Factcheck.org: The $32,000 Question | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008

INTERNATIONAL
No End of Free Trade
12/4/2008 12:00:00 AM
Early in 2008, Democratic congressional leaders put a hold on trade deals the Bush administration had negotiated with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. In the presidential campaign that played out the rest of the year, leading Democratic candidates and the party's ultimate winner, President-elect Barack Obama, pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as part of an overall bid to restore "fair trade" principles to such deals, including greater labor and environmental protections. In the electoral season's final months, the country plunged into a financial crisis, by some indications further deepening the misgivings Americans were expressing about globalization and free trade. The mood has aroused concerns among some economists about a shift toward protectionism at a time when most economists say open markets are vital for economic revival. Some analysts, however, see an opportunity for trade advances in the new administration. They note the Democratic Party's support for the Doha multilateral trade round and say the new team of political leaders might be better positioned to reform trade policy and promote free trade.
CAMPAIGN 2008
Battleground Georgia
Suzanne Smalley 11/22/2008 12:00:00 AM
With the final balance of power in the next U.S. Senate still undecided, Democrats and Republicans have called the cavalry into Georgia, where a high-stakes runoff election is scheduled for Dec. 2. The runoff (required by state law when neither candidate garners 50 percent of the vote) has drawn some of the nation's best political operatives and spurred an ugly ground war. Democrats smell a filibusterproof majority of 60 within their grasp, and Republicans are desperate to stop it.
FACTCHECK.ORG
Peach State Piffle
Lori Robertson 11/21/2008 12:00:00 AM
* Chambliss claims in an ad that Martin would work to raise taxes on "nearly every small business in Georgia." In fact, only around 2.4 percent of small businesses nationally earn enough to be affected by the tax plan Martin favors.
CAPITOL LETTER
The Lieberman Lesson
Eleanor Clift 11/21/2008 12:00:00 AM
Lieberman lucked out. In any other election cycle, he'd be doomed. It wasn't so much that the former Democratic and now independent senator from Connecticut supported John McCain. That was forgivable. But blasting Barack Obama at the Republican convention was crossing a bridge too far, a bridge to nowhere. Right after the election, it looked like good ole Joe would be getting his pink slip as chairman of the Senate homeland-security committee. But word went out from Chicago that the president-elect was not interested in recriminations, and the lions laid down with the lambs, and Sen. Joe Lieberman was once again back in the good graces of his fellow Democrats.
FACTCHECK.ORG
Closing Arguments: Obama
Brooks Jackson 11/3/2008 12:00:00 AM
* He continued to ask voters to believe he can pay for every dime of an ambitious health care plan and other spending proposals while cutting taxes for all but the most affluent. Budget experts say that's unlikely.
COVER STORY: THE ECONOMY
A Darker Future For Us
Robert J. Samuelson 11/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
We Americans are progress junkies. We think that today should be better than yesterday and that tomorrow should be better than today. Compared with most other peoples, we place more faith in "opportunity" and "getting ahead." We may now be on the cusp of a new era that frustrates these widespread expectations. It is not just the present financial crisis and its astonishing side effects, from bank rescues to frenzied stock-market swings. The crisis coincides with a series of other challenges—an aging society, runaway health spending, global warming—that imperil economic growth. America's next president takes office facing the most daunting economic conditions in decades: certainly since Ronald Reagan and double-digit inflation, and perhaps since Franklin Roosevelt and 25 percent unemployment.