The University of Texas at Austin

Barack Obama’s presidency began in hope and goodwill, but its test will be its success or failure on the economics. Did the president and his team correctly diagnose the problem? Did they act with sufficient imagination and force? And did they prevail against the political obstacles—and not only that, but also against the procedures and the habits of thought to which official Washington is addicted?

At upcoming events in Austin and College Station, we will celebrate Texas Space Week. Attendees will be able to experience a little of the wonder and amazement I felt during my tenure as director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

As soon as former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination to be secretary of health and human services amid tax troubles three weeks ago, the chattering classes began handicapping the candidates for the newly vacant Cabinet seat.

Rauchway's book is an exceptionally valuable pocket summary of the major actions of the New Deal. It solves a big problem for those with small pockets: how to keep enough facts at close hand to answer, with authority, all the anti-Roosevelt nonsense and disinformation in circulation these days.

Twelve years ago, President Bill Clinton signed a law that he correctly proclaimed would end "welfare as we know it." That sweeping legislation, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, eliminated the open-ended entitlement that had existed since 1965, replacing it with a finite, block grant approach called the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program.

Zakaria, long-time editor of Newsweek International and host of a Sunday talk show on CNN, delves into a trend that many Americans sense but do not fully comprehend: Industrial, financial, educational, social and cultural power is shifting away from the United States.

Though it pains me to say this, back in 1981 Ronald Reagan got it right. He got Congress to pass a massively excessive tax cut – and then spent five years taking it back. Spurred by stimulus, the economy recovered. And no one remembers those tax hikes now.

President Barack Obama (how sweet those words) has already transformed American politics. The gop is in crack-up. Obama's coattails in Congress give him leverage, and his vast public support gives him power. There is an economic crisis and a demand for action to deal with it. More than at any time since Ronald Reagan in 1981, what the president wants, he will get.

Economic recession, terrorism, the war in Iraq, global climate change. These topics are part of the lexicon of the presidential campaigns and litter the top of opinion polls as the issues most important to voters. We want our candidates to offer compelling solutions to these vexing problems.

In the years after the War of 1812, Americans saw vindication of their own struggle for political liberty in events overseas. Countries across South America had claimed their independence from Spain, and Greeks were rising up against Ottoman tyranny. It only seemed natural for Americans to lend support to their fellow patriots in arms.

New presidents have no honeymoon when it comes to foreign policy. Less than three months into his presidency, for example, John F. Kennedy authorized the disastrous effort to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs. More recently, George W. Bush had been in office for less than eight months when he was faced with the attacks of September 11. How should an incoming president prepare for the foreign policy challenges that lie immediately ahead? That’s the question Kurt Campbell and James Steinberg tackle in this compelling book.

Barack Obama touched off a firestorm when he referred to the Republican ticket's economic proposal as an attempt to "put lipstick on a pig." After Sarah Palin's convention-speech joke about lipstick being the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull, many interpreted the comment as an insulting reference to the vice presidential candidate. Instead of recognizing that comments are always contextualized, Obama tried to parse the logic as a law professor. It couldn't be an insult, he reasoned, because a literal interpretation of the metaphor would cast McCain as the pig. "She's the lipstick," he concluded.

The process of transferring power from a sitting U.S. president to a president-elect is one of the most distinctive and perilous features of the American constitutional system—a time of great hope and optimism, but also one of great risk. From the earliest days of the Cold War, how the old and new leaders have navigated this strait has literally been a matter of survival for the United States and for the stability and prosperity of the entire world. The end of the Cold War has changed the nature of the dangers, but in many ways the two-and-a-half-month transition that will take place at the end of this year poses even greater challenges than in the past. These 72 days are fraught with suspense, tension, promise, and risk as a new team of foreign policy players confronts the arduous challenges of managing the interregnum.

The party conventions that begin this week have long been disparaged as having devolved into four-day stage-managed advertisements for the nominees. With the nomination long decided and the running mate announced before the first gavel, there's virtually no drama.

