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Payroll tax break shows the need for real reform of Social Security

Good politics — what helps get you elected — is frequently bad policy. The latest example is the payroll tax “holiday,” which will expire in about three weeks unless Congress acts.

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An absurd charade on corporate taxes
Jan 28, 5:43 PM

This president hasn’t the slightest notion of what makes an economy go, how real wealth is created or what motivates people to “risk scarce capital on an uncertain future,” as the saying goes. And he may be the only person in the country who doesn’t believe the U.S. tax code is already complicated enough.
Independence breaks out of the ATA straitjacket
Jan 21, 7:06 PM

Facing a sluggish economy and declining public resources, the the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s options are few. Voters and elected officials won’t pay indefinitely for an uncompetitive public-sector monopoly with an ossified labor contract. Like Independence, they will seek another way.
Unmoored Republicans, bashing capitalism
Jan 14, 7:13 PM

The symbol of the Republican Party is the elephant, and in popular lore, the elephant never forgets. But this year, some key GOP figures forgot things they were supposed to know.
The political party that can’t make up its mind
Jan 7, 6:01 PM

In the 2012 race for the Republican nomination, none of the GOP candidates for president has managed Ronald Reagan’s signature political feat: uniting social conservatives and economic conservatives.
Why the mayor’s school plan is a non-starter
Dec 31, 7:34 PM

