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Restoration of explorer’s statue is gratifying

Sometimes Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. Back in 2020, during the spasm of violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, vandals in Baltimore, Maryland, tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus. They shattered the figure of the iconic explorer and tossed the pieces into the Inner Harbor, including the severed head. That seemed to bring to a decisive end a statue that had stood since 1984. This act of iconoclasm, though, has a happy ending. A replica now stands in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, courtesy of a White House committed to ...

Don’t count ballots after Election Day

This week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that hinges on the meaning of Election Day. The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, challenges a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots received long after Election Day to be counted. It's one of 14 states, including populous ones like California and New York, that allows a post-Election Day "grace period" (five business days in Mississippi but longer elsewhere) for ballots to be returned. That law is being challenged by the RNC. Taking a states' rights stance, Mississippi's defenders argue ...

Economists who got it right

Politicians say they can "make the economy work better." I once believed they could. But years of reporting taught me that politicians' attempts to "fix" the economy usually make things worse. Twenty years ago, Republicans and Democrats helped create the Great Recession by telling government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more peoples' mortgages because, as President George W. Bush put it, "Owning a home is a part of (the American) dream." But that guarantee inspired lenders to approve dubious mortgages, given to riskier borrowers. Housing prices shot up ...

Time to leave Social Security plantation

To repeat what Americans have heard a lot recently, our Social Security system is in very bad shape. Per the most recent report, in 2025, of the Social Security and Medicare board of trustees, Social Security is capable of paying out the entirety of promised benefits through 2033. After that, there is only capability of paying out 77% of promised benefits. That's seven years from now. Anyone who got a letter from their investment fund or insurance program that said "We're sorry but in another seven years we won't be able to pay out what was promised" would immediately be ...

Republicans can win on health care affordability

For most of the last 40 years, pollsters have asked voters: Which party do you trust more on health care? The answer has been pretty much the same over this whole period. Voters trust Democrats more, sometimes by a two-to-one margin. When I've asked my Republican politicos why that is, the answer I typically receive is: Our party doesn't do health care. Then they crouch in the fetal position. Well, the GOP certainly better start "doing health care," because the issue of medical care access and affordability is front and center for American families. The Republican ...

Physical, emotional toll of war

As the war with Iran has been going on for four weeks, 13 U.S. service members have been killed. Ohioans have been honoring the lives of three members of the state's Air National Guard who died in a refueling plane crash on March 12 while supporting Operation Epic Fury: Capts. Seth Koval and Curtis Angst, along with Master Sgt. Tyler Simmons, who was recently posthumously promoted to this rank. Local news stations in Columbus spent several days covering and highlighting the achievements of these young men who paid the ultimate sacrifice in serving their country. ...