The 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival was held from June 30th to July 6, 2008 in Aspen Colorado and LBJ School Dean James B. Steinberg was there contributing his vision for a 21st century American foreign policy.

Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy, by Amitai Etzioni, offers a promising effort to transcend the sterile debate between realism and idealism in U.S. foreign policy by arguing that the pursuit of security is a precondition to the longerterm objective of promoting democracy and human rights. Although conceptually appealing as a way to prioritize among potentially competing objectives, the book struggles with thorny problems of implementation that plague real world policy makers, including how to deal with the nuclear threats posed by North Korea and Iran, how to improve counterterrorism cooperation by ambivalent partners like Pakistan and when to intervene in the case of failed states.

The next President will take office at an extraordinarily delicate and dangerous time in American history. He or she will face an ongoing conflict in Iraq with US troops still engaged, our ground forces over-extended, and few good options on how to stabilize the situation there and prevent wider conflict. There remain active nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea which threaten to destabilize their regions and undermine the global non-proliferation regime. Our nation faces a continued high level terrorist threat, fueled by the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, and social, cultural and religious divisions from Europe to South East Asia.

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Americans witnessed what looked like an overseas humanitarian-relief operation. The storm destroyed much of the city, causing more than $80 billion in damage, killing more than 1,800 people, and displacing in excess of 270,000. The country suddenly had to divert its attention and military resources to respond to a domestic emergency. While scientists do not attribute single events to global warming, the storm gave Americans a visual image of what climate change -- which scientists believe will likely exacerbate the severity and number of extreme weather events -- might mean for the future.

The next President will take office at an extraordinarily delicate and dangerous time in American history. He or she will face an ongoing conflict in Iraq with US troops still engaged, our ground forces over-extended, and few good options on how to stabilize the situation there and prevent wider conflict. There remain active nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea which threaten to destabilize their regions and undermine the global non-proliferation regime. Our nation faces a continued high level terrorist threat, fueled by the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, and social, cultural and religious divisions from Europe to South East Asia.

For nearly two decades, Japan has been grappling with the challenge of defining its role in a face of a changing and dynamic world. Since the twin shocks of the end of the Cold War and the 1991 Gulf War, the fundamental underpinnings of Japanese post World War II national security strategy have crumbled. Despite this long passage of time, a new template has not fully emerged.

Today marks the beginning of a historic transformation of television in the United States. But most Americans aren't aware of this — or don't understand the significance of what begins today. After 20 years of development and several delays imposed by a skittish Congress, the United States is launching a yearlong transition to digital television.

Tomorrow Congress will attempt to override President Bush’s veto of the Children’s Health Insurance Program reauthorization. He vetoed the bill in December because “it moves our country’s health care system in the wrong direction.” House minority leader Boehner concurred: “This has become a partisan political game.”

You will take office at a challenging time. U.S. troops are still deployed in an unpopular war in Iraq. Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Emerging powers, especially China and India, are demanding a greater say in world affairs. U.S. allies resent America's propensity for acting unilaterally, yet also fear it will withdraw from global leadership.

he Ibar River is the most hostile frontier in all of contemporary Europe. When I visited in 2005, soldiers, armored personal carriers and barriers controlled the main crossing, a bridge between the southern and northern halves of the city of Mitrovica. On a trip this past summer, undercover militias on the north side (known as “bridge watchers”) continued to monitor all who passed. Most civilians from either side would not be caught dead on the other. When I mistakenly used a few words of the other side’s language in north Mitrovica, my handlers hushed me in panic, fearing that we would arouse suspicion.

The Nov. 27 editorial "Desperate Somalia" rewrote history by stating: "A year ago there was hope that Somalia could be stabilized for the first time since 1991, after Ethiopian troops routed the forces of the Islamic Courts movement."...

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today for this timely and important discussion on the security challenges facing France and her key partners. We meet at a time of great uncertainty and change.

The importance of this election in shaping US national security is not simply a function of the intensity of the debate over the future of the US role in Iraq. Rather, it comes from a convergence of factors, both domestic and international, that promise to make this election a watershed.

