, but surely not the last demonstration of insanity, is San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors’ adoption of new “person first” language guidelines meant to “change the public’s perception of criminals.” The words “convicted felon,” “offender,” “convict,” “addict” and “juvenile delinquent” are now out. These individuals will henceforth be referred ...

Strive toward its best aspirations

The U.S. Constitution provides two methods for its own amendment. We’re familiar with the first: Amendments may be proposed and approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate and then ratified by three-fourths of the states. This method has been used successfully 27 times. The second method has never been used. Article V stipulates that upon the “Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States,” Congress is obliged to call “a Convention for proposing Amendments.” The states have never forced Congress to convene an assembly to amend the Constitution, though ...