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.
For more from Checks and Balance, sign up at https://www.economist.com/newsletters/checks-and-balance to receive our weekly newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Checks and Balance: Hunting...

01.27.2023

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? ...

Checks and Balance from The Economist episodes:

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 ...
09.30.2022 Checks and Balance: House party House Republicans have launched their legislative agenda for the next Congress. The “Commitment to America” is fairly brief, pretty unspecific, and filled with standard Republican platitudes around tax cuts and curbing wasteful spending. Kevin McCarthy, who will probably be Speaker ...
09.23.2022 Checks and Balance: Ukraine relief “The world should see the outrageous acts for what they are," Joe Biden told the United Nations General Assembly this week, condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So far, America has led efforts to support Ukraine’s fight back against the aggressor ...
09.16.2022 Checks and Balance: Roe your own way The most significant moment in the midterms campaigns may have come in June. That was when the Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v Wade, taking away the federal right to an abortion and sending the decision back to the ...
09.09.2022 Checks and Balance: The elephant in the boardroom The close relationship between the Republican Party and the corporate world has shaped American capitalism for decades. Businesses are used to disdain from Democrats, but vitriol from the right is newer. This has been on display in public brawls between ...
09.02.2022 Checks and Balance: A house divided Red and blue states have always been different. Each state’s ability to experiment, iterate and differentiate has been a source of strength. But as federal politics has become more partisan, so have the states. On everything from abortion to climate, ...
08.26.2022 Checks and Balance: Extreme goes mainstream After the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, threats against law enforcement surged and an armed man tried to break into the agency’s office in Cincinnati. Election, health-care and school officials are feeling increasingly unsafe doing their jobs. Is ...
08.19.2022 Checks and Balance: Trump towers The most powerful figure in the Republican Party is still Donald Trump. Despite his attempts to overturn the results of the presidential election, his friendliness with dictators, and multiple active investigations against him, he remains the most powerful man on ...
08.12.2022 Checks and Balance: Chuck yeah! Democrats have finally passed their climate, tax and health care legislation through the Senate. Chuck Schumer and his colleagues are toasting their successful out-manoeuvring of the GOP. How will the Inflation Reduction Act affect carbon emissions, prescription drug prices and ...
08.05.2022 Checks and Balance: Pennsylvania mania The second part of our occasional series on the race for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat. For now the campaign is largely happening online, with Democrat John Fetterman staying off the trail due to a health scare, and Republican Dr Oz ...
07.29.2022 Checks and Balance: Peak progressive The Democratic party is in the throes of a rude awakening. Despite Donald Trump remaining at its head, the Republican Party is widely expected to make significant gains in the upcoming mid-term elections. Working class and Hispanic voters seem to ...
07.22.2022 Checks and Balance: What is the fight over CRT really about? The final episode in our three-part special series investigating the battle over what is taught in America’s public schools and asking how the anti-CRT movement became such a powerful social, legislative and political force in its own right. Although there ...
07.18.2022 Checks and Balance: Is CRT taught in schools? The second of a three-part special series investigating the fight over critical race theory and asking how the anti-CRT movement became such a powerful new social, legislative and political force. The debate has become centred on how race, gender and ...
07.15.2022 Checks and Balance: What is critical race theory? The first episode of a three-part special series investigating the fight over what is taught in America’s public schools. Until recently, critical race theory (CRT) was a niche legal field encountered only by graduate students. It is now a catch-all ...
07.08.2022 Checks and Balance: Price control Despite a remarkably strong labour market, predictions of an imminent downturn are everywhere. The disagreement now is not over whether the Federal Reserve should fight inflation, but how painful the consequences of doing so will be. In trying to fix ...
07.01.2022 Checks and Balance: Supreme authority As gridlock plagues the Capitol, across First Street the Supreme Court is transforming America. In this term alone, it has overturned the right to an abortion, loosened gun laws, eroded the separation of church and state and limited the federal ...
