| | | Modern Democratic presidents have a better economic record than their Republican counterparts. It doesn't much matter which measure you use — G.D.P., jobs, incomes, the deficit — or exactly when you consider a given president to be responsible for the economy. | | True, presidents don't control the economy. Luck plays a substantial role. But presidents and their policies matter. | | How Donald Trump — a Republican without the usual Republican loyalties — will approach economic policy is the subject of my column this morning. So far, of course, the weeks since his election have revolved around sideshows rather than economic policy. But the big policy questions will need answering soon. I'm interested to see whether Trump will pursue tax and spending policies any different from those favored by the many establishment Republicans he beat in the primaries. His working-class base certainly seems to expect it. | | Today's Opinion report also includes an Op-Ed from Jessica Lessin that has affected my views on the problem of fake news. | | For the sake of democratic discourse, Facebook certainly needs to take more aggressive action against fake-news stories. But it should also step cautiously into the business of providing information, argues Lessin, the founder of The Information, a technology publication. | | “We can all agree that Facebook should do much more to make sure that blatantly fabricated claims that Donald J. Trump won the popular vote or received the pope’s endorsement don’t spread and are, at a minimum, labeled fakes,” she writes. | | “But hiring editors to enforce accuracy — or even promising to enforce accuracy by partnering with third parties — would create the perception that Facebook is policing the 'truth,' and that is worrisome,” she continues. “One thing is clear to anyone who has worked in a newsroom: Not all fact-checking decisions are black and white.” | | She’s right about that. At what point do high tax rates stifle economic growth? In what circumstances does a higher minimum wage lead to job loss? Which parts of education reform have succeeded, and which have failed? All those questions, and many others, have complex answers. | | Given Facebook’s tremendous market power, I wouldn’t want it trying to make definitive pronouncements on any of those subjects. I encourage you to read Lessin's Op-Ed. | | The full Opinion report from The Times follows, including David Brooks’s Tuesday column. | David Leonhardt
Op-Ed Columnist | |  | | Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and chief executive of Facebook, on Saturday. Esteban Felix/Associated Press | | | | | | By JESSICA LESSIN It’s dangerous to promise that a social network will vet what’s true. | | | | Editorial Threatening Cuba Will Backfire By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Rolling back the Obama administration’s policy of pragmatic engagement with Cuba would be monumentally misguided. | Editorial Observer When Chess Was a Battle of Superpowers By SERGE SCHMEMANN It’s hard to follow the world chess championship and not go back in time to the epic contests of the Cold War. | |  | | Vahram Muradyan | | | | | | By JIMMY CARTER The two-state solution is on life support, but there is one thing Obama can do to keep the hope of a peace deal alive. | | | |  | | Watching President Obama deliver a speech during a visit to Havana in March. Ivan Alvarado/Reuters | | | | | | By HENRY GODINEZ The trade embargo has failed. What Cubans eager for the end of the Castro regime want is for the U.S. Congress to vote it down. | | | | | A NEW ELECTION PODCAST | | Listen to Opinion columnists and contributors on The Run-Up, a new podcast from The New York Times covering the final three months of the election. Available on iTunes. | | |
