By Paolo von Schirach May 7, 2012 WASHINGTON – Watching on C-SPAN, (the meritorious public affairs TV channels), a session of the US House Budget Committee was quite depressing. There was no real debate on the issues aimed at getting to some constructive policy outcome. I heard only prepackaged slogans and a lot of predictable posturing.
By Paolo von Schirach May 1, 2012 WASHINGTON - In the never ending Greek fiscal debacle saga, everybody’s focus has been on the unfolding drama. Will this Eurozone-IMF rescue package work? Or will it be the next one, until finally something that would stick is cobbled together? But, while not unreasonable, this focus on crisis management and related countermeasures took all [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 9, 2012 WASHINGTON – Professor Walter Russell Mead believes that all this talk about “American decline” is incorrect. (The Myth of America’s Decline, The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2012). The real issue –he claims– is the decline of the Trilateral System, ( the US, Europe and Japan), that shaped the [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 8, 2012 WASHINGTON – The Wall Street Journal editorial page wonders why the Obama administration is so timid regarding the ongoing repression in Syria. The WSJ is puzzled by how long it took for Washington to publicly state that president Bashar Assad has to go and is even more surprised [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 3, 2012 WASHINGTON – After primary wins in Maryland, the District of Colombia and Wisconsin, it appears that Mitt Romney has turned a corner. It seems now that the Republicans are finally getting the message that this acrimonious and bitterly contested primary season is not advancing their objective of creating a compelling anti-Obama [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 27, 2012 WASHINGTON – Let’s say the US Supreme Court strikes down the “individual mandate” provision within the land mark health care law passed two years ago. Or suppose the Justices will declare the entire law unconstitutional. Such a decision, so close to the elections, will have huge political ramifications. By [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 21, 2012 WASHINGTON – House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is a courageous man. He came forth with a Republican budget proposal that would actually do something substantive about entitlement and tax reform. He already did this with his 2011 “Path to Prosperity” budget proposal. But that got nowhere because the [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 9, 2012 WASHINGTON – At the very beginning of his long campaign it seemed as if Mitt Romney had all it takes to get the Republican nomination, augment his base with the support of most moderate independents, and then win the November elections. Having been a key contender in 2008, Romney had name [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 8, 2012 WASHINGTON – The most striking, truly dissonant effect of an American anemic economy, growing only a little and burdened by an epic $ 15 trillion national debt, and of the 8.3% unemployment is that president Barack Obama, just months before the elections, is back, with almost 50% favorable ratings. This is rather astonishing. Rightly or wrongly, Americans [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 10, 2012 WASHINGTON – The normally level headed The Economist came up with a fanciful and really complicated plan that should lead to the forced retirement of Syria’s Bashar Assad. It would not be an invasion, nor a bombing campaign against Assad’s loyal army relentlessly pounding the lightly armed rebels in Homs [...]