06.24.2022 Checks and Balance: Insurrection retrospection After conducting more than 1,000 interviews and reviewing over 140,000 documents, the House of Representatives’ January 6th committee is now presenting its findings. Yet much of what it is investigating happened publicly: the violence in the Capitol was live-streamed and ...
06.17.2022 Checks and Balance: Breaking nukes Since America dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a fragile balance of deterrence, treaties, fear and taboo has stopped the world’s nuclear powers from deploying their arsenals in anger. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has ushered in ...
06.10.2022 Checks and Balance: California reality The Golden State, it is often said, is where the future happens first. Now Los Angeles, long a bastion of the left, is seriously contemplating choosing a billionaire former Republican as its next mayor. Voters are fed up with homelessness ...
06.03.2022 Checks and Balance: Pivotal partnerships Another American administration, another much-vaunted pivot to Asia. Republicans and Democrats agree that America needs to respond to China's growing regional clout, but that's where the harmony ends. War in Europe is diverting attention, much of Asia has doubts about ...
05.27.2022 Checks and Balance: Unbearable The horror at Uvalde in Texas shows American exceptionalism at its worst. But part of the tragedy is that the event in itself is not exceptional. In the ten years since the massacre at Sandy Hook, there have been more ...
05.20.2022 Checks and Balance: Rights to remain President Biden came to office promising, like many before him, to fix America's immigration system. But border crossings are at record highs, his reforms have floundered and states are going their own way on how to treat undocumented residents. Meanwhile ...
05.13.2022 Checks and Balance: Voting wars Primary season is in full swing but more than a third of voters and a majority of Republicans still believe the last election was stolen. At the centre of this struggle is Georgia, which in 2020 had the tightest presidential ...
05.06.2022 Checks and Balance: After Roe A leaked draft opinion suggests that the Supreme Court is preparing to overturn Roe v Wade. But the verdict will not end fights over abortion in America. Both pro-choice and anti-abortion movements are furiously preparing for what comes next. What ...
04.29.2022 Checks and Balance: Welcome to Pennsylvania The race for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat is wild, and between now and the midterm elections we’ll be regularly checking in. The first major milestone, the primaries, is a few weeks away. What can the Pennsylvania Senate race tell us ...
04.22.2022 Checks and Balance: Wilted greens President Biden came to office promising a clean energy revolution that would both slash emissions and strengthen the economy. But that priority has been overtaken by the need to control high oil prices and look tough on Russia. How has ...
04.15.2022 Checks and Balance: French lessons A liberal and a nationalist are facing off for the presidency of France after a first round in which most voters opted for anti-establishment candidates. Both finalists have redrawn the country’s political map and the polls are tight. Emmanuel Macron’s ...
04.08.2022 Checks and Balance: Florida, man! Florida was once dismissed as peripheral—a greying, golfing appendage to continental America. But the Sunshine State is now the country’s top migration destination and the 15th-largest economy in the world. How is this remarkable boom transforming the politics of a ...
04.01.2022 Checks and Balance: Credit where it’s due Last year it looked like America had found the solution to child poverty: spend more. The expanded child tax credit is thought to have lifted around 3.7m children out of poverty. But the legislation expired and rates shot back up. ...
03.25.2022 Checks and Balance: Tsars and stripes President Biden is in Europe, meeting with allies as the conflict in Ukraine reaches the one month mark. His administration has supported the fight against Russia with sanctions and military aid, but the president made it clear from the start ...
03.18.2022 Checks and Balance: One million Two years on, even cautious Democrats are feeling confident that America is entering a new, less severe phase of the covid-19 pandemic. But, depending on how you measure it, America's death toll from the coronavirus has just passed a horrendous ...
03.11.2022 Checks and Balance: City limits Since the founding of America, its people and its economy have moved steadily westwards and, later, southwards. Recently, people and businesses have flocked to Sun Belt states, while cities in America’s old industrial heartland are struggling. What makes American cities ...
03.04.2022 Checks and Balance: Cup of Joe Joe Biden gave his first State of the Union address against a difficult backdrop. Inflation is soaring, covid variants have extended the death toll of the pandemic and the signature piece of his domestic agenda is stuck. Now he has ...
02.25.2022 Checks and Balance: Russia invades Ukraine There is war in Europe. America has spent the past decade trying to pivot its geopolitical attention to Asia, away from its old allies in the West. But the crisis, and now conflict, in Ukraine has pulled it back in, ...

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