In modern history, only a few Presidential elections have focused on national security issues ? 1968 and 1972, at the height of the Vietnam War, and 1952, in the middle of the Korean War come to mind. Unlike those earlier elections the focus this time will not be primarily on Asia, but rather on the Middle East and the US approach to its global role and responsibilities. But though the election debate is unlikely to focus directly on the issues which are paramount to the mind of this audience, they will have broad ramifications for US grand strategy for years to come, and therefore will have an important impact on our bilateral relationships in Southeast Asia, and throughout Asia as whole.

Dr. Jeanne Lambrew, former senior health analyst at the National Economic Council under President Clinton, associate professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, discussed Hillary Clinton's health care Speech on the Brian Lehrer Show on New York Public Radio.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning. This is a very timely moment to discuss the core challenges facing the United States as we move toward an election year in which foreign policy and national security promise to play central roles in the choices facing American voters.

No foreign policy decision since America’s retreat into isolationism in the 1930s has done more to harm American and global security than the Iraq war. The invasion and incompetently executed occupation have devastated Iraq and unleashed a civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. Iraq has become a recruiting cause and training ground for a new generation of terrorists—young men bent on the suicidal destruction of Americans and Iraqis alike. The balance of power within the Middle East has shifted dramatically in favor of the most radical and extremist elements in the region—led by a newly confident Iran. But what has made the war a blunder of truly historic proportions is that it has cost America the trust of its friends and allies around the world—a trust that since 1945 has been instrumental in translating America’s economic and military power into global influence and leadership.

United States Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, recently reported to congressional leaders on the progress of U.S. troops in Iraq. Today, on NPR's program Tell me More, LBJ School professor Edwin Dorn along with Iraq war veteran Spc. Dexter Pitts, share their reaction to the reports and the direction in Iraq.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. This is very timely moment to discuss the core challenges facing the United States as we move toward an election year in which foreign policy and national security promise to play a central role in the choices facing American voters. In modern history, only a few Presidential elections have focused on national security issues — 1968 and 1972, at the height of the Vietnam War, and 1952, in the middle of the Korean War come to mind. Unlike those earlier elections, the focus this time will not be primarily on East Asia, but rather on the Middle East and the US approach to its global role and responsibilities. But though the election debate is unlikely to focus directly on the issues which are paramount to the mind of this audience, they will have broad ramifications for this region, and are likely to have an impact on US grand strategy for years to come.

The dramatic changes in the international environment since the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 terrorist attacks have ushered in a world with dramatically altered dangers and opportunities for the United States, Japan and Taiwan. The collaboration among the three partners had it roots in the Cold War confrontation with Communism, but now must adapt to this new environment. In this era, the need for international cooperation has grown as the challenges ? ranging from terrorism, to global economic stability, to public health and the environment ? have multiplied, but the mechanisms to address them have not kept pace with these challenges. Moreover, the economic, political and security equilibrium in East Asia will be profoundly affected by the path that China takes over the coming years, both in its internal developments and its external policies.

Providing all Americans with health coverage is a health, economic and moral imperative. But insurance alone is insufficient to tackle our chronic and preventable disease epidemic. Obesity threatens to reduce the life expectancy of our children. About 75% of both deaths and dollars are associated with chronic disease. And, vaccines that can prevent diseases like flu and cancer are underused.

In April 2007, the United Nations Security Council—led by the UK government—held its first ever debate on the potential impact of climate change on peace and security. It was but one of several efforts this year that illustrate that the world is finally looking at climate change as a security concern. But how can we convert this new-found interest into action? If little has been done to restrain greenhouse gas emissions, even less has been done to minimize the security consequences of climate change. That must change.

Today, professor William Livingston will begin his retirement from the University of Texas. Bill served UT in many ways during his 58 years on the Forty Acres: as teacher, scholar, dean, interim president, senior vice president and the mellifluous voice of TEX, the university's computerized online registration process. For me, however, Bill's most important role was that of grammarian. When I was a UT undergraduate in the 1960s, he was the only professor who took the time to point out the misused words, split infinitives, trite phrases and other bad writing habits that I had brought with me from high school.

