policy lessons

We talk often of the dangers of poor public policy decisions or political divisiveness. But today I want to talk about another danger. And that is the danger of being “bad tired.” Bad tired is an idea I first heard decades ago on an old cassette tape while driving to high school. On it, Harry Chapin, the late great singer-songwriter, told this story. “My grandfather was painter. He died at age 88. He illustrated Robert Frost’s first two books of poetry. And he was looking at

Economic populism is not conservative; it’s inflationary. This week, President Donald Trump floated two insanely bad ideas. The first was once again suggesting the idea of using tariff revenue to issue rebate checks of $2,000. The second was the idea of a 50-year home mortgage.

Once the customer, the American citizen in this case, has grown accustomed to a government service, it is hard, and in many cases unfair, to take it away. And it doesn’t matter if that service provided or right granted is Social Security, Trump-era tax cuts, Affordable Care Act subsidies, or reproductive rights. No one likes having something and then having it taken away.