Checks and Balance from The Economist

By The Economist

News & Politics

What's Checks and Balance from The Economist about?

Checks and Balance unlocks American politics by taking a big theme each week and digging into the data, the ideas, and the history shaping the country.
Join John Prideaux, Charlotte Howard, Idrees Kahloon and Jon Fasman as they talk to politicians, pollsters, academics and people across the country about the great experiment of American democracy. Published every Friday.
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Checks and Balance: Strike ...

09.15.2023

Joe Biden likes to boast that he is the most pro-union president in American history. His fondness for unions, though, has been tested by a wave of strikes. In office, President Biden has regularly voiced support for workers, and handed ...

Checks and Balance from The Economist episodes:

09.15.2023 Checks and Balance: Strike while it's hot Joe Biden likes to boast that he is the most pro-union president in American history. His fondness for unions, though, has been tested by a wave of strikes. In office, President Biden has regularly voiced support for workers, and handed ...
09.08.2023 Checks and Balance: Intelligence test Countries with a collective population of four billion will vote for leaders next year. There are fears that recent advances in generative artificial intelligence will make voters more vulnerable to deception than ever. But disinformation has long been a problem, ...
09.01.2023 Checks and Balance: Los diablos de Los Angeles The perfect weather and booming economy of the City of Angels has drawn in generations of California dreamers. But now America’s second-largest city is getting smaller—losing both population and businesses. As the Hollywood strike has revealed, the high costs of ...
08.25.2023 Checks and Balance: A novel approach We take a break from the news this week to convene the first ever Checks and Balance Book Club. All summer we’ve been reading three works, picked by the team, from the canon of American literature. In this episode, we’ll ...
08.18.2023 Checks and Balance: All the committee in China Washington has been busy debating what to do about China. Arguments abound about whether to try to engage with the Communist Party, or to focus on deterrence. Congress continues to debate industrial policy, arming Taiwan and whether to ban TikTok. ...
08.11.2023 Checks and Balance: Place and CHIPS Joe Biden has been on the road this week, touting his administration’s investment in American manufacturing. His government has embraced a “place-based” industrial policy, explicitly directing tens of billions of dollars to boost struggling regions. The bet is that the ...
08.04.2023 Checks and Balance: Trump carded Donald Trump has been charged with the most serious political crime it is possible to commit in a democracy. A special counsel alleges that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results, knowing that his claims of fraud were false. ...
07.28.2023 Checks and Balance: The heat is on It’s hot. Over the past month millions of Americans have been sweltering in fierce temperatures. Around a third of the population lives in places where the government has recently issued warnings about extreme heat. How can American cities prepare for ...
07.21.2023 Checks and Balance: Trump! Here we go again Donald Trump’s first term in office was characterised by chaos. MAGA Republicans are already working to ensure the sequel, should there be one, is a more orderly affair. How exactly would a second Trump term be different from the first? ...
07.14.2023 Checks and Balance: Inequality qualities By some measures, in the aftermath of the pandemic, income inequality in America is either increasing or remaining stubbornly high. On the left, the gap between rich and poor has long been an urgent issue—and more people on the right ...
07.07.2023 Checks and Balance: Affirmative redaction America’s Supreme Court has ended the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. It is 45 years since the court gave its blessing to such practices but, given that it now has a six-justice conservative majority sceptical of using ...
06.30.2023 Checks and Balance: The Joeconomy Joe Biden took to the stage in Chicago this week to trumpet his economic plan. He heralded America’s post-pandemic growth and the buoyancy of the job market. “Folks, that’s no accident,” he told the crowd: “That’s Bidenomics in action.” But ...
06.23.2023 Checks and Balance: Roe away A year ago the Supreme Court upended abortion access in America. The court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade allowed states to ban abortion, leaving a patchwork of policies across the country. What difference has the ruling actually made, and ...
06.16.2023 Checks and Balance: Minneapolice There have been lots of attempts at improving American police since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis cop three years ago. Reform-minded activists argue that any changes are cosmetic. Many cops think that reforms have been too sweeping. What ...
06.09.2023 Checks and Balance: Starting places Chris Christie and Mike Pence have become the latest to enter the Republican primary. Despite his legal woes Donald Trump commands a huge lead in the early polling and the man thought most likely to challenge him, Ron DeSantis, has ...