Twice in the early 1990s, the international community prematurely supported the independence of a former Yugoslav territory before addressing the concerns of its Serb minority. In both cases, Croatia and Bosnia, this failure triggered a bloody ethnic war between secessionists and fearful local Serbs, who perpetrated inexcusable war crimes. Fighting ended only when Serbs were either granted autonomous regions and police forces to patrol them, or when they were ethnically cleansed from the territory.

Thucydides observed that “History is Philosophy teaching by examples.” Ever since his time, political theorists have studied history to seek enduring truths about the nature of man in society, and about the forces governing relations between nations. Invariably, the search for meaning in the past has shaped the preoccupations and controversies of the present. Each generation brings to the study of history its own dominant questions and concerns, and seeks support in dusty archives for positions that will inform and shape contemporary debates.

The long-term benefits of a Bush library in Dallas are being deftly overshadowed by short-term ideological arguments and an overall misunderstanding of the role of presidential libraries. Presidential libraries benefit not only their host universities but also the broader public policy debate. They offer a wonderful forum for debate and discussion, often with little regard to their namesake.

While the battle for immigration reform heats up again in the United States, Mexico's President Felipe Calderón has been busy fighting drug wars by sending the military into cartel havens and extraditing the most notorious offenders to the United States. Meanwhile, he has left a crisis that touches the daily lives of all Mexicans to stew on its own.

The primary goal of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 was to transition mothers from welfare dependence toward employment; an implicit assumption of the policy-makers was that this transition would increase maternal resources and thus improve children's well-being. PRWORA ended poor mothers' long-standing entitlement to welfare benefits under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which critics argued discouraged employment (Mead, 1992), encouraged nonmarital childbearing (Murray, 1984), and generally provided a disservice to the mothers and children it served. AFDC was replaced by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which mandates that mothers meet work requirements in order to receive benefits and limits lifetime welfare benefits to a maximum of five years.

There is a relationship between societies that aren't free and genocide, but it's not exactly the relationship one might assume. The common wisdom is based on our knowledge of the Holocaust, which we think of as the prototypical case of genocide. We think that an oppressive state begins to discriminate against people, and then this discrimination escalates into an annihilation campaign of genocide. The Holocaust is the case we know best, so we think that must be what's happening in all these other cases, whether Rwanda or Darfur.

Assistant Professor Dr. Cynthia Osborne attended the conference "Ten Years After: Evaluating the Long-Term Effects of Welfare Reform on Children, Families, Welfare, and Work." The conference was sponsored by the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, one of the regional poverty centers funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Researchers and policy makers have long been concerned that government policies may influence individual behavior in unintended ways. In particular, they worry that by providing mothers with an income that is independent of marriage, welfare and child support policies may discourage marriage and increase union dissolution.

Asking Americans to forgo their lime-topped Coronas on Cinco de Mayo is about as popular as asking them to refuse ale on St. Patrick's Day, never mind that the U.S. version of the "Fifth of May" is barely recognizable to our Southern neighbors. The odds are good that most American cantina-goers are raising their bottles in recognition of a day they know little about.

The fact that "everyone else is doing it" does not make advancing the Texas primary election to early February a good idea. Having run for the Texas Legislature as an unknown in 1990, I can tell you that a March primary is hard enough, and an early February primary only would compound the problems.

When President Powers asked me to be the Honors Day speaker, I was, of course, flattered but a little puzzled. I went home and wracked my brain to discern why he would select me. After all, I'm a recent transplant to UT who grew up in the cold austere climes of New England. At first I thought—how clever—he's picked a graduate school Dean so none of the schools represented here would feel that they were being discriminated against. But then it dawned on me—the Boston-Austin connection.

