Robert Samuelson

The economic case for a tax cut seems compelling. The U.S. economy is unwinding from an unstable boom. "Animal spirits"--the immortal phrase of economist John Maynard Keynes--took hold. Consumers overborrowed...

President Bush's education crusade faces long odds. The United States has 90,000 public schools with 2.9 million teachers and almost 50 million students. Local control is strong, and federal money...

Lawrence Summers, the outgoing treasury secretary, is fond of saying that the world economy cannot fly forever on only one engine. Well, we're about to see what happens next. Since...

You can probably find a copy of "Middletown" at any good public library. It is an American classic, though hardly remembered these days--the intensive study of an ordinary city (Muncie,...

No self-respecting screenwriter would have submitted this election script. It is too contrived. The antagonists (George W. Bush, Al Gore and their lackeys) are too self-absorbed. There are no heroes....

All in all, the election turned out well for Bill Clinton. Hillary won; her defeat would have been a personal repudiation. Al Gore apparently won the popular vote; this, too,...

The violence in Israel and the West Bank--however it turns out--has provided a sobering tutorial in the vulnerabilities of the global economy. The enthusiasm for "globalization" overlooked the disturbing possibility...

Few industries have suffered more from success--at least in lost public esteem--than the drug industry. We have become a pill-happy society, expecting a capsule for everything from heart disease to...

Dear Kids, I know you don't read my columns, and that's OK. At 10, 13 and 15, you're a little young for my serious stuff. You'd find most of it...

The future of American politics has quietly arrived in Washington, but the custodians of the conventional wisdom--the press and hordes of commentators--haven't noticed. Their attention remains riveted on the presidential...