Are Americans better off today than they were before Barack Obama was elected to office? Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and economist John Lott, Jr. argue in "Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future" that spending increases, mounting debt, new regulations and higher tax rates answer this question with a resounding “no.”

In the next American Enterprise Debate, Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, will argue that the Taxpayer Protection Pledge is an effective bulwark against tax increases. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat will counter with his claim that the tax pledge has created political gridlock that threatens to derail serious tax reform and deficit reduction.

Here is another good news/bad news column about the 112th Congress.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

John Kerry is right that there was a mysterious 13th member at the table who caused the supercommittee to fail. But it wasn’t Norquist. It was Occupy Wall Street.

There is not a single academic study showing that these bans have reduced violent crime.

Everyone seems to believe that Democrats have changed their minds on gun control.