Many Americans have lost confidence in their country's "energy security" over the past several years. Because the United States is a net oil importer, and a substantial one at that, concerns about energy security naturally raise foreign policy questions. Some foreign policy analysts fear that dwindling global oil reserves are increasingly concentrated in politically unstable regions, and they call for increased U.S. efforts to stabilize—or, alternatively, democratize—the politically tumultuous oil-producing regions.

Neither President Bush's surge of troops, nor the withdrawal deadline Congress is expected to send to him after the Easter recess, has any hope of stabilizing Iraq. So it is time to contemplate a more radical option: Switch our allegiance from that country's Shiite-controlled government to its moderate Sunni minority, on condition they help us wipe out Sunni extremists in Iraq, including al-Qaeda.

The Iraq war has America's foreign policy mavens waxing nostalgic. Partisans of the elder George Bush long for the days when realism and caution reigned in the White House. Bill Clinton's fans fondly recall an era when presidential trips overseas drew admiring crowds rather than angry protesters. U.S. foreign policy, it would seem, should go forward by going backward. Zbigniew Brzezinski will have none of that. In his engaging and briskly argued new book, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser sees little worth emulating in the past 15 years of U.S. foreign policy.

The scandal engulfing the Texas Youth Commission has provoked governmental responses that involve temporary investigative measures—which one state lawmaker labeled "a one-time deal for this set of special circumstances." Notably absent from these responses is any recognition that independent oversight is fundamental in dealing with institutions responsible for the lives and well-being of those in their custody. Transparency and accountability should be an ongoing commitment of government, not simply a means of defusing a crisis.

Suppose that a few years after major accounting scandals in which corporations were accused of false and misleading reporting, the Legislature passed a law that requires all Texas governments to keep huge liabilities off their balance sheets. Weird? That is precisely what bills pending in both the Senate and House would do. HB 2365 and SB 1102 mandate that Texas governments prepare their financial statements in violation of generally accepted accounting principles.

As a resident of the North Shoal Creek Neighborhood, which is directly across Anderson Lane from Northcross Mall, I have a personal and fiscal stake in the planned redevelopment of the space. I am worried about increased noise, traffic and crime, ultimately leading to the decline of my property value. But there are recent emotional responses to the redevelopment that I feel need more rational consideration then they seem to be receiving from many of my neighbors and other concerned citizens.

Today, on her birthday, we remember a beloved UT professor: Barbara Jordan. Not an average professor, she served three terms in Congress and resigned in 1979 in order to educate the next generation of leaders at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Jordan was a distinguished professor at the LBJ School from 1979 until her death in 1996, and her classes were so sought after that eventually the school converted to a lottery system for seats. Jordan had "faith in young people," because she knew "the strongest emotions which prevail are those of love and caring and belief and tolerance."

Let me introduce you to a part of campus that I like to call the "Corridor of Death." I'm referring to the stretch of 23rd Street that parallels the north end of Memorial Stadium, between San Jacinto Boulevard and Robert Dedman Drive. The combination of the diesel exhaust from the construction equipment at the stadium and the buses lined up across the street idling makes for a deadly combination for students' lungs. While the stadium construction certainly contributes its fair share of lung-clogging pollution (from exhaust and unsuppressed dust), I am concerned about the unnecessary idling of the Capital Metro shuttle buses.

In a debate over the Democratic future, no one should confuse the Hamilton Project with the Republican past. Robert Rubin and his associates have invited a broad dialogue on economic inequality and strategic investment, and on many specific policy questions—including education, health, taxes and wages—they will define the high-profile, wholly respectable neo-Clintonian position in the season ahead. There's nothing wrong with that.

Contrary to Paul R. Pillar's suggestion in "What to Ask Before the Next War" [op-ed, Feb. 4], the consequences of potential U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities are unlikely to resemble those we now are suffering for needlessly invading and occupying Iraq. Indeed, a longer perspective on Iraq undermines Mr. Pillar's thesis.

