A a look at what happened last week, and what is coming up this week, on Capitol Hill Senate: Last week – began debate on the credit card bill This week – will finish the credit card bill and pass the Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental House: Last week – passed the Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental and Speaker Pelosi got embroiled over the waterboarding debate This week – Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up of the cap-and-tax bill and relatively no floor activity
It is nice that the President is reaching across the aisle for an Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. Foreign policy should be bi-partisan. It is a demonstration to the Chinese that there is more that unites Americans than divides us. The selection of Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., a businessman and free trader, will also send a positive signal regarding the central importance of truly free markets in our interaction with the Chinese. Of course, from the President’s perspective, choosing a Republican is probably also an effort to …
Herbert Hoover was no laissez-faire president like Calvin Coolidge, however he did respect the constitution, and he never was willing to go as far as Franklin Roosevelt. He made a speech just before Roosevelt’s election to a third term, in which he made some salient points—ones we would still be wise to consider today. With Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin in power, and with a myriad of other dictators and authoritarian powers sprinkled across Europe, it was critical that the free citizens of America see the danger of handing over the …
On today’s front page, the New York Times goes to every effort to recreate the narrative of Mai-Lai in Vietnam, only this time in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, they do so with only half the story. This much we think we know: One night last week, American forces in the middle of a drawn out battle with insurgent Taliban forces, launched an aerial attack on enemy targets. It appears many civilians were killed during the battle. Here is what we, and the New York Times, do not know: We do not know …
Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. – then-candidate Barack Obama, 9/12/2008. President Obama has signed a bill extending health coverage to 4 million uninsured children. … To cover the increase in spending, the bill would boost the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes by 62 cents, to $1.01 a pack. – Fox News, 2/4/2009 Core inflation, which excludes …
There have been a lot of numbers floating around measuring the costs of cap and trade. For instance, a study by MIT professor John Reilly shows a carbon cap and trade would cost the average American household $3,900 a year. $800 of that figure comes from, according to Reilly, “the cost to the economy [that] involves all those actions people have to take to reduce their use of fossil fuels or find ways to use them without releasing [Green House Gases].” Our analysis shows it will cost the average family …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gf8NK1WAOc[/youtube] Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s press conference yesterday reminded a friend of ours of a particular scene from Casablanca. The great Claude Rains was nominated for an Oscar for this role. Will the Speaker be so honored by the Academy?
We’re mortgaging our children’s future. We’ve heard that phrase time and time again. President Obama used it just yesterday acknowledging that the U.S. debt load is “unsustainable”, saying, “We can’t keep on just borrowing from China. We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.” Proponents of cap and trade and any other global warming legislation are quick to argue that Americans’ short-sightedness is superseding the preservation of the planet for future generations. We’re doing it for …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O769ekeq6TA[/youtube]
Ever since the results of the government’s stress tests were released, banks across the country have been rushing to escape from their TARP traps. Now comes more details on how they got snared to start with. Documents made public this week by the Treasury Department – pursuant to a Freedom of Information request by the advocacy group Judicial Watch provide a glimpse into the October 13, 2008 meeting at which then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson arm-twisted CEO’s of the nation’s nine largest banks into ceding hundreds of billions worth of equity …
