The New Republic

The best way to gauge whether the White House believes it is in a strong position to push Social Security privatization isn't to listen to what the president says--as when he claimed a mandate for reforming the entitlement at his first postelection press conference. It is to consider what the White House is actually doing. And, so far, the only practical step the White House has taken is to search frantically for political cover from congressional Democrats. "At this moment, they're trying to find READ MORE >>

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Paul O'Neill probably knew what to expect when he showed up for a White House meeting about tax cuts in November 2002. Nearly two years as Treasury secretary should have taught him that the Bush administration never misses an opportunity to cut taxes for the wealthy. And, in case they hadn't, Vice President Dick Cheney clarified the White House's intentions at a meeting earlier in the month. When O'Neill politely suggested to Cheney that a cut in dividend taxes wasn't necessary, as Ron Suskind reports in The Price READ MORE >>

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So far this year, inflation has clocked in at an eyebrow-raising 5 percent annual rate. But that didn't stop the Senate Banking Committee from giving the nation's chief inflation fighter, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the kid-gloves treatment during his reconfirmation hearing two weeks ago. Senators of both parties fell over themselves to praise Greenspan's "cool head and keen understanding of the markets" (Liddy Dole) and "your integrity, your intelligence, your ability to balance prosperity and inflation, READ MORE >>

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Last May, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter trekked to Manhattan to make his pitch before a monthly gathering of conservatives known as the "Monday Meeting." Specter, who even then was concerned about the looming primary threat from right-wing Pennsylvania Representative Pat Toomey, touted his record of supporting tax cuts and the death penalty--even his vote to put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. But several of the Monday Meeting faithful, a collection of economic conservatives known for opening their READ MORE >>

Greg Mankiw is a nerd. The current chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), Mankiw is tall and lanky with hunched nerd shoulders. He has a round nerd face, with a big nerd nose and squinty nerd eyes. He does wear sleek, metal-framed glasses. But, as they sit atop a perpetually pinched, nerd expression, the effect is less to mask his overall nerdiness than to draw attention to it. Occasionally, Mankiw lets slip that he, too, considers himself a nerd. Asked about the recent trend in READ MORE >>