The meaning of “hubris” has evolved over the centuries. Today, it has come to mean too much pride and even an insolent sense of self-confidence. One of the definitions of the word “ύβρις” in ancient Greece was disregard for the…
Can newly installed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy deliver on the promises and deals that he floated on his tortured journey to claiming the gavel? Team GOP’s handshake spending plan includes two goals — to cap discretionary spending in fiscal year…
SACRAMENTO — California’s state budget has been awash in cash, as lawmakers this year enjoyed a $97.5 billion budget surplus — an excess amount that’s larger than the entire general-fund budgets of all but two states (New York and Texas). As…
For a few years, I have sounded the alarm that a growing wave of conservatives is working to make Republicans indistinguishable from Democrats on social spending. Some say that to win elections, Republicans need to pay more attention to families…
Bipartisanship, a rare commodity in 21st-century Washington, returned to the Capitol this past week. Democrats and Republicans came together to put Americans further into debt. The House of Representatives voted to suspend the debt ceiling until March of 2021. The…
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Trump administration on Tuesday arrived at a budget and debt agreement for the next two years. The deal will reportedly increase spending in both defense and non-defense areas and suspend the debt ceiling until…
Congress can’t stop spending money. Even on projects that the Trump Administration does not want or need. Right now, the federal government is carrying over $22 trillion in national debt with trillion-dollar annual deficits projected, yet they can’t stop spending…
Just three months after last November’s midterm elections, Democratic presidential hopefuls are already lining up. And the new darling of the left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is blithely explaining her party’s outright embrace of old-fashioned socialism with the self-assured assertion that the…
The question of questions: Why did we have so much volatility in the financial markets in the Fall and early Winter? This was extreme volatility by any measure. The fact that it happened while the U.S. was in an extreme…