The Opinion Blog

Patriotism or Partisanship?

Friday's editorial suggests that right-wing strategists let legitimate concerns about health reform go to their head and thus overreached politically with their ill-advised furor to the president's speech to students.

Last week, President Obama announced that he would be giving a speech to schoolchildren encouraging them to stay in school.

So, in an stunningly equal-but-opposite response, his most ardent detractors immediately proclaimed their intent to pull their kids out.

Speak up, Sen. Graham

Saturday's editorial encourages U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham to be a more forceful advocate for the health-care reforms he advocates.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham may be among the most sensible voices today in the nation's out-of-control health care debate - so it's too bad he's speaking so quietly.

Dr. DeMint's Sugar Pill, Part 1: A Band-Aid is not enough

Saturday's editorial is first of a two-part analysis of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint's "Health Care Freedom Plan:"

When U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint brought his prescription for a "Health Care Freedom Plan" last week to a restaurant full of area conservatives ailing from an Obamacare overdose, his promises sounded like a free-market cure-all: Tax cuts! Access for everyone! No cost to the taxpayer! And all this in one little bottle!

Crisis of cost; crisis of care

Saturday's editorial that the health-care debate is moving away from what must be its central goal - cost control - and finds fault with members of both parties for it.

The crisis in our country's health care system is twofold. That 46 million Americans are uninsured is an embarrassment to our greatness as a nation, but skyrocketing health care costs are a severe threat to maintaining any semblance of that greatness.

Healthy start to stimulus

Wednesday's editorial examines positive local signs related to the Obama administration's $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

Recent days have produced a flurry of reports about the effectiveness of the vaunted "first 100 days" of the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus package, and most early indications appear positive.

Start Talks on Social Security

Today's editorial considers the urgency of reforming Social Security and presents one possible option for moving forward.

Although flashier issues - the war in Iraq, illegal immigration and blame for the choking economy - tended to dominate the campaign trail in 2008, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham made his own unsuccessful attempts to fix a drying-up Social Security system one of his key stump issues. When he was a 22-year-old college student, both of his parents died, leaving him to raise a 13-year-old sister on Social Security survivor's benefits.

"I know what it's like to need it," Graham said during a televised debate in October, echoing comments he had made earlier to a crowd of supporters at Litchfield Beach and Golf Resort.

On Tuesday, as if the economic news about the present day were not gloomy enough, the U.S. Treasury told us what the future holds: In seven years, Social Security will begin paying out more money than it takes in, and by 2037, that deficit will devour what is now a $2.4 trillion trust fund for Social Security. Exacerbated by the recession, these grim dates are several years sooner than previously expected.

When the Mayo's in trouble, health care IS broken

Ripped from the wires ... In case you doubt that the U.S. health-care-delivery system needs reform, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune sets you straight:

Few commented on one chilling irony of the U.S. government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler. Not only are the carmakers grappling with shortsighted leadership and dated products, they've also shouldered massive costs for retiree health benefits.

The United States has the same health care problem _ only bigger. Costs for the sprawling Medicare program for seniors are already unsustainable, with the biggest demographic group of all about to enroll. The first wave of baby boomers becomes eligible for Medicare in 2011.

Channel your anger toward D.C., not Wall Street

Ripped from the wires ... Cal Thomas adapts an aphorism made famous by the first Mayor Daley to the financial crisis:

By Cal Thomas

One of the more familiar sayings in politics is "don't get angry, get even.''

The anger caused by using millions in taxpayer bailout money to pay "retention'' bonuses to current and former AIG employees and to fund banks that mostly won't tell what they did with the money is an object lesson for all of us. It offers taxpayers an opportunity to "get even'' with those who have violated the U.S. Constitution, helped put our nation in peril and spent us into economic servitude to the Chinese.

'Get it' on Wall Street, Mr. Geithner, or begone

Ripped from the wires ... When the president's staunchest supporters, such as columnist Eugene Robinson, turn on the treasury secretary, you know he's really a public liability:

By EUGENE ROBINSON

President Obama's claim that Timothy Geithner faces a more daunting set of challenges than any Treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Geithner may indeed be the hardest-working man in Washington. But in order to survive, let alone succeed, he's going to have to make a more convincing case that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

OK, Barack, where's your health-care roadmap?

Ripped from the wires ... In this Tuesday editorial, the Dallas Morning News applauds Obama's health-care warriors picks but challenges his vision for health-care reform:

President Barack Obama apparently has solved one of his health care problems. Monday, he named Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to head the Health and Human Services Department and former Clinton administration aide Nancy-Ann Min DeParle to lead his health reform effort from the White House.