As politics and media have continued to obsess about Ferguson, a very serious thing has occurred.
Our national debt topped $18 trillion dollars. That’s more than our GDP.
John Hinderaker of Powerline reports:
Federal Debt Soars to Over $18 Trillion
A year or so ago, the Democrats started telling us that the national debt was...
Any other “Bs” you can come up with regarding this?
Lawmakers unveil massive $1.1 trillion spending bill in bipartisan compromise:
Congressional negotiators unveiled a $1.1 trillion funding bill late Monday that would ease sharp spending cuts known as the sequester while providing fresh cash for new priorities, including President Obama’s push to expand...
Whether you should like it is a different question, but it will be law soon.
Via USA Today, Senate vote clears budget deal for passage this week:
The Senate on Tuesday cleared a key procedural hurdle for final passage...
I should have been more all over the budget deal reached between Paul Ryan and What’s-Her-Name-From-Way-Over-There.
I’ve been trying to understand both the details and the big picture. One thing I have noticed is that the mainstream media is loving it, REPUBLICAN SCHOOLYARD FIGHT! (Today’s ALL CAPS courtesy of Jim Geraghty.)
From Rick...
I just watched the press statements from Paul Ryan and Patty Murray.
The details are being described all around as “modest” and a time out. The key is that nothing much was accomplished as to the overall budget trajectory. There also was “sequester relief,” meaning that one of the only...
Rahm Emanuel, speaking soon after Obama took office in 2009, famously suggested that the Obama administration would not let a serious crisis — the Fall 2008 credit crisis — go to waste:
Republicans would do well to heed that advice, advice which Obama used to his advantage to push through the failed...
On the very short drive to work this morning, I heard an interview on local AM 870 radio with the Tompkins County town administrator.
The radio host kept trying to scare everyone about the Sequester cuts, repeatedly asking how it would affect people in Tompkins County. The administrator couldn’t go t...
It is very frustrating to watch John Boehner and House Republicans twist themselves into contortions in a futile attempt to appease Obama.
Plan B failed before it was swallowed because Obama believes that he can shift the blame to Republicans based on the arbitrary deadline for taxes to rise. There is no...
Locked in trillion dollar tax revenue increase.
Promises, promises on spending cuts.
According to the frequently wrong but always wonkish-proclaiming Ezra Klein, this is where the Boehner-Obama negotiations are heading:
Boehner offered to let tax rates rise for income over $1 million....
I am going to keep repeating The Christmas Strategy until someone in Republican circles listens:
I say call his bluff. If a deal which tackles deficits from both revenue and spending can be reached this month, great.
If not, pass a 90 day extension of current tax rates and whatever else is needed...
From DrewM at Ace of Spades HQ, What Does Let It Burn Mean? (h/t Hot Air), :
As one of the first, if not the first, people to say Let...
Sometimes I think we would be better off leaderless. Senator: GOP could accept tax hikes on very rich:
There is a growing group of folks looking at this and realizing that we don’t have a lot of cards as it relates to the tax issue before year end,” [Tennessee Senator Bob] Corker...
When I read this line in Kurt Schlichter’s excellent post, A Lawyer’s Tips on Negotiating for Dummies and Congressional Republicans, I had to laugh:
Sound a bit, well, crazy? Unreasonable? Even scary? Good, because a skilled lawyer understands...
I don’t think anyone doubts that Obama has superior bargaining power on the “fiscal cliff.”
Part of that power comes from a superior messaging machine which bizarrely has convinced the public that Republicans are holding “middle class” (including people making low six figures) “tax cuts” (which are not tax cuts, but a...
I have been pretty harsh on liberal blogger Allison Kilkenny in the past for her playing the Nork Card on John Bolton and the “sexy” card on Sarah Palin, her hysteria over Catholic charities, and her misfire on Bill Sparkman. She was a big cheerleader for the Occupy movement.
All her hard efforts...
Depending on who you ask, and at what moment in time, the “fiscal cliff” either is End Times, or not.
Obama is in campaign mode, as usual, that bizarre never-never-land where negotiating means running to rallies.
Given Obama’s permanent campaign, and the lack of seriousness in his proposals, a growing chorus on the...
There is no more misleading imagery than the ad run by Democrats in which a Paul Ryan-looking figure throws Granny off a cliff due to Medicare cuts:
The ad has it exactly opposite to reality. Republican proposals would keep Medicare the same for people already in the system or 10 years away from...
