Seeking to make virtue out of vice, the political Left has launched a desperate, devious and dangerous ploy to prevent the spending cuts that the public demands. They are laying the groundwork for President Obama to bypass negotiations and to ignore the $14.3-trillion statutory ceiling on federal debt. They want him to instruct the Treasury to borrow whatever it needs to satisfy grandiose spending designs, by claiming that the borrowing limit is unconstitutional. If this happened, it would add a constitutional crisis to our economic crisis. And it would worsen …
Our future should not be determined behind closed doors. Yet that’s where the White House and Congress are holding secret talks about our debt ceiling and about taxes and spending. We deserve openness instead. We don’t need another farce when the players suddenly burst from their huddle, line up Members of Congress, and rush through their plan on a quick count. The two keys are first, frequent and detailed progress reports from the now-secret talks, and second, ample time for review of any agreement. We’ve been told that participants supposedly …
It’s tempting to cut off funds immediately for President Obama’s ill-conceived Libya offensive. But it’s not the right course. For the sake of our allies, Congress needs to be patient in using the power of the purse to correct Obama’s misadventure. Even if the ongoing air attacks chased Muammar Qadhafi from power, he might be replaced by a radical Islamist regime. We have no good intelligence on what the rebels would establish if they took over.
President Obama could learn a lesson from this fable about a great ship. Having received ample warning of icebergs ahead, some of the crew of the HMS Titanic proposed changing course to avoid them. But the captain objected. “Making that maneuver would end this cruise as we know it. It would disrupt the passengers’ peace of mind, discomfiting them as we turn and swerve, especially those below decks in steerage,” the captain told them. “There is no immediate jeopardy and I am appointing a commission to consider other options.” The …
Once again the U.S. House plans to take another whack Tuesday at defunding Obamacare—although the Senate and White House are poised to protect the funding. The bill scheduled for a vote, HR 1213, would repeal the automatic funding that Obamacare provides for federally-dictated insurance exchanges, the mechanisms to sell the re-fashioned and federally-approved insurance policies. And while the bill does not repeal the requirement that each state either establish such an exchange or have the feds do it for them, billions of taxpayer dollars could be saved if the House …
Efforts to defund Obamacare one bite at a time are making progress in the House, although Senate prospects remain dim. The House is addressing parts of Obamacare which are so loosely-drafted that House Speaker John Boehner and others label them multi-billion-dollar “slush funds.” Five bills (numbered HR 1213 through 1217) targeted at parts of the health care law were approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday. The bills repeal some portions of Obamacare, totally defund other parts, and convert some automatic funding into a requirement for annual Congressional …
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R, WI) has proposed a budget for grown ups. Washington’s big spenders have responded with the tired clichés we expect from defenders of big government: “Pulling the rug out from under seniors,” says Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D, MI). “Waging war on American workers,” says Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif. “A path to poverty for America’s seniors and children,” claims House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA). “The tea party has hijacked the Republican caucus,” says House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D, MD)
Untouchable. That’s the treatment being given to the $23.6 billion being spent right now to implement Obamacare. This $23.6 billion is part of the $105.5 billion appropriated by the last Congress to fund Obamacare. The remainder (Think of it as post-dated checks for the other $81.9 billion.) automatically becomes available between now and FY2019. None of this is to be confused with an additional $115 billion authorized for additional appropriation to Obamacare—but which the current Congress is unlikely to provide. The most pressing question, however, is whether any of the …
The potential government shutdown is not just history repeating itself between a Democrat President and a Republican House. It’s also a repeat of a key role played by government employee unions. What’s different now is that the public has awakened to how they’ve been duped with false promises about big government. In the 1995-96 shutdowns, the public worker unions reportedly played a huge role behind the scenes; today their role has been brought into the open, becoming common knowledge even before the mass union protests at the Wisconsin state capitol. …
Several members of Congress, like Rep. Denny Rehberg (R, MT) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R.-Wash.) are offering amendments that would prevent any new spending from being used to implement Obamacare. Good for them. Those are important additions to the big spending bill pending in Congress. But here’s the dirty little secret: Much of Obamacare is being implemented with money that was already appropriated last year. These billions are already available for bureaucrats to put Obamacare into force. Denying additional funding for Obamacare does not de-fund the huge amounts it …
