Yuval Levin

Washington fiddles while the entitlement problem metastasizes

We are living in an era of political panic. Some of President Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters in 2016 were motivated to overlook his shortcomings by desperate fear that our system of government was near death and only the most extreme measures could save it. A poll conducted by PRRI and…

A big federal investment in infrastructure is one of the few things that Donald Trump has specifically said he wants to pursue early in his presidency. It is not as high a priority for most congressional Republicans, to put it mildly.

A big federal investment in infrastructure is one of the few things that Donald Trump has specifically said he wants to pursue early in his presidency. It is not as high a priority for most congressional Republicans, to put it mildly.

Obamacare—or at least the version of it that the president and his advisers currently think they can get away with putting into place—has been upending arrangements and reshuffling the deck in the health system since the beginning of the year. That’s when the new insurance rules, subsidies, and…

Obamacare’s defenders are doing their best to sustain a triumphant mood these days. In the wake of the late-March surge in exchange enrollment, many proponents of the law have insisted it can no longer be rolled back. As the president put it in his April 1 Mission Accomplished speech announcing the…

Although he has, in most respects, been gone from the scene for the better part of a decade, Ariel Sharon’s death this month has nonetheless hit Israel hard. His military career was among the most exemplary in a nation that has seen far more than its share of great warriors. And by the end of his…

Obamacare is no longer a theoretical proposition. It is now being implemented, if with some notable exceptions for the portions of the law the Obama administration finds particularly inconvenient. Millions of Americans are experiencing its consequences directly, and millions more are forming their…

Republicans these days are eager to replay the Reagan revolution. It is not hard to see why: In the 1980s, the GOP was the party of ideas, and the vision that Ronald Reagan and his supporters brought to Washington proved immensely popular with voters and profoundly improved American life. But in…

In the continuing debate over Obamacare, both the law’s champions and its critics are now focused largely on the mechanics of implementation. This is understandable. The insurance exchanges are supposed to launch October 1, most of the law’s other major provisions take effect January 1, and every…

For opponents of Obamacare, it almost seems like the law offers too many targets to choose from. Its effects on premiums and costs look to be highly unpopular, its perverse incentives are already harming employment, its state exchanges will hand out costly subsidies without the necessary checks…

For fiscal hawks of all political stripes, the last two years have been awfully frustrating. Budget politics has been front and center almost constantly, yet we have made almost no progress toward reducing our deficits and debt.

In the wake of Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, conservatives and liberals seemed almost equally happy. To the right, the pick represented a bold decision to make a forthright case against President Obama’s vision for the country and to champion solutions to the problems…

The oddly convenient academic study has long been a weapon in the Democratic party’s arsenal of election-season demagoguery. Do you need to say that conservative policies would sink the republic? Here’s a paper by scholars from a respected university, published in a respected journal, and released…

There is something very strange about the 2012 presidential race so far. The election comes at a time of extraordinary public unease, which clearly demands some response from the political system, and especially from the men running for the highest office in the land. But the two presidential…

Charles Murray’s profound and important new book has, for the most part, been received as merely the latest volley in the inequality debates. Its champions have tended to praise it for shedding light on overlooked aspects of the gap between rich and poor, while its critics have faulted it for…

On the night Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in November 2010, John Boehner laid out the new Congress’s key priorities: to restrain the growth of government, cut spending, reform how Congress works, and end the uncertainty in the economy to help get Americans back to work.…

In 2010, Republicans won control of the House by offering to resist the Obama agenda. But their victory left open the question of whether they would also confront the grave fiscal challenges facing the country, and move beyond mere opposition to present an alternative governing vision to that of…

In April 2008, days after saying that voters in western Pennsylvania were inclined to cling to religion and guns out of bitterness, Senator Barack Obama sat down for an interview with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to try to fix some of the damage his remark had done to his…

On June 22, the Congressional Budget Office released its annual “Long-Term Budget Outlook.” To call the document grim would be a grave understatement. It describes a massive wave of debt that threatens very soon to drown us—and that, thanks to the weak economy and the continuing growth of spending,…

Do House Republicans want to kill the elderly? If you listen to the left these days, you’d certainly think so. Last week, a liberal advocacy group called “The Agenda Project”—which claims to advance “rational, effective ideas in the public debate”—released an ad showing a look-alike of House Budget…

Normally in Washington, the agenda for spring and summer is set by the president’s budget and the priorities of congressional leaders. But this year will be different. House Republicans have proposed an ambitious platform, in the form of the budget produced by House Budget Committee chairman Paul…

Late last month, Senator Charles Schumer of New York led a conference call in which Senate Democrats briefed reporters about the ongoing budget battle. At the outset, unaware that his comments were already audible to reporters on the line, Schumer provided some marching orders, advising his…

