A Budget to Reject

Over at National Review Online I have a column on why the Republican Party should not accept the president’s 2014 budget plan. The president has repeated over and over again the slogan that a budget plan needs to be “balanced,” by which he means the spending cuts must be matched with comparable tax hikes. His own budget...

The President’s Budget Is No Move Toward the Center

Over at the US News Debate Club blog I have a post arguing that the administration’s 2014 budget proposal is not the compromise that the president and his supporters are trying to sell it as. To sum it up, the president’s 2014 budget would result in massive tax and debt increases over the next decade, with no serious...

Federal Grant Funding is Key to Medicaid Reform in Texas

Arlene Wohlgemuth and I have an op-ed in this weekend’s edition of the Houston Chronicle on why federal block grants are the right way forward for Medicaid reform in Texas. On both the acute and long-term care side of Medicaid, the program suffers from the same problems as the broader health system. Third-party insurance – in...

It’s Time to Delay Obamacare

Over at the AEI Ideas blog my colleague Yuval Levin and I make the case that both supporters and opponents of Obamacare should agree to delay the implementation of the major provisions of the law that are now scheduled for 2014. Everyone should now understand that, if there is not a delay, next year will be the scene of an epic...

Recasting Conservative Economics

In the Spring issue of National Affairs I have an essay on what Republicans need to say about the economic issues that matter most to American voters. Normally, political candidates and parties are far better off looking forward, not backward. But the two cannot really be separated, and Republicans need to improve their economic message...

End Medicaid’s Crony Federalism

Over at National Review Online I have a column on why Republican governors should resist the Obama administration’s Medicaid expansion, and instead seek real legislative Medicaid reform. The GOP governors engaged in these direct negotiations with the White House are playing a loser’s game, and throwing away a historic...

More on Medicaid Reform in Texas

In December last year, the Texas Public Policy Foundation released a report that I co-authored with colleagues from Leavitt Partners.  The report focused on how the state of Texas should reform the long-term care components of the program to stay within the confines of a fixed Medicaid budget, such as would be the case with a block...

Saving Seniors and Our Most Vulnerable Citizens from an Entitlement Crisis

Earlier this week I was invited to give testimony before a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing on “Saving Seniors and Our Most Vulnerable Citizens from an Entitlement Crisis.” A video of the entire hearing is available here (with my testimony beginning around at around 20:30), and you can read my...

To Save Medicare, Change the Model

 I have a column in USA Today on Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare on the model of the Medicare prescription drug plan. Without reform, the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will be depleted of reserves in 2024. An insolvent Medicare is unfair to younger Americans who will need the program just as much as their parents...

Obama’s Sequester Scare Tactics

Tevi Troy and I have a new column at National Review Online on how President Obama has ignored sensible strategies for limiting the impact of the budget sequestration, opting instead to create a politically advantageous panic over the impending cuts. It seems clear that the administration has the capacity to make sequestration’s...