Maxwell School News and Commentary

"If President Trump really wants to cut taxes on capital gains, he should go to Congress with a plan to do so directly, and not through a poorly designed back-door regulatory scheme," writes Leonard Burman, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs.

Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor of Geography, notes that the group of west-oriented maps of Virginia could simply have come about because people copied [John] Smith, whose map was early and famous.

Professor Emeritus of Political Science Michael Barkun weighs in on the mystery of "Q" and the history of conspiracy theories in America in the Washington Post. "These ideas never completely die,” says Barkun, who studies conspiracy theories and political extremism. “They get recycled every generation, and in America, some of the most powerful conspiracy ideas deal with an enemy inside the government who is really pulling the strings but cannot be identified.”

“We all want stories that make sense of the world,” Barkun says. “When we can’t find them, we look around in strange places."

"The Chinese are not going to be buying our soybeans, so almost by musical chairs our soybeans are going to Europe,” Mary Lovely, professor of economics, says about the EU's response to China's tariffs on American soybeans. 

Professor of Political Science Grant Reeher says in his experience, the incumbent or the candidate who expects to win wants to have a debate as close as possible to the Election Day and the challenger wants to have it earlier. 

Len Lopoo, professor of public administration and international affairs, and Kerri Raissian '08 M.P.A./'13 Ph.D. (PA), argue that the steady decline of the birthrate in the U.S. could be a "harbinger of difficulties on the horizon," impacting Social Security and Medicare, and affecting the number of young people to enter the military and to innovate in business.

Mary Lovely, professor of economics, says that after two rounds of retaliatory tariffs by China, U.S. ham and various other pork products now face massive tariffs—between 62 and 70 percent. "In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported zero weekly export sales of pork to China," she says. "So our exports to the country have pretty much collapsed."

"Current poor relations between Russia and the West are due to a fundamental mismatch in outlooks between Putin and his close associates and most Western leaders," says Brian Taylor, professor and chair of political science.