At a joint press conference to welcome Chinese President Hu Jintao to the U.S. on Jan. 19, President Barack Obama downplayed contentious issues, such as China’s undervalued currency, and focused instead on areas of economic cooperation. “We want to sell you all kinds of stuff,” Obama said. “We want to sell you planes, we want to sell you cars, we want to sell you software.” One thing not on his ex

The prospect of meaningful tax reform has become the hot topic in the hearing rooms and, just as important, the back rooms of Washington.House Ways and Means Committee Chairman David Camp, Republican of Michigan, devoted his first hearing to the topic, and President Barack Obama’s team is talking up the subject in private and in public.“We’re examining whether we can find the political support for

The Diet opens its ordinary session today. The results will greatly influence the fate of Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his Cabinet. By his recent Cabinet reshuffle, Kan has made it clear that he will give priority to unified reform of the tax system ― which would include a consumption tax hike ― and the social welfare system as well as to Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a r

When independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut announced Wednesday that he wouldn’t seek a fifth term, there was hardly a wet eye in the house. It’s hard to find anybody, conservative or liberal, who has nice things to say about Lieberman, who is so disliked in his home state that the threat of competition from a former pro-wrestling promoter was apparently enough to scare him away from the 20

If a corporation is a “person” under the law, does it get the kinds of “personal privacy” protections real people enjoy ― just because the adjective personal derives from the noun person?AT&T claims it does.But if that’s what federal law means, it will be one more way in which corporate interests trump those of ordinary Americans.Here’s why: Corporations will be able to use the federal Freedom of

On the most important domestic issues of the day, our two political parties don’t merely lay out competing arguments; they inhabit alternative realities.The chasm was apparent over the last few days as the House of Representatives churned relentlessly toward its vote to repeal President Obama’s health-care law. The two-day debate, carried out in a marathon series of two-minute speeches, remained c

Is our political speech really more bitter and poisonous than it’s ever been?No, though it’s certainly more debased and lacerating than it was just a few short years ago. We’ve been through eras of bitterly expressed politics more often than we’d probably care to admit. The Federalists and anti-Federalists bickered ferociously. Contention over the Bank of the United States during the Jacksonian er

The situation on the Korean Peninsula is crucial to maintaining peace in Northeast Asia. It plays an important role in the security and economic development of the Asia-Pacific region, and has a great impact on overall global stability. Hence, the peninsula has a special place in Sino-U.S. ties. Though the Cold War ended two decades ago, people on the Korean Peninsula are still living in its shado

Behold the silence of the lambs. Naturally, I’m talking about the Democrats.One of their own House members has been plugged in the head by a nut job armed with a Glock and a high-capacity magazine, yet even now they can’t muster the courage to talk about sensible gun curbs. That issue is off the national agenda because Democrats have been rendered mute by their terror of the gun lobby.The timidity