When it comes to trade legislation, policy makers can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Senate is expected to finish with the Trans-Pacific Partnership and related bills soon; the House is likely to do so by July 4.

Getting to the finish line will involve a lot of horse-trading and maneuvering–political blood, sweat, and tears. I predict that Congress will give the president a big victory by passing TPA.

It’s harder to predict what big thing comes next. Read More »

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey published Thursday of people who buy insurance in the non-group market found that while many people may choose higher-deductible plans so they can pay a lower premium, they aren’t all that happy about it. It may just be the only way they can get a premium they feel they can afford.

As the chart above shows, 37% of people with high-deductible plans described their plan as an “excellent” or “good” value for what they pay, compared with 68% of people with lower-deductible plans saying the same. A high deductible was defined as $1,500 or more for an individual and $3,000 or more for a family. Sixty percent of those with higher-deductible plans rated the value of their plan as “fair” or “poor.” Read More »

China’s negotiations to establish a naval base in Djibouti–where the U.S. has its own military installation, Camp Lemonnier–is sure to heighten concerns in Washington about Beijing’s geopolitical aspirations. As China rises and its global ambitions expand, it has stepped up its economic, diplomatic, and military involvement in the Middle East. But the Chinese–like the outside powers that preceded them–are learning that the road to influence in the Middle East is hardly smooth.

Chinese interests in the region–energy, counterterrorism, the free flow of commerce–are not unique. But as the sheer size of China’s needs and the magnitude of its pretensions to global power have grown, it has shifted away from its philosophy of “non-interference” and reliance on U.S.-provided order to a more forward-leaning role. Read More »

The emerging Iran deal that the Obama administration contends is comprehensive and definitive contains so many uncertainties, including those regarding Iran’s future nuclear weapons aspirations, that it might well turn out to be an extended interim accord.

This underscores an issue with a few things Secretary of State John Kerry recently said while defending the Iran deal–remarks that I presume he’d like to take back:

“President Obama has absolutely pledged they will not get a nuclear weapon” and  “We will have inspectors in there every single day. That is not a 10-year deal; that is forever.” Read More »

One reason the Affordable Care Act gets mixed reviews is the persistent and sharp partisan divide in public opinion on the law. But a less appreciated reason for this is simply that many more people benefit from the ACA than may realize it.

More than half of Americans say the health reform law has had no impact on them or their family, Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Polls have found. As the chart above shows, that’s true of Democrats (60%), independents (54%), and Republicans (55%). Read More »

In California, where the benefits of expanded free trade are crucial to the state’s technology, agricultural and transportation sectors, one might assume that support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement favored by President Barack Obama would be flourishing.

One would be wrong.

At this past weekend’s state Democratic Party convention, the two leading candidates in next year’s U.S. Senate campaign spoke out forcefully about TPP–and both lined up squarely against the president. Read More »

The Great Recession and its aftermath have exposed a major mismatch between the skills of many college graduates and the skills employers are seeking. If anything, as technological change marches on, this problem may get worse. Read More »

The New York Times report on Axact, a self-identified software firm in Pakistan that the Times alleged is a front for a highly profitable fake degree business, is not exactly a bombshell.

The Times reported that customers around the world–including a jailed police criminologist in Britain who claimed to have degreesfrom an Axact-owned university; accountants, airline employees, and nurses in the Middle East; a former U.S. Olympic swim coach; and a woman in Michigan–have fallen for the scheme. Axact’s credibility had been questioned in individual lawsuits and other arenas, but the Times reporting, including interviews with former employees, captured the breadth of the firm’s questionable practices. Read More »

Whether it is 1992 or 2016, whichever Clinton is running, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Today, however, the situation is more complicated than that phrase would suggest.

Income inequality is back in the headlines, but it’s more than Elizabeth Warren’s rhetoric or Bernie Sanders‘s presidential announcement; Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and others have joined the conversation. These combined voices suggest the ground may be shifting on the issue of income inequality and in popular resentment toward corporations. So here is a cautionary warning: Public opinion about income inequality differs from the negative feelings about Wall Street and big business. Read More »

We learned this week that, for the first time since 2010, the economies of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain all had a quarter of economic growth. Long-beleaguered Spain led this foursome, growing at a 0.9% rate in the first three months of 2015.

Some will attribute this performance to the success of austerity programs that began five years ago. Outside the eurozone, the conservative victory in Britain’s elections last week was treated by Prime Minister David Cameron as vindication of his austerity program. But the facts cast doubt on these claims. Read More »