Kansas City Star: E. Thomas McClanahan

Running as a Mr. Fix-It isn't enough

Sat, 19 May 2012 05:00 CDT

Mitt Romney is in no position to assume it will be clear sailing to November. He must continue to hone his message.

The 'Life of Julia,' or life without aspiration

Sat, 12 May 2012 16:00 CDT

The Obama campaign's "Life of Julia" website reveals much about its originators and the man on whose behalf it was created. Here we see the sterile vision of a certain kind of hard-left liberal, who apparently views the American citizen as a submissive, isolated entity -- docile and disconnected from extended family or the web of groups and associations that make up a healthy civil society.

Even on Wall Street, cluelessness isn't a crime

Sat, 05 May 2012 16:00 CDT

Most Americans still carry the sour feeling that those responsible for the panic of 2008 are still walking free. Yet that feeling is a bit misplaced. It leaves out the much more significant government role.

Romney has a chance, but he must make the sale

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:00 CDT

Mitt Romney wouldn't be the ideal presidential candidate in any Republican scenario. Yet this flawed candidate has a real chance, as a closer look at last week's ABC/Washington Post poll will illustrate. If Romney can keep the focus on Barack Obama's record and offer a clearly articulated economic and fiscal program, he has a very good chance of unseating this president.

Supreme Court should give Congress a do-over on health care reform

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 06:00 CDT

Obamacare seems a dead end, entitlement liberalism's "bridge too far" -- a flawed attempt to impose central planning on an enormously complicated economic sector. If it's not invalidated by the court or repealed by Congress, the law will collapse of its own weight, brought down by its exorbitant cost and persistent unpopularity. Here's hoping the Supreme Court lets Congress have a do-over.

Let the wind-power tax credit expire

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:00 CDT

Like a sick patient dependent on perpetual transfusions, wind power is never likely to become competitive -- especially in an era of falling natural gas prices. Gas is a much more cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to produce electricity.

In Afghanistan, it's time to cut our losses

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:00 CDT

After so many years with so little progress, "the point of diminishing returns" is an apt description of where we stand today, especially after the disastrous events of recent weeks.

If they can do this, what can they not do?

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:00 CST

The White House has needlessly bought itself a great deal of trouble and a likely Supreme Court caseover insurance coverage for birth control. As with so much that this administration has done, the latest debate again prompts the question: If they can do this, what can they not do?

This plan is a 'reverse enterprise zone'

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:00 CST

One of the ideas promoted by the late Jack Kemp was the enterprise zone: Draw a boundary around a declining part of a city and cut the taxes. Within the zone, you would improve your chances of drawing in more investment, people and jobs.

Santorum takes his turn as the non-Romney

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:00 CST

Last week, The Star's Editorial Board was visited by economist Art Laffer -- yes, he of the famous Laffer curve. Most of the meeting dealt with topics other than national politics, but toward the end I asked him whether he thought President Barack Obama would be re-elected.

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

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:00 CST

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.

An absurd charade on corporate taxes

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:00 CST

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

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:00 CST

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

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:00 CST

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

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:00 CST

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

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:00 CST

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

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:52 CST

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?

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00 CST

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?

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 05:00 CST

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

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 05:00 CST

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

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:00 CST

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

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:15 CDT

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

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:15 CDT

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

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 22:15 CDT

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

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 22:15 CDT

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?

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 22:15 CDT

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

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:15 CDT

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

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 22:15 CDT

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

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:15 CDT

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

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 22:15 CDT

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.