House Republicans, who are now deliberating the government’s 2018 budget, pledge to eliminate deficits within a decade. Well, good luck with that. It must be obvious that chronic deficits reflect a basic political impasse that can be broken only if majorities in Congress do things they’ve refused to do: trim Social Security benefits; raise taxes significantly; control health spending. There ...

Don’t be surprised if in 20 years, Singapore’s wealth-management industry starts resembling a mini-United Nations, with bankers wearing their nationalities on their sleeves. Last week, Gadfly commented on one such act of flag-waving. PT Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest lender by assets, plans to set up a private banking outfit in the city-state to target offshore Indonesian wealth. While that proposal ...

Donald Trump’s vision of a Justice Department that serves Donald Trump instead of the cause of justice is horribly askew. But it is quintessentially Trumpian, and therefore unsurprising. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should know better. After the president questioned his judgment and competence in an interview with The New York Times — and said Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from ...