06.02.2023 Checks and Balance: Seal the deal The deal to raise America’s debt ceiling is finally done. The government will now be able to resume borrowing money to pay its bills, and avoid a default. The last-minute agreement will suspend the debt ceiling and flatten some categories ...
05.26.2023 Checks and Balance: You asked, we answer Normally we take one big theme shaping American politics and explore it in depth. This week is a little different: we’re going to answer your questions. We tackle whether America will ever have a female president, the politics of health-care ...
05.19.2023 Checks and Balance: Border disorder? With the lifting of Title 42, America is once again forced to consider its border policy, just as Democrat-run cities struggle to find shelter for busloads of migrants sent north from the US-Mexico border. What responsibilities do states and cities ...
05.12.2023 Checks and Balance: Man problems There have long been worries about manhood in the United States. Today, nearly half of men believe traditional masculinity is under threat. While the left talk about toxic masculinity, some politicians on the right fear men’s very “deconstruction”. Researchers point ...
05.05.2023 Checks and Balance: Entitled While Washington debates the debt ceiling, the entitlements time bomb is ticking. The trust fund that pays for much of Medicare, the health-insurance scheme for the elderly, will run out of money by 2031. The fund that pays old-age benefits ...
04.28.2023 Checks and Balance: Best friends forever? Israel is marking its 75th anniversary. America has always been its closest foreign ally, but that relationship has seldom been easy. That’s true now: progressive Democrats are questioning the party’s innate pro-Israel stance, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reforms have ...
04.21.2023 Checks and Balance: Fox hunted Fox News has settled a mammoth defamation lawsuit over its coverage of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion Voting Systems had accused the network of knowingly spreading the lie that its machines somehow rigged the election by awarding votes to Joe ...
04.14.2023 Checks and Balance: The 20 year epidemic, part 2 American authorities confiscated a record amount of illegal fentanyl along the southwest border in 2022. But even so, last year will still likely see the highest number of fatal overdoses in America’s 20-year opioid epidemic. In this episode–our second on ...
04.07.2023 Checks and Balance: Trump turns up Donald Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. He denies all the charges, and in a New York courtroom earlier this week pleaded not guilty. For most American politicians this would be the end of their ...
03.31.2023 Checks and Balance: Chicagoes to the polls Voters in Chicago are choosing between two candidates for mayor, and two very different wings of the Democratic Party. One contender is conservative, for a Chicago Democrat, and backed by the police union. The other is a progressive, who once ...
03.24.2023 Checks and Balance: Gold lone star Texas is on a roll. People and companies are flocking to the Lone Star State. It’s an energy pioneer, its size means it has a significant say in national politics and its coffers are full, in part due to an ...
03.17.2023 Checks and Balance: The 20 year epidemic, part 1 More than 650,000 Americans have died of overdoses since the start of the opioid epidemic. Fentanyl, easily available and dangerously powerful, killed seventy thousand people in 2021 alone. Now, as the federal government estimates more than five million people struggle ...
03.10.2023 Checks and Balance: The body in a barrel Lake Mead is shrinking. The receding shoreline of the country’s largest reservoir has laid bare the American West’s vulnerability to climate change. But last May, it revealed something else: a body shoved into a barrel. With all the signs of ...
03.03.2023 Checks and Balance: Park the bench There’s been no official announcement, but the mood music suggests Joe Biden will seek a second term. If he does run in 2024, and if he wins, he would be 86 by the time he leaves office. Part of Biden’s ...
02.24.2023 Checks and Balance: Sit on defence A year on from Russia’s invasion, Joe Biden has made it clear: America’s backing for Ukraine “will not waver”. But Ukraine needs more than strong words. Does America have the will and the means to back Ukraine for as long ...
02.17.2023 Checks and Balance: Run of the statehouse The Capitol in Washington might face gridlock, but politicians in statehouses across the country are getting to work. In most state legislatures, a single party has control–their debates provide a window into each party's broader agenda. For states led by ...
02.10.2023 Checks and Balance: The great fall of China’s balloon “If China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.” In his state-of-the-union speech earlier this week, Joe Biden promised to deal with any threat from China. The House has voted unanimously to condemn the CCP for flying ...
