Can America solve its current fiscal crisis? The rapid mushrooming of America’s national debt, combined with the resurgence of limited government sentiment, has revived interest in a once dormant legislative prospect: a federal balanced budget amendment. To be sure, the idea of constitutional controls on government finances is nothing new. In 1936, a per-capita limitation … Read more
This summer, a powerful, organic, and populist movement emerged to combat the systemic political corruption that has plagued India for decades. The front of the movement, Anna Hazare, spearheaded an effort to pressure the Indian Parliament to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill. This proposal would establish an intermediary organization between the people and the government … Read more
The economic stagnation in America over the last four years has led many to question the effectiveness of democratic systems of government. Sluggish to respond, paralyzed by gridlock, and torn apart by partisanship, the Western democracies have shown their flaws in spades. By contrast, the past several years have seen China continue its staggering economic … Read more
In 2010, Democratic majorities became minorities in eleven state legislatures. While states like Alabama to North Carolina had long voted Republican for president and Congress, Democrats had historically maintained control over the statehouses. In 2010, all that changed. The result parallels a larger trend. State-level Republicans’ campaigns against President Obama and liberal Democrats in Congress … Read more
Poet and philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal, once said, “Avoid the democratic system of government, because the combined thinking of two hundred donkeys cannot produce the wisdom of one man.” Iqbal’s criticisms of popular Western democracies and arguments in favor of Islam in public life hold sway even today. In 1930, he proposed the creation of … Read more
This summer, a powerful, organic, and populist movement emerged to combat the systemic political corruption that has plagued India for decades. The front of the movement, Anna Hazare, spearheaded an effort to pressure the Indian Parliament to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill. This proposal would establish an intermediary organization between the people and the government … Read more
In The End of History and the Last Man, written immediately after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Francis Fukuyama argues the world was experiencing the end of “mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” Indeed, in the last two decades, many countries in Southern and Eastern … Read more
Twelve percent. That’s the portion of the country that approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. Lack of faith in its competence has led politicians, pundits, and ordinary citizens alike to claim that Congress is “broken.” Incumbents in Congress face increasingly difficult re-election bids and the … Read more
The top one percent of Americans now control 24 percent of national income, yet recent statistics from the Census Bureau suggest that more American are living in poverty than ever before. The economic disparity in the United States is the greatest it has been since 1928, and, if current trends continue, the gap between rich … Read more
As government spending across western democracies has increased to combat a three-year-old financial crisis, government debt has become the target of new fiscal scrutiny. Developed nations had enjoyed access to fairly inexpensive credit and were able to cover expenses that exceeded revenues. The European Union debt crisis, austerity measures, and the debt debate in the … Read more