Here are today's must read opinion and editorial columns.
LIBYA AND THE WAR POWERS ACT EDITORIALNEW YORK TIMESThese are the same folks eager to play chicken with the debt limit ... Would they really cut off American support to the NATO mission in Libya, even if it risks bringing the alliance crashing down? We shudder to think. Partisan brinkmanship or not, Mr. Obama doesn’t have a choice. He needs to go to Congress and make his case. Congress then needs to authorize continued American support for NATO’s air campaign over Libya.
CALL OFF THE GLOBAL DRUG WAR BY JIMMY CARTERNEW YORK TIMESA few years ago I worked side by side for four months with a group of prison inmates, who were learning the building trade, to renovate some public buildings in my hometown of Plains, Ga. They were intelligent and dedicated young men ... and would have been better off in college or trade school. To help such men remain valuable members of society, and to make drug policies more humane and more effective, the American government should support and enact the reforms laid out by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
ANTHONY WEINER RESIGNS EDITORIALNEW YORK TIMESHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t immediately take away Representative Charles Rangel’s chairmanship of the tax-writing committee after allegations of misuse of campaign donations and tax evasion that eventually led to his censure. We would like to think lawmakers have learned something from those episodes. We fear it was just that Mr. Weiner’s offenses were particularly tabloid-worthy, his abrasive manner never won him many friends and the Democrats worried about losing his seat.
COMING SOON: A BIGGER, COSTLIER OBAMACARE BY RON JOHNSON & DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKINWASHINGTON POSTOnce they are established, the costs of entitlement programs tend to spiral out of control. At a time when our nation is being crushed under a mountain of debt, it’s dangerous to bet that Obamacare will reverse the trend. That’s especially true when you consider the danger that the exchanges will experience far higher utilization than the Obama administration has budgeted.
OBAMA'S DILEMMA ON THE DEBT-LIMIT TALKS BY MICHAEL GERSONWASHINGTON POSTObama’s largest challenge, however, is that his economic problem may be moving beyond solution. The immediate, real-world effects of a budget deal would be positive but limited. It would address some worries and have some stimulative effect. But economic liberals are correct that a stimulus large enough to significantly reduce unemployment would require hundreds of billions of dollars over the next year. And this would undo the deficit reductions contained in the rest of a package.
REPUBLICANS RETURN TO REALITY BY PEGGY NOONANWALL STREET JOURNALThe problem with Afghanistan, and Iraq for that matter, is not only that after 10 years our efforts have turned out of be—polite word—inconclusive. We are spending money we don't have for aims we cannot even articulate.
AN ETHANOL MIRACLE EDITORIALWALL STREET JOURNALWashington's spending and debt habits have put the country on a road to ruin, but one benefit is that the crisis is forcing the political class to finally prioritize among its boondoggles. We don't want to sound too optimistic, but if we were ethanol lobbyists, we'd be updating our resumes and sending them to the electric car lobby, just to be safe.