Craig Gurian

The abandonment of the element of the Affordable Care Act that was designed to provide insurance against the staggering costs of long-term care, announced by the Obama administration last Friday, raises important questions about the wisdom of having a strategy of always going for a legislative "half a loaf," especially when doing so obliges you both to understate the real costs of dealing with problems and to oversell the promise and potential of your solutions.

In other words, a little from column A and a little from column B. By stubbornly resisting the possibility that one faction's prescription (even a liberal Democratic or a Tea Party Republican one) can sometimes be correct to the exclusion of all other options, formula replaces reporting.

Chrysler employees, we are given to understand, are thrilled to be working in the auto industry, even if they are forced to accept wages much lower than their colleagues. What do we learn about what this means for their lives? Nothing.

In other words, a little from column A and a little from column B. By stubbornly resisting the possibility that one faction's prescription (even a liberal Democratic or a Tea Party Republican one) can sometimes be correct to the exclusion of all other options, formula replaces reporting.

Get ready for spending cuts beyond the debt ceiling agreement. That deal only calls for spending caps, not spending floors. The regular appropriations process must be completed by Oct. 1, or else government operations shut down. The GOP will insist that those bills impose additional cuts. Any Democratic assertion of resistance will have no credibility in face of documented pattern of surrender. Oops. Turns out that costs and benefits of giving in to debt-ceiling hostage-taking were hopelessly miscalculated.

You can’t go five minutes without reading press accounts that characterize the Obama-Boehner budgetary prescription — now’s the time to start on $4 trillion in debt reduction — as “ambitious.” Is there anything less ambitious than plans to guarantee that our children and our grandchildren will live less well than we do?

Cuomo left the trigger points at which apartments are deregulated worse for tenants than they were 14 years ago, when then-Governor George Pataki first orchestrated legislative changes designed to destroy rent regulation.

However much money AARP spends, and however many town hall meetings it holds, its rationalizations for shifting position just won’t stand scrutiny. AARP isn't hopping aboard a ship that was already sailing, but rather choosing to provide critical momentum and cover to resuscitate the benefits-cutting effort.