02.03.2023 Checks and Balance: An academic question More and more universities across America now require would-be professors to submit so-called diversity statements. These ask applicants to set out their commitment to, and experience of, promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. At the same time some Republican-led states, most ...
01.27.2023 Checks and Balance: Hunting ground House Republicans hope that by delving into Hunter Biden’s business dealings they’ll find a trail of wrongdoing leading back to the president. Is this just the usual partisan mudslinging? Or will the Hunter Biden saga spell trouble for Joe Biden? ...
01.20.2023 Checks and Balance: Incoming alerts Reports of the slow death of American incomes have been exaggerated. Since the turn of the millennium, hourly earnings have grown steadily in real terms. While those at the top have taken most of the gains, in the past few ...
01.13.2023 Checks and Balance: Electric dreams 2023 ought to be a big year in America’s transition towards electric vehicles. The federal government has set aside billions to encourage consumers and manufacturers to hitch a ride, and to ramp up the nation’s charging infrastructure. What do electric ...
01.06.2023 Checks and Balance: Speaker out of turn The 118th Congress is, so far, a shambles. A contingent of hardline Republicans have banded together to deny Kevin McCarthy the 218 votes he needs to obtain the speakership. The House can’t start the small matter of governing the country ...
12.30.2022 Checks and Balance: Alaska, part two—thin ice Alaska has an obvious imperative to develop its oil. But climate change is already underway, and the Arctic is warming at nearly four times the global rate. What does our thirst for oil mean for Alaska’s ice? In the second ...
12.23.2022 Checks and Balance: Alaska, part one—oil and trouble Alaska sits at the heart of two big, tangled global questions: how to slow climate change, and where, or whether, to develop oil. Alaska uses the income from oil to fund basic services. But oil production in the state is ...
12.16.2022 Checks and Balance: Broad stripes, bright stars Less than a fifth of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the country. Poverty rates are rising and life expectancy is falling. A majority think the economy is getting worse and that the world sees America ...
12.09.2022 Checks and Balance: Justice deserts The Supreme Court considered a case this week that could upend the way America conducts elections. Moore v Harper brings to the national stage a once-fringe legal theory that state lawmakers enjoy near-absolute authority over federal elections. What impact could ...
12.02.2022 Checks and Balance: Sitting ducks Politicians have returned to Washington following the Thanksgiving break, for what Democrats hope will be a legislative flurry. Once Republicans take over the House in January, passing bills will get a lot harder. What can, and should, the lame-duck session ...
11.25.2022 Checks and Balance: From our archive—beef encounter At Thanksgiving Americans express gratitude for family, the harvest… and a big, juicy turkey. Americans consume the most meat per person, but that's not good for the planet. In an episode first released in November 2021, we ask: could they ...
11.18.2022 Checks and Balance: Trump's back As Donald Trump launches a third White House run, we report on the view from Mar-a-Lago and the rise of Ron DeSantis. Are attempted presidential comebacks ever a good idea? And how will a fractured Republican Party navigate the long ...
11.11.2022 Checks and Balance: Red faces Republicans should have done better. With high inflation and an unpopular president, the stage was set for them to easily take back both chambers of Congress. Instead they look on track to barely capture the House, and the Senate is ...
11.04.2022 Checks and Balance: End of midterm The big guns are out. Donald Trump has three rallies planned before election day. Barack Obama has popped up in several battleground states. The former presidents will, separately, converge on Pennsylvania at the weekend, where Obama will be joined by ...
10.28.2022 Checks and Balance: Donkey years For two years Democrats have held the Holy Grail – control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress. The midterms will, most likely, put an end to that. Divided government is going to make Joe Biden’s agenda much harder ...
10.21.2022 Checks and Balance: Bordering on chaos So far this year officials at the southern border have encountered over two million people trying to enter America. The actual number crossing is likely to be much higher. Two thousand miles north, New York’s mayor has declared a state ...
10.14.2022 Checks and Balance: Quality control A celebrity doctor who recently lived out of state. An ex-football player beset by controversy. When Mitch McConnell said that “candidate quality” might handicap Republicans’ chances of taking the Senate, it’s likely he was referring to Mehmet Oz and Herschel ...
10.07.2022 Checks and Balance: On the money The most important issue for Americans is the economy. When asked, in a poll by YouGov for The Economist, to pick from a list of a dozen problems facing the nation, over a third of people said that the state ...

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