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Ballooning federal debt is straining private economy in US

Editorials

The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond has climbed back to where it stood in 2007, north of 5%, and it pushed a little higher again last week after the Federal Reserve left its own rates alone. On its face, that sounds almost reassuring, a return to some pre-crisis normal. It is nothing of the sort. The same number today carries a very different, and far heavier, meaning than it did 19 years ago. In 2007, the federal debt held by the public was roughly $9 trillion. Today it is about four times that. A yield is simply the price of borrowing, and paying the 2007 price on four times the ...

Trump has never been funny

Editorials

In a display of Stockholm Syndrome, the White House Correspondents’ Association invited Donald Trump to be the keynote speaker at its annual festival of self-appreciation. Because he is who he is, he did not take the opportunity to do the kind of gentle press ribbing that past presidents have engaged in, and he certainly declined to engage in the self-deprecating humor that charmed audiences in the old days. Instead, he delivered a string of puerile insults that would be beneath a fifth grader. The tuxedo and ball gown-clad lads and ladies were forced to sit through meandering ...

Letters to the editor

Letters to the Editor

Dad had it right all those years ago DEAR EDITOR: When I watch the news or read the newspaper, I’m reminded of things my dad said when I was too young to understand. Dad’s rules include: 1) Figuring where you stand politically is not easy and takes a long time. You have to pay attention and keep score; 2) there are only two types of people in this world — idiots and not idiots. Both of them come in different sizes, shapes, colors, races, pay scales, religions, genders, etc. It does not matter if there is an R or D (reverend or doctor?) behind your name; and 3) the solution to ...

Congress must act to protect consumers from data center risks

Editorials

The massive proliferation of data centers in our state and nation has fast rocketed to become the undisputed hot potato issue of 2026. To argue otherwise flies in the face of in-your-face realities. In the United States, nearly 4,000 data centers have opened in recent years with an additional 1,500 sites proposed or under construction. In Ohio, artificial intelligence and cloud computing demand have fueled construction of about 200 such centers, the fifth-highest number of any state in the nation. But as they grow, so, too, does fierce and sometimes caustic pushback in communities ...

Is the Smithsonian racist? MAGA makes that case

Editorials

If you haven't heard that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is a hotbed of "anti-white activism," "illegal alien activism," and "transgender activism," the Trump administration and its MAGA allies in Congress have some news for you. You can read all about it in what news accounts have called a "scathing" 162-page report released July 4 by the White House. It accuses the museum and its leaders of presenting a "radical view" of American history. Such was the language used by Rep. Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on Delivering ...

Bring back ‘nattering nabobs’

Editorials

President Trump’s performance at last Friday’s retooled White House Correspondents’ Dinner made me nostalgic for the days of Vice President Spiro Agnew, President Richard Nixon’s media attack dog. In a speech, Agnew called politicians critical of Nixon administration policies “nattering nabobs of negativism,” a phrase written by his speechwriter William Safire, and later usurped by media to apply to journalists. That was mild compared to the disgusting personal insults Trump hurled at journalists who were at the dinner to support the White House Correspondents ...