Articles and Op-Eds: 2004

President Bush has put tax and social security reform high on the agenda for his second term. He's highlighted the need to increase retirement savings and called the tax code a complicated mess that hinders the economy. Another fundamental drag on long-term growth is our low personal savings rate, and the tax code doesn't help here either. But there's a simple reform to the tax system that can help millions of Americans increase their savings without changing any laws or spending a dime.

"Halo 2" is a summons to an Heroic Age -- although the identity of the new heroes may turn out to surprise us. After all, if technology is changing everything else about our lives, why shouldn't it change heroism, too? Yup, "H2" gives us a lot to think about it, making it the perfect Christmas present for a holiday season that has offered us uncheery tidings of blood, sweat and tears.

Veteran antipoverty activist Maurice Lim Miller had never met Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. So when Miller's home phone rang late one night in 2000, he was surprised to find one of America's best-known municipal leaders on the line.

Who should make policy for America? Elected officials or unelected judges?

That argument is back, only this time, the legal game has gone global -- and trillions, not billions, of dollars are at stake.

The political history of the past 35 years has seen a backlash against judicial policymaking. That is, after activist courts issued liberal-left decrees on crime, welfare, school busing, abortion and affirmative action, the nation's voters, working mostly through the Republican Party, sought to undo those diktats.