In the worst possible way, the monumental data breach at Equifax—involving the names, addresses and social security numbers of some 143 million people—draws attention to a long-neglected gap in the US system of financial oversight. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ought to take the lead in putting this right. The three big US credit reporting companies—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion—have ...

The Republicans’ failure to repeal Obamacare has created a political opening. The American public, threatened with the withdrawal of health insurance from millions of people, has largely come to embrace the idea of universal coverage. At such a moment, Democrats are right to advance ideas for building on the gains accomplished by the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, many of them ...

“We have taken every step man can devise,” said President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, “to insure that neither a madman nor a malfunction could trigger nuclear war.” Apparently lots of people are starting to doubt that this is true. The latest entrant is an op-ed article this week in the New York Times. The authors, Jeffrey Bader and Jonathan D. ...