This election ought to be about one issue, a referendum on health care reform....

The United States Congress is debating two important principles.

There is the idea that a strict deadline forces action. (Or, more accurately, as the science fiction writer Douglas Adams once said, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”)...

There are many ways to look at America’s shift into the Era of Contraction. Budget numbers tell part of the story. Words of elected leaders tell yet another. Add to that, the stories of real discontent told by ordinary people and reflected by both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street....

It sounds reasonable: Why not just cap federal spending? Make every agency operate with the money that’s already there. This notion has common-sense ... yet it is impossible in practice....

President Obama recently gave a speech outlining a framework for reducing the federal debt by $4 trillion over the next 12 years. There are many questions about the president’s budget plans.

But the most urgent one is: Why has he declared war on health-care innovation?...