We begin today’s roundup with Matthew A. Winkler at Bloomberg who analyzes President Obama’s economy (click through for the charts):
When President Barack Obama was elected in November 2008, the U.S. economy was shrinking at a rate unmatched since World War II. In the seven years between then and his final State of the Union address Tuesday night, global investors have enjoyed stellar results from the rapidly expanding Obama economy. [...] Obama's critics are correct to point out that the expansion has been halting and uneven, accompanied by rising inequality, anemic wage growth and underemployment. Growth has been slower than after many previous recessions. It's significant, though, that the three best-performing industries since March 2009 are consumer discretionary, financial and technology, showing that Americans are borrowing again and have enough spare cash to make Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Facebook, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, Walt Disney and Wells Fargo winning investments. [...]
American companies, helped in part by the strongest dollar and the weakest oil prices since the 1990s, were more active as acquirers and sellers of each other in 2015 than at any point during the past decade; $3.2 trillion changed hands, the most mergers and acquisitions since at least 2003, when Bloomberg began compiling such data. At the same time, there were only $33.8 billion of initial public offerings pending, priced or trading last year, the lowest amount since 2009. That may be a sign of untapped potential. If so, the Obama rebound isn't over just yet.
Peter Baker at The New York Times, meanwhile, dives deep into foreign policy and national security:
Here is what he probably will not say, at least not this bluntly: Americans are more likely to die in a car crash, drown in a bathtub or be struck by lightning than be killed by a terrorist. The news media is complicit in inflating the sense of danger. The Islamic State does not pose an existential threat to the United States.
He will presumably not say this, either: Given how hard it is for intelligence and law enforcement agencies to detect people who have become radicalized, like those who opened fire at a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif., a certain number of relatively low-level terrorist attacks may be inevitable, and Americans may have to learn to adapt the way Israel has.
Jill Lawrence at USA Today writes about health insurance and the fact that it would be nearly impossible for a Republican president to undo President Obama’s Affordable Care Act legacy:
The politics of the Affordable Care Act are changing, as even the newly elected Tea Party governor of Kentucky has acknowledged. Polling on the ACA, or Obamacare, reveals as much public division and ambivalence as ever toward the complicated health law. But it is beginning to reach a critical mass of users and people who know them — and that is the key to survival. [...]
Obviously, not everyone likes or wants Obamacare insurance, and some who have it may not even realize it. The high costs and shrinking choices faced by some people are real. But the fact is that many millions now have insurance because of the law. They are people all of us know: Our children and siblings and parents, our neighbors and colleagues and friends, those who are dealing with illness or job loss and would be uninsured but for the law that everyone loves to complain about.
Jay Bookman at The Atlanta Journal Constitution, meanwhile, uses his extensive experience in land use journalism to provide this take on the armed takeover of a federal building in Oregon:
I hope this ends without bloodshed, but also without compromising the rule of law. Because let’s be clear about what is going on: Bundy and his followers are attempting to win through the use of guns and implied violence what they could not and will not win through the rule of law. For that reason, those who give them support in that cause in any way are playing a very dangerous game. [...] Cliven Bundy’s success in facing down the federal government two years ago in an armed confrontation — no one was arrested or charged, and Bundy continues to illegally graze his cattle on federal property, in defiance of court rulings — has undoubtedly given encouragement to this latest outburst. If these armed protesters also walk away and face no consequences, you have to believe that the movement that they hope to lead will become more emboldened still.
Turning to the GOP field, Catherine Ramped at The Washington Post explains why Jeb Bush’s welfare reform plan will plunge countless of families deeper into poverty:
Last Friday, Bush unveiled his grand welfare reform plan. He promises it will reduce waste, fraud and abuse while simultaneously empowering millions of poor people to stop being poor.
His magic formula: completely destroy established anti-poverty programs such as food stamps, cash welfare payments, rent subsidies and public housing. He’d then replace them all with “Right to Rise” grants (yes, named after his super PAC). These would be lump sums of federal money that states could apply for, assuming states would even be willing to create entirely new social safety nets out of whole cloth. [...]
In reality, block-granting is just a way federal politicians can strip poor people of much-needed services without actually taking the blame for the resulting suffering.
On the topic of gun violence, which is sure to take center stage at the President’s State of the Union, Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sabrina Fulton, endorses Hillary Clinton:
I know Clinton is tough enough to wage this fight. I've seen her do it for years. As first lady, she advocated for the Brady Bill and convened meetings on school violence. As a senator, she voted to extend the assault weapons ban and against an immunity law that protects irresponsible gun makers and dealers from liability.
In spending some time with her in person, I also found a mother and a grandmother who truly heard me, and understood the depth of my loss.
At The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson warns Democrats not to underestimate the appeal of Donald Trump:
The important thing is that Trump, by being transgressive in the way he speaks, gives listeners the license to be transgressive in the way they think. When he rails against “political correctness,” he’s talking about the manners and courtesies that many of us would call being “civil.” But his in-your-face bullying strikes a chord with the large segment of the Republican electorate that is tired of being polite: lower-middle-class, non-college-educated white voters who have not prospered over the past two decades and see demographic change as a threat. [...]
How disgusted is the country with traditional politics and politicians? Democrats had better explore that question — or be surprised by the answer.
Finally, we turn to the very important topic of public unions under attack. The Los Angeles Times examines the latest case before the Supreme Court and argues in favor of preserving mandatory fees for employees who benefit from a union’s collective bargaining:
Essentially the plaintiffs are arguing that requiring them to pay a fee to support collective bargaining on their behalf is a form of unconstitutional “compelled speech” about political matters. In their brief, they say that “it is difficult to imagine more politically charged issues than how much money local governments should devote to public employees, or what policies public schools should adopt to best educate children.”
This is an ingenious but unconvincing argument. As state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris points out, it ignores the Supreme Court's “longstanding recognition that constitutional analysis differs when the government acts as employer, rather than regulator.” [...]
The vastly more important issue in this case is whether the Supreme Court will undermine the ability of unions to effectively represent all of their workers at the bargaining table. The court should refuse to do so and reaffirm the Abood decision.
Dana Milbank also looks at the case and says that all the First Amendment rhetoric is really just window dressing for a continued attack on the political power of unions in this country:
The court’s conservative majority, setting aside a professed respect for precedent and states’ authority, is putting a thumb on the scale of justice in favor of the wealthy donors who have purchased the GOP and much of the government. [...]
Lawyer Michael Carvin, leading the anti-union side Monday, gave further justification for that impression. In front of the justices, he dismissed the notion “that anything could happen adversely” to unions as a result of the case. But then he went out to the Supreme Court plaza and, in front of a cheering crowd, told the truth: “It may limit their revenue somewhat, but of course they can compensate for that by being less involved in things like politics.”
And that’s exactly the goal.
Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, defends teacher’s unions and the positive effect they have on our education system:
Teachers unions are strong champions of American public schooling, which undergirds our democracy. The 19th-century educator Horace Mann, who advocated fiercely for the common school system that became America’s experiment with public education, made this point metaphorically: “A republican form of government, without intelligence in the people, must be, on a vast scale, what a mad-house, without superintendent or keepers, would be on a small one.” While some critics claim teachers unions have a detrimental effect on academic achievement, careful studies actually find higher achievement in states with strong teachers unions.
With the Supreme Court split, unions cling to a thin hope that one of the conservative justices will resist partisan pressure to tilt the political playing field against Democrats. I hope they’re right. Unions aren’t faultless, but they are a crucial source of stability and strength for our democracy.