On Election Day, Maine holds a popular vote on whether to expand Medicaid.  No other state has done that. The expansion would cover an estimated 70,000 people who don’t have health insurance.  The decision embodies two key elements of most government actions: there’s no free lunch and nothing is decided once and for all. After […]

President Trump and some liberal college students have something important in common. They don’t like the statements made by others, whether professional football players or conservative writers, and they demand an end to such statements. The reason that Trump and the students oppose free speech, even to the point of preventing a person from speaking, […]

The public television series on the Vietnam War reveals lessons the U.S. failed to learn as it was engulfed by the struggle. Whatever its intent, the series suggests parallels with the current North Korea crisis.   A viewer comes away from the programs with impressions about what works and where to be careful. President Kennedy and […]

Have you seen a recent Budweiser commercial in which Eberhard Anheuser meets Augustus Busch and they start a beer company in St. Louis? In fact, Busch was Anheuser’s son-in-law and would eventually take over Anheuser’s brewery. The commercial implies they spoke English to one another, but they almost certainly spoke German, using their native language […]

Congress won’t ever block an increase in the debt ceiling. Threats to cap it are pure political grandstanding. Congress spends money without raising enough tax revenues to cover spending. The shortfall must be met by borrowing. If the debt ceiling increase were blocked, borrowing would be prevented. The U.S. government wouldn’t have the funds needed […]

We are about to start talking about the Vietnam War again.  Not because of events in Korea, another divided Asian country, but because filmmaker Ken Burns has produced a major series of programs on that historically divisive conflict. Many Americans are unfamiliar with this war, though its effects continue to be felt in our public […]

“Trump is exactly what Republicans are not,” former Missouri GOP Sen. John Danforth wrote recently. While that may seem extreme, the statement raises a serious issue about Trump’s relationship to the Republicans.  “GOP leaders still puzzle over President Trump,” said a Boston Globe headline. Is Trump a Republican?  He looks increasingly like an independent.  He […]

The government seems to be operating without a president.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican like President Trump, questions if his presidency can be saved. The 2016 campaign continues.  Trump attacks Republicans, Democrats, and the media.  He implies that he has no “moral” concern about Nazi and white supremacist demonstrators.  If Democrats won’t support […]

The white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. provides strong evidence of the widening division in American politics. President Trump’s reaction shows a new stage in the rightward evolution of the Republican Party, one rejected by many GOP leaders. He would not single out the far right demonstrators for responsibility, even after one of them had […]

Electric bills hide turmoil in the electric industry. Some recent events illustrate the point.  The Maine Legislature sustained Gov. LePage’s veto of solar power subsidies.  Renewable subsidies are pushing up costs.  New transmission lines are raising rates.  Major Canadian hydro projects, hoping for U.S. markets, experience runaway costs Policy decisions contribute to hidden increases in […]