Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has written a letter to the South Carolina state legislature explaining his decision to ask President Obama for a waiver allowing him to use federal stimulus money to pay down state debt. From the letter: The reason we think it is not in our best interest to spend these monies lies in the fact that when one is in a hole the first order of business is to stop digging. Spending that which is contemplated in the stimulus bill moves our state to an extremely dangerous …
We’ve warned before that the federal government’s exploding appetite for debt was helping to create a Global Government Debt Bubble. The Obama Administration has even been trying to worsen the problem by lobbying other countries to borrow even more money, despite the fact that our own record borrowing makes their borrowing more expensive. But national governments are not the only entities that issue debt. Nicole Gelinas writes in today’s Wall Street Journal: [State and local governments] should use the remaining $229 billion they’re getting in stimulus money to put their …
The past few weeks saw a certain stabilization of the ruble against the key international currencies. The Russian national currency’s de facto devaluation has brought about a dramatic nearly 40-percent drop in imports compared to the same period last year. This development helped to offset export losses and retain a foreign trade surplus. The shrinking export trend is ongoing, however, despite the favorable international circumstances owing to the devalued ruble. Last January saw a more than 50-percent plunge in exports. This tendency highlights grave flaws in the Russian government’s exports …
Despite his solemn promise to the American people to keep lobbyists out of his Administration, two more have slipped in. The Hill reports: The waivers were provided for Jocelyn Frye, director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady, and Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs in the executive office of the president. … Munoz was a senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, where she supervised all legislative and advocacy activities on the state and local levels. Munoz was heavily involved in the …
We’re not the only ones who are questioning the facts coming out of the Obama Administration on health care. Maggie’s Farm has put together a solid Top Ten Reasons For ObamaCare Are Based On False Information, including: 9. More Preventive Care Will Better Serve Consumers And Save Costs: The February 2008 New England Journal of Medicine contains a review of 599 peer-reviewed articles between 2000-2005. The conclusion: “Studies have concluded that preventing illness can in some cases save money [and health] but in other cases can add to health care …
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano should be vigorously applauded for telling the good folks at the National Emergency Management Agency mid-year conference that FEMA is and should not be a first responder. Napolitano is dead right that too many Americans see FEMA as the end-all and be-all of disaster response activity. We can forgive Napolitano for not owning up to FEMA’s role in fostering that perception given that it has issued declarations at an ever-increasing pace over the last sixteen years for ever more routine-type disasters. Specifically, the yearly average of …
Outlining his educational policy yesterday, President Barack Obama said: “And I want every child in this country to have the same chance that my mother gave me, that my teachers gave me, that my college professors gave me, that America gave me.” These are wonderful words, but unless President Obama vetoes the $410 billion omnibus spending bill heading towards his desk, he will fall far short of living up to them. Inserted into the omnibus’ 1,132 pages is language dictated to Congress by teachers’ unions killing 1,700 scholarships that enable …
Washington – Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) had strong words against the Employee Free Choice Act today at the Conservative Bloggers’ Briefing, framing the debate in stark terms. “It doesn’t make any sense-none, unless you are interested in intimidation and coercion and retribution…to have a public peition-signing to form a union,” said Price. “This is just another nail in the coffin of American liberty and American freedom. I for one, will not go quietly into the night.” Congressman Price, leader of the Republican Study Committee, was echoed by Heritage’s James Sherk, …
Bob Carter is the first speaker during the last event of the conference. Professor Carter is a geologist at James Cook University and is widely known for his global warming skepticism. In his 2006 article, “There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998,” he said, The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies …
Saturday Night Live opened their show this weekend with a parody of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Unfortunately, Treasury policy is just as rudderless as seen on SNL. What’s needed now, more than ever, are ideas based on principles; not ad hoc, “solutions” that don’t provide people enough information to make rational economic decisions for the future. If people want to lambast these principles as “ideology”, so be it. At least we’d have verified experience directing our economic policy.
