One year after the fall of Kabul and the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan is in dire straits, and America and the broader West have yet to conduct a proper post-mortem of the policy failures there. Worse, Russia appears to have taken the US withdrawal as an invitation to launch a new war of its own.
revisits the fall of Kabul to consider its implications for America and the world, one year later.
With surging inflation and a new war in Europe, the first half of 2022 was understandably gloomy for economies and financial markets around the world. But recent developments offer some hope that the prevailing pessimism may no longer be as warranted as it was a few months ago.
gives four reasons for questioning whether economic forecasters' current pessimism is still justified.
坎布里奇—自美国平价医疗法(ACA),即“奥巴马医保”于2010年实施以来,共和党一直承诺要“取消并取代”它。2016年的总统和议会选举让美国政府的三大机关全都落入共和党之手,实现这一承诺的良机按理说已经到来。但反奥巴马医保运动却遭受重创,因为一些共和党参议员拒绝投票支持取代它的法案。
共和党将它们的失败归咎于民主党拒绝配合。但民主党为什么要帮共和党取消他们在过去十年(乃至更长时间)里所获得的最大的立法成就?奥巴马医保的最大缺陷并不是有人所谓的政策设计漏洞所造成的意外后果(因此必须用别的政策取而代之);相反,这些缺陷来自共和党的要求。
说到底,共和党拥有国会两院的多数地位,因此他们其实不需要民主党的支持就可以通过法案。类似地,总统特朗普登峰造极的缺少经验和无能也不是借口,因为他并不是取消和取代过程的必要条件。
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