G. Tracy Mehan, III, is a former Assistant Administrator for Water at the U.S. EPA, in the Bush administration. He is a consultant in Arlington, Virginia, and an adjunct professor of law at George Mason University School of Law.
For America 2001 was annus mirabilis. And so it was for me in terms both personal and professional. The year brought a great honor in the form of my confirmation by the U.S. Senate to run the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency, pursuant to my nomination by President George W. Bush. The […]
A review of The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America & Grizzly Man Who among us has not, in a whimsical or polemical moment, deployed religious metaphors to criticize or belittle a professional or ideological adversary who does not quite see things the way one might wish? That economist at […]
The GOP presidential primary, which I continue to compare to a colorful, shape-shifting kaleidoscope, is now in overdrive, revolving at a blistering speed, with the latest Gallup poll showing Texas governor Rick Perry rocketing past all other Republican contenders. According to Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones, 29 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents nationwide say they […]
I have been flogging the kaleidoscope metaphor to describe the Republican presidential primary. Given all that is happening, or about to happen, in the pachyderm dust-up, I think it still works. Turning, turning, the GOP battle is making things very interesting in these early days of the endless campaign of 2012. Colorful and chaotic shapes, […]
This summer brought with it the recurrence of America’s fascination with all things Parisian. Actually, it is more than fascination and more like a deep romance which persists over time, only slightly diminished by the ebb and flow of diplomatic relations between the two great but, really, not so different U.S. and French republics. In […]
During the dark days of Republican profligacy, when earmarks were the rule and GOP House and Senate members routinely voted for massive discretionary spending bills (many loaded with pork and earmarks) there was one man who bucked the tide of red ink: Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona). “I believed the earmarks game was robbing us as […]
The Republican presidential primary is only getting more interesting every day. That is, it is even more kaleidoscopic than I have previously noted. Mitt Romney, who has been kicked around pretty hard for Romneycare, flip-flopping on abortion, and, now, his views on global climate change or warming, won a head-to-head poll against President Obama among […]
I faithfully listen to audiobooks as a means of coping with northern Virginia traffic. Recently, I have been engrossed by Edmund Morris’s Colonel Roosevelt (2010), which, like the first volume of his biographical trilogy, could very well earn him another Pulitzer Prize. At one point in the book, Theodore Roosevelt describes the workings of politics […]
Some people collect coins, others scan the beach with metal detectors. I enjoy trolling footnotes at the back of a book for little gems of insight or historical anecdote. I was recently rewarded for this eccentricity while reading John D. Mueller’s new book, Redeeming Economics: Rediscovering the Missing Element recently published by ISI Books. Mueller, […]
President Obama put all his cards on the table yesterday. He made his big announcement on his response to our current fiscal crisis and festering national debt. He wants to raise taxes (Quell surprise!) and will not touch any entitlement program to reduce uncontrollable spending. He has got to be kidding, right? Wrong. The President […]
House Speaker John Boehner has succeeded in making the largest cut to the bloated federal budget in American history. In this he surpasses even the great Ronald Reagan, who still deserves all honor and praise for defeating the Evil Empire and ushering in tax reform and economic dynamism in political economy. The Speaker has initiated […]
While the battle over the 2011 budget and serial CRs (continuing resolutions) has been noisy, the amount of real money actually cut and to be cut from the federal budget is modest relative to its engorgement since 2008. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, a Nobel Prize winner, a former Secretary of State, and a […]
The Democrats in the Senate have been fighting a rear guard action, trying to obstruct the House Republicans in their drive for budget reform through a series of continuing resolutions (CRs) which are necessary to keep the federal government in operation during the current fiscal year. Some $10 billion has been cut from that budget […]
Driving up to Madison, Wisconsin, on Interstate 90, from Chicago’s O’Hare airport on business last week, a colleague pointed out the Clock Tower Resort as we passed through Rockford, Illinois. This establishment was recently elevated to the status of a historic landmark by the Wisconsin Democratic senators who decamped there with the aim of blocking […]
