The refrain often thrown around now is that the Obama administration is unfriendly towards the business community.  That this complaint may be tiring to some does not make it untrue.  In September the Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is one of those charged with implementing healthcare reform, put insurance companies on notice for,

Consider what could have happened.  Had the Detroit bomber succeeded, several hundred people would have died.  If Mr.

As another semester of Left, Right or Wrong? commences, it seems that pessimism rules the day. At Cornell there are seniors uncertain about the future, and nationally there are contentious issues, ranging from financial regulation to foreign policy. How much worse can things get?

On Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that several Guantanamo detainees, including the alleged September 11th mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), and the alleged architect of the USS Cole bombing, are to be tried in federal district court. I would like to provide some food for thought regarding the decision to try these detainees in federal court rather than by military commission and point out a paradox of bringing these detainees under the “rule of law.”

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted at the end of September, only 11 percent of those polled believed that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be the number one priority of the federal government.  These numbers have changed little since then.  However, a terrorist attack in the United States or a dramatic turn of events in Operation Enduring Freedom could quickly propel the Afghan War to the forefront of Americans’ minds.

We all want to have faith in our government, in elected officials’ honesty and good intent. We want to believe in our President and in our system of government. President Obama has insisted that any health reform bill he signs will be deficit neutral and will place the nation on a more financially stable path in the long-term.

This week brought news that Iran will allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors in to the country to inspect newly revealed nuclear enrichment sites.  There are now two questions before President Obama and the world community.  The first is whether this is a sign of Iran’s willingness to cooperate with the international community or just a cat and mouse game.  The second question is what to do next.

President Obama’s decision to release internal CIA documents detailing interrogation techniques represents a fundamental contradiction in his policy towards torture and transparency. President Obama has vehemently expressed his opposition to anything that can be construed as torture (rightly so) and one of his first actions as President was to close down Guantanamo Bay. However, President Obama has decided to “move forward” by releasing these torture memos, yet maintains the same state secret arguments that President Bush utilized. President Obama cannot have it both ways.

President Obama said something very important and insightful during his address to Congress on February 24th. “We cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment,” was the President’s advice on how Congress and his administration should proceed with stabilizing the financial system. The moral hazard involved in bailing out institutions deemed “too big to fail” is well documented, but the costs of allowing some financial institutions to fail is greater than the costs of using taxpayer dollars to stabilize these institutions. Both the administration and Congress must be wary of growing populist sentiment, because there will inevitably be more money needed to solve the financial crisis.

The election of President Obama and the new Democratic majority in Congress was a sign that the people of the United States wanted sweeping change and a new course for the nation. The federal government has certainly seized on this mandate and has quickly passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, while the House has passed a bill to retroactively tax bonuses received by employees of TARP recipient firms. Some have argued that this shows the government’s ability to now enact reform efficiently and effectively. However, Congress has been acting indiscriminately in wielding power.