Growth demands energy. It is no wonder that India—with an economy expected to grow at over 5 percent a year for the next twenty-five years—has developed a ravenous appetite for energy. India is the world's fifth largest consumer of energy, and by 2030 it is expected to become the third largest, overtaking Japan and Russia.

For Mexicans, the word seguridad (security) has a different meaning than for Americans. Its significance is domestic, embracing local and regional public security issues, as well as individual safety. It is not obsessed with threats from international terrorism, by law enforcement and the need to build walls along the border. For Mexicans, the gangs engaged in street and drug-related crime, kidnappings, muggings and murders pose the greatest threats to public safety.

The Bush revolution in foreign policy is over. After September 11, the Administration acted on the conviction that an America that dared to shake off the constraints of international rules, laws and institutions could remake the world for the better. What they found instead was that an America unbound alienated allies, empowered adversaries and divided Americans.

The Iraq Study Group's recommendation that the United States withdraw its combat forces from Iraq reflects a growing national consensus that our military cannot quell the violence there and may even be making matters worse. Although many are hailing this recommendation as a bold new course, it is not bold enough. America will best serve its interests in the Persian Gulf by withdrawing its ground-based military forces not only from Iraq, but from the entire region.

President Bush needs new ideas about the entire Middle East, not just Iraq. But where can he find them? One source is Middle Easterners themselves, especially moderates who have been trying for years to foster democratic reforms in their own countries.

I might be considered a curious choice as a speaker at this venue—I'm not an expert on higher education or on science and engineering. What I can bring to the discussion is some impressions based on a lot of engagement around the world, and a sense of the strategies that many other countries in the "emerging economies" are pursuing, and what that means for us.

During a news conference in July, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice characterized several recent events—the violence in Iraq, the election of Hamas by Palestinians and the conflict in Lebanon—as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East."

I am grateful to Professor Toyin Falola for inviting me to speak this evening. Toyin is taking quite a risk, because he has agreed to let me talk about history, a subject that is far from my usual realm. I am a policy wonk, and we policy wonks tend to be a-historical. Our time horizon stretches from the present to the near future. For this lecture, however, I am going to venture far back in time, more than half a millennium.

From where does democracy come? Is rule "by the people, for the people" a telos—an ethical endpoint—as the great American civic faith would have us believe? Is it the most effective way to solve social problems—as John Dewey and the pragmatists argued? Or is it merely the worst system except for all the others, as Winston Churchill dismissively quipped?

Disturbing. Awful. Excessive. These are the words widely used to describe the Israeli response to Hezbollah's provocations in northern Israel.

It doesn't take long for an American in Mexico to realize that much of the solution to our illegal immigration concerns lies south of the border.

Several weeks have passed since the presidential vote in Mexico, pitting Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party for a Democratic Revolution, or PRD, against Felipe Calderón of the ruling National Action party, or PAN. The candidate who trailed, López Obrador, has charged that the count was cooked.

Tiger Woods' emotional victory at Sunday's British Open capped off what has been a tumultuous few weeks for image makers everywhere. Sports stars and heads of state alike have not been conforming to their predictable roles lately, as real life has intervened in the recent cases of Tiger Woods, Zinedine Zidane and Vladimir Putin to show that raw human emotion can readily trump a well-crafted image.

How quickly we forget the lessons of Watergate and the Nixon White House. Consider this: As a tense constitutional crisis loomed, Howard University's graduating class of 1974 heard a final lecture—a thundering civics lesson. That commencement speaker was Barbara Jordan of Houston, a 38-year-old member of Congress.

The Voting Rights Act, signed into law on Aug. 6, 1965, by our father, President Lyndon Johnson, opened the political process to millions of Americans.

The debate over when and under what circumstances the United States should use force has taken on a new intensity with the end of the Cold War, and in particular, following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Professor Jacqueline L. Angel explores how rising health care costs, vanishing private pension plans and evolving family ideologies regarding gift giving and inheritance might affect adult children and elderly parents’ retirement security.

In a recent New York Times opinion, Assistant Professor Alan Kuperman argues that the key to rescuing Darfur is to reverse recent incentives.