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What will be more important in coming decades: Countering the rise of Chinese military power in East Asia or building U.S. economic strength here at home?

State officials around the country have spent the last few months bending over backwards finding reasons to accept Medicaid expansion for low-income Americans, refuse it, or try to create a publicly-funded privately managed hybrid. But what do these choices mean for real people?

A recent AARP Public Policy Institute report found that average credit card balances for households over age 75 jumped 31 percent during the recession. A separate AARP report found that boomers - households over age 50 - now have higher overall credit card debt than younger people - a reversal of previous trends.

The average combined balance on all cards in 2012 was $8,278.

Collusion — and conflicts of interest — between politicians and billionaires now operate across borders. When he was president, Nicolas Sarkozy reserved special favours for the Qataris (including a tax exemption on their highest-value property purchases). Qatar is now prepared to back him in starting a private equity fund.

Imagine a pollster calls you up and asks the following question: Is staying in good health one of your top three priorities in the coming year?

Why, of course, you would say. Now that you think of it, being healthy is pretty damn important. 

The journalist Gary Rivlin has a chilling investigative piece in The Nation about the massive assault on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act since its passage in 2010. It illuminates the ways of Washington in an era of big money and how passing laws may be one thing, but fully enacting them is quite another when swarms of lobbyists work full-time to throw sand in the gears of government. 

This effort could be a game-changer, a way to begin reversing the dangerous concentration of wealth and political power in the U.S. Naysayers will complain that proposals like this are doomed from the start because of the current makeup of Congress, especially the House. But that’s not so. Enhancing the impact of small donors is an important component of a broad, long-term effort to reduce the toxic impact of big money in an era of super PACS, Citizens United and rising inequality. Democrats in the House should be commended for pushing this initiative along.

Richard Haass, who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, has a new book out today entitled Foreign Policy Begins at Home in which he argues that the United States needs to get its own house in order to maximize its global power and influence. Haass says the U.S. also needs to avoid getting bogged down in wars of choice that don't involve vital interests, like Iraq. 

All true. 

Nutritional benefit programs can't seem to catch a break. First WIC, which has numerous studies proving its effectiveness in health outcomes for participating mothers and children (not to mention cost savings as a result of participation) is in danger of a 9.3% budget cut as a result of the sequester.