International Political Will

In a land of 20 million people – in which half do not have indoor plumbing – making a difference can sometimes seem impossible. The dire consequences of poverty in Mumbai’s slums cannot truly be comprehended until you have waded through monsoon puddles and raw sewage that collect in the pot-holed streets. The slums are [...]

It’s a popular and common theme for taxpayers to lament the supposed safety net that welfare and social programs provide for America’s poor. The old advice to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and the “rags to riches” myth are embedded in American tradition. Taxpayers repeat the same tired mantras about “poor, lazy [...]

On ABC’s This Week, conservative columnist George Will blamed the financial crisis on poor black people:
“[W]e had regulation in effect…that would criminalize as racism and discrimination if you didn’t lend to nonproductive borrowers…to rig the housing market because the market would not have put people in homes they could not have afforded.”
This reason for the [...]

Both presidential candidates agree that the insurgency in Afghanistan needs to be addressed. Yet neither senator has a clue about how to go about it.
The idea of a “surge,” similar to the troop increase in Iraq (which still hasn’t returned to pre-“surge” levels) seems to be the most popular choice. But despite the [...]