The more I think about Mayor Sly James’ plan to seek control of Kansas City schools, the less sense it makes.
Obama is denigrating what he should encourage
Dec 17, 5:53 PM
So President Barack Obama will rest his re-election hopes on class warfare. After his speech last week in Osawatomie, Kan., no other conclusion is possible. The astonishing message: Achieving success and wealth in the United States is vaguely disreputable.
Will Republicans roll the dice on Gingrich?
Dec 10, 12:34 AM
Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid seemed improbable from the beginning, and in the early weeks he did his best to make it more so. One of his first decisions was to take some time off for a vacation cruise. Then he popped up on “Meet the Press” to bash the House GOP’s Medicare reform as “right-wing social engineering.”
How long will the bond market play nice?
Dec 3, 6:04 PM
Washington has laid down a bet that the market will continue to gobble up Treasuries at low rates for an entire year. If we lose the gamble, our slow-motion fiscal train wreck will start feeding on itself as interest rates rise. Mix high yields into the pile of debt we already have and the government’s credit card payments will truly balloon.
Bright spots aside, uncertainty still reigns over U.S. economy
Nov 26, 7:15 PM
Businesses adopt a cautious stance when they are uncertain about taxes, health care costs and regulatory initiatives. That may seem obvious, but the message hasn’t gotten through to the Obama administration. Unfortunately for the economy, the uncertainty fog isn’t likely to lift until after next year’s election.
The conservative anguish over Mitt Romney
Nov 11, 11:56 PM
After last week’s debate, some are calling Mitt Romney the “presumptive nominee.” Indeed, despite momentary uneasiness when a questioner brought up the personal mandate in his Massachusetts health plan, he held his own — as he has in earlier debates.
The sorry record of environmental alarmists
Nov 5, 9:42 PM
At any given moment, we’re teetering on the edge of doom. Yet in spite of one catastrophe after another, here we are — the planet’s most adaptable species, the only one capable of raising its standard of living.
The Keystone pipeline: A wedge splitting Obama’s base
Oct 29, 9:30 PM
A huge fissure is opening between two critical groups at the core of President Barack Obama’s base — organized labor and environmentalists. The wedge dividing them is the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would carry up to 900,000 barrels of oil a day from Canadian tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
‘Occupiers’ are here in KC, but they’re not sure why
Oct 15, 10:54 PM
Spontaneous movements can reshape themselves in unexpected ways, but from what I saw in Kansas City’s Penn Valley Park, it’s unlikely that the the Occupy Wall Street movement can morph into the tea party of the left.
Medicare’s rigid rules stifle innovation
Oct 8, 10:32 PM
People who cry, “Keep your hands off my Medicare,” may well succeed in blocking real reform. But that will only increase the risk that when their time comes to access the program, they can’t get access to a doctor.
Is President Obama to the left of Deng Xiaoping?
Sep 24, 10:02 PM
You’ll never unlock that capital by waging war on the wealthy. Deng Xiaoping was right. The way to build up the wealth of the nation is to encourage more people to get rich. Instead, we have a president eager to bash those who happen to succeed.
Defense cuts and the ‘Achilles heel’ of U.S. power
Aug 27, 9:03 PM
The aggressive behavior of China and Iran is especially worrisome given the prospect of severe U.S. defense cuts. In this summer’s debt-ceiling deal, Congress agreed to initial spending trims, then gave a 12-member, bipartisan “supercommittee” the job of finding $1.5 trillion more.
We are better off when risk is richly rewarded
Aug 20, 10:30 PM
This notion keeps coming back — lower the tax rate and broaden the base of taxpayers and encourage more growth. Everyone understands the logic and the need. Everyone, apparently, except the man in the White House.
Obama’s underlying problem may be insoluble
Aug 14, 12:51 AM
Within the last two weeks, the country seems to have reached a tipping point — a moment when the doubts about President Obama crystallized in the minds of many more voters than those inclined to root for Republicans. This president has begun to lose his base.
The ‘Satan sandwich’ we all face if we do nothing
Aug 6, 10:29 PM
The argument today isn’t about whether to maintain a safety net; that was settled long ago. At issue is what to do about the reality that the government is promising grossly more than we can afford to deliver.
Obama has blown another chance to seize the center
Jul 30, 10:13 PM
One of the most striking aspects of the debt-ceiling debate has been the lengths to which Democrats have gone to deny the need for change in our entitlement programs. Many refuse to accept that without reform of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, our fiscal situation cannot be stabilized.
Lower the tax rate and curb the loopholes
Jul 2, 8:26 PM
President Barack Obama says it’s time to “get it done.” Unfortunately, his remarks last week did little to encourage a deal raising the debt ceiling and cutting the deficit. Rather, he further poisoned the atmosphere.
Did Obama change his mind on missile defense?
Jun 11, 8:11 PM
In his first year in office, President Barack Obama, bending to Russian pressure and stiffing key allies, tore up plans for strategic anti-missile installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. But since then, the administration’s approach overall has been more level-headed.
U.S. economy is being suffocated by uncertainty
Jun 4, 10:21 PM
Why is this economy taking so long to get moving? This recovery is getting no help from housing, but the bigger factor is an extraordinarily high level of economic uncertainty, for which the Obama administration deserves the major share of blame.
The amazing political suicide of Newt Gingrich
May 21, 7:49 PM
The House Republicans’ decision to take on entitlements now was always a very risky gamble. But who would have predicted that the Democratic position would get its biggest boost from Newt Gingrich?
Obama should resist calls for rapid troop cuts in Afghanistan
May 14, 6:55 PM
Afghanistan is one place where President Barack Obama has lived up to his promise to govern as a wise moderate. He must now deflect pressure for a too-rapid troop drawdown.
Don’t blame ‘speculators’ for higher oil prices
Apr 30, 8:55 PM
President Barack Obama's hunt for culpable speculators and gougers won’t turn up anything of market-moving significance. It never does. If he really wants to find out what’s going on with oil prices, he would do a lot better to simply give Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a call.
The timing is right for our own arts festival
Apr 23, 9:43 PM
Why wait for the Chamber of Commerce to have more meetings? Kansas City could start working on an arts festival immediately.
The president’s obstinate approach to tax rates
Apr 16, 8:25 PM
President Barack Obama should adopt the tax-reform idea proposed by the deficit commission he appointed last year. Do that, and you’ll probably discover that when push comes to shove, a lot of Republicans will accept a tax system that brings in significantly more revenue.
Are the Democrats as serious as Paul Ryan on cutting the budget?
Apr 9, 7:44 PM
With the Democrats still holding the Senate and White House, U.S. Rep Oaul Ryan’s budget plan won’t go anywhere in the legislative process. It’s meant to shape the debate for the coming political cycle, and that’s where it has to succeed.

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