Articles filed under Harrop, Froma

• Tough times for California bashers Feb 11, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: It must especially pain conservatives that sunnier economic news partly results from voters directly rejecting Republican politicians and their agenda.
  

   

• ‘Baby bust’ baloney Feb 7, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: America's alleged "baby bust" is pushing the country over "a demographic cliff." So argues Jonathan V. Last in The Wall Street Journal. Stacking one highly debatable claim on the next, Last builds a palace of hooey, in the basement of which sits a conservative agenda that's not very conservative.
  

   

• Not all smiles on immigration reform? Feb 1, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The time has rarely been riper for comprehensive immigration reform. Obama should back off trying to rush the parade to citizenship. The election is over. In the meantime, let's fill in the blanks on those so-called labor shortages. American workers belong at the table, too.
  

   

• The thinking gets better, the second term around Jan 28, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: President Obama's vow to pursue a liberal agenda in the second term is, contrary to conventional discourse, a good way to work across the aisle. The debates over health care and raising the debt ceiling got so nasty, in part, because Obama wouldn't draw lines and defend them. Republicans couldn't tell how far he'd compromise, fueling hopes on the fringes.
  

   

• More thoughts on Aaron Swartz Jan 24, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The infantilizing culture of academia has led some university wards to expect leniency when they misbehave. In any case, Swartz wasn't playing with databases. He was trying to strip them of their economic value.
  

   

• Aaron Swartz was accused of real crimes Jan 18, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: Robin Hood or John Dillinger? He was not as virtuous as Robin and hardly as bad as John. Call the computer genius saint or sinner, few will argue with labeling his suicide at age 26 a "tragic loss."
  

   

• Can Hillary Clinton pace herself? Jan 16, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: Hillary Clinton didn't have to become the spinning top that put her in a sick bed. Even there, she noted — not without pride — her difficulty in becoming a "compliant patient." If Clinton does run for president, she must show more dedication to self-preservation. Martyrs don't necessarily make great managers.
  

   

• The wrong Republicans Jan 10, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: Consumer confidence has crumbled, as Republicans insist progress can't be made except when wrestling Democrats on an outcropping over an abyss. The problem isn't Republicans, exactly, but the wrong kind of Republicans — those who won't let the good kind negotiate absent a terrifying threat to everyone's well-being.
  

   

• Left should know, Obama did goodJan 7, 2013 12:00 AM
  By Froma Harrop: President Obama did cave or compromise (pick your term) on his earlier resolve to let Bush tax cuts expire for households earning over $250,000. But by putting off dramatic cuts in spending and raising taxes only on the most cushioned Americans, Obama has avoided what made the fiscal cliff so scary — the specter of draining over $500 billion from a still-weak economy.
  

   

• Getting more for less in health care Jan 2, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: Sad, sad, sad that in talking about budget cuts, we use painful words like "extracting billions from Medicare" or "slashing the Medicare entitlement." Has it ever occurred to the gladiators that improving the quality of health care can also save money
  

   

• The politics of threat Dec 28, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The Fiscal Cliff is a phony crisis dropped on us by the politics of threat. Rather than further their goals through the normal process, so-called conservatives are using threats against the economy to get what they want.
  

   

• Real “realism” on gun control Dec 21, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: As the shock of Newtown, Conn., mellows, the new theme of gun-rights absolutists is coming together: The problem is not widely sold assault weapons with magazines capable of carrying 30 rounds. It's crazy people who get their hands on them.
  

   

• Online and in your faceDec 21, 2012 12:00 AM
  
  

   

• Crashing federal hypocrisy on pot Dec 14, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The successful ballot measures in Colorado and Washington give the Obama administration another opportunity to find its bearings and stop throwing billions down the hole of marijuana prohibition. That money could be put elsewhere, so we're told.
  

   

• Feds subsidize risk on farms as well as beaches Dec 11, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The agriculture committee leaders are proposing to add another layer of federal spending — a whole new generation of farm subsidies that pick up a larger share of the deductible on federally subsidized crop insurance. Both the House and Senate versions include three such deals, tailored to specific crops. These new revenue subsidies would add between $25 billion and $35 billion to the $90 billion.
  

   

• Meet the undressed: Newswomen on TV Dec 7, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: I'm not the first woman to be astounded by the dolls on daytime cable news, their overall impression being arms, legs and lip gloss. Why anyone would think "sex sells" on information-oriented news shows is beyond me.
  

   

• Elder lobby should back off on Medicare Dec 3, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: Like the $10,000 handbag that's become a status symbol because it costs so much, America's extravagant medical system has been sold on the notion that the more you pay, the more you get. In health care, that's not necessarily so. In some cases, the opposite is true.
  

   

• How to kill Social Security, with a smile Nov 29, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: If conservatives think rich people should pay more, they can simply let marginal tax rates (and the capital gains tax rate) rise. Complicating Social Security with more means-testing and ending the tax dedicated to keeping it afloat would kill the program
  

   

• Health coverage a ‘gift’ to ourselves Nov 25, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The whole idea of employer-sponsored health coverage is a historical oddity from the wage and price controls of World War II. Obamacare offers a step away from that irrational link.
  

   

• They led us to the cliff but can’t make us jump Nov 16, 2012 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: Many GOP leaders blame Tea Party antics for their recent electoral defeats. Now they must deal with the "fiscal cliff" and are going to need all the reality-based supporters they can get.