Even as they engage in heated battles over the budget and try to define a new agenda from their perch in the House of Representatives, conservatives clearly understand that the key to turning things around​—​to averting a debt crisis and defending the ideal of limited government​—​is winning the…

As the 112th Congress begins its work this month, it must take up some unavoidable unfinished business left behind by its predecessor. In their frantic, sloppy struggle to advance big-ticket items on the liberal agenda, the Democratic leaders of the 111th Congress not only failed to produce a…

In October 2009, at one of her weekly press conferences, Nancy Pelosi was asked by a reporter “where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Pelosi shook her head and replied: “Are you serious?” When her spokesman Nadeam…

Technically speaking, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform seems headed toward failure. The commission, chaired by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson, is required to produce a report by December 1 providing recommendations for reducing the deficit and debt.…

On November 7, 2006, the Democrats marked their takeover of Congress with a raucous celebration at the Hyatt Regency hotel on Capitol Hill. Balloons and confetti fell from the ceiling as the party’s leaders stood on the stage arm-in-arm, beaming with joy. “Tonight is a great victory for the…

Last week, in an effort to limit the damage to congressional Democrats in November’s elections, President Obama set out in pursuit of the youth vote, traveling to several college campuses to rally the young activists who were so important to his presidential campaign. “What I want to do is just to…

Democrats in Washington, confronting a mammoth tidal wave of angry voters as November approaches, are desperate to change the subject. They know there is little they can say about themselves or their record of governing over the past two years that would not worsen their prospects, so they…

For the past week, liberals have been trying to persuade themselves that Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate race need not mean the end of Obamacare. But that is exactly what it means. The Democrats’ health care agenda, in anything like the form it has taken for the past…

In the Democrats' rush to pass some kind of health care legislation before public opposition overwhelms them, tactics have long since overtaken substance. Their only remaining goal is to pass a bill, any bill. As the endgame has unfolded, all eyes have been fixed on the unseemly process taking…

In a radio interview on Thursday, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson boasted that, compared to some of his colleagues, he was a "cheap date," holding out as he was as a matter of principle and not for some outlandish dropping of federal largesse in Nebraska.

After a summer of setbacks on health care reform, Democrats on Capitol Hill again seem to think they have found a formula for success. The latest iteration of Obamacare, emerging this week from the Senate Finance Committee, is said to be a move to the center, avoiding the albatross of a government…

This has been a most unhappy summer for liberal health care reformers. As recently as May, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus could exclaim to the Washington Post, "The train is leaving the station. There's a sense of inevitability here." Yet as members of Congress begin their August…

President Obama's strategy to pass sweeping health care legislation rested on stealth and speed. The idea was to fill the conversation for months on end with vague talk about expanding coverage, "bending the cost-curve," improving quality, and rooting out waste, without showing the public how the…

President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress have made it clear that health care reform is their top legislative priority this year. The administration laid down some general markers in its budget, and the president has enunciated principles in several speeches. Key committees in both…

Last September, during the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Obama what the growing economic crisis would mean for his policy ambitions: "What are you going to have to give up, in terms of the priorities that you would bring as president of…

Lincoln at Peoria

Over the past few weeks, in a series of television ads, in stump speeches, and in the presidential and vice presidential debates, the Obama campaign has sought mightily to attack John McCain's proposal for health care reform. It's vehemence and tenacity have been striking, especially given how…

In recent weeks, while the penultimate chapter of the Democratic nomination race has monopolized our attention, John McCain has engaged in a series of auditions of general election themes for his campaign. In early April, he set out on a "Service to America Tour," highlighting key points of his…

The 2008 presidential campaign has seen the Democrats more outspoken on health care than they have been since the early 1990s. The three frontrunners have produced health care proposals that would greatly increase the role of the government in funding and managing the nation's health insurance…

Amidst the clang and symbolism of the new Democratic Congress's first month, between the hundred-hour marathon and the posturing about Iraq, a peculiar thing has happened. In a matter of a few weeks, with only minor controversy and little fanfare, a 2007 federal budget has taken shape that includes…

"It is scandalous that eight years have passed since we have known about stem cell research and the potential to conquer all known maladies, and federal funds have not been available for the research," Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter told a press conference last week. Specter's comment marks a…

In early 2006, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney gained national attention by negotiating a plan with the Democratic state legislature to pursue universal health insurance coverage in his state.

We are beginning to get used to national security elections in America. The 2006 election cycle was the third in a row focused almost exclusively on the war on terror and Iraq. Apart from immigration and the vague odor of corruption, it is hard to find a single domestic issue that candidates…