The long-debated extenders bill failed to pass the Senate yesterday by a wide margin (45-52). That’s good new for taxpayers because the bill contained $48 billion in new taxes, $126 billion in new spending and added $79 billion to the national debt. Despite yesterday’s setback, Senate leaders are undeterred and released a new version of the extenders bill today. This latest version is essentially no different than the one that passed the House in late May and the bill that failed in the Senate yesterday. Senate leaders did cut almost …
President Barack Obama promised in his Oval Office speech that an “independent third party” would be responsible for overseeing the distribution of $20 billion in funds set-aside to compensate those harmed by the BP oil spill disaster. Apparently, though, “independence” is all in the eye of the beholder. When that beholder is President Obama, an “independent third party” can apparently be someone from his own administration who serves at his will and direction. Enter Kenneth Feinberg, a Democrat, Obama administration pay czar, and now-overseer of the $20 billion BP trust …
Yesterday, Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, director of the Missile Defense Agency, testified about New START before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “There are no limitations in the treaty that affect our plans for developing missile defense.” Problem is O’Reilly’s statement ignores the lessons of unintended consequences – or in this current case, I suspect “intended consequences.” The unaffected “plans” he mentioned are, as he also indicates, “current plans”, which do not include all or even the most effective possibilities for truly effective missile defenses…such as space-based defenses. For example, recall …
You’d think that members of Congress would have a keen knowledge of and appreciation for congressional history; you’d think they would know better than to repeat the mistakes made by their legislative body in the past. But if partisanship guides your actions and winning elections at all costs is your objective, then repeating unconstitutional behavior is apparently not beyond the pale. That is exactly what is about to happen: The House of Representatives is expected to vote in the next day or two on the DISCLOSE Act, a law purportedly …
The administration is launching a full-scale defense of the new START Treaty, as evidenced by two days of testimony in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an op-ed out this morning in The Wall Street Journal by Michele Flournoy and Ashton Carter. Ms. Flournoy and Mr. Carter rightly point out the successes of the missile defense program over the past few years. Over 10 tests conducted since 2006, the Standard Missile (SM)-3 interceptor has had a 90% success rate. Missile defense is effective and a key component in our national …
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is under fire from the White House and the Beltway media for his statement to BP today: “I’m only speaking for myself. I’m not speaking for anyone else, but I apologize. I do not want to live in a county where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, [it is] subject to some sort of political pressure that, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown.” Barton should have been apologizing to the American people, not BP, but other than that …
It’s been a bad week for the rule of law. First, President Obama — without any apparent legal authority — “informs” BP that it is to hand over $20 billion into an escrow fund, or else. Not to be outdone, the Federal Communications Commission this morning voted 3-2 to take the first steps toward regulating the Internet. The decision comes only two months after a federal court — rather definitively – ruled that the agency had no authority to do take that step. Specifically, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals …
If you’ve ever waited in line at the DMV or tried to contact the IRS for help with your taxes, you’re no doubt aware that government bureaucracies tend to be inefficient. Well, the same thing holds true in the military. On the front lines, America’s Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are unmatched. But behind the front lines stretches a supply chain that can run for hundreds of miles and involve thousands of people. Streamlining the bureaucracy involved in logistics would save the Pentagon money, which could then be reinvested …
Why does President Obama keep saying that his administration will do everything it takes to make BP “pay for the damage the company has caused” in the Gulf? Is there some question in his mind about BP’s liability? Is this another case where neither the president nor his advisers have read the applicable law? Or is it just politics driving the White House to make the American people think the administration is doing something about this crisis? In truth, there is no question about BP’s liability: the Oil Pollution Act …
The Washington Post reported today that the International Monetary Fund and various world governments warned U.S. officials years ago that “escalating financial problems” in the United States “had to be addressed quickly to forestall a larger threat to the world economy, but those urgings were discounted.” The Post went on to observe that by the time U.S. officials finally responded, “the price tag for stemming the financial contagion had soared.’ Truth to tell, the Post story was not about the U.S., but about Europe’s debt crisis beginning with Greece. But …
