In May, Congress will begin debate on our nation’s debt limit. The debt limit is an alarm bell built into our nation’s laws, which forces members of Congress to confront out-of-control spending when our debt reaches a certain level. Five times in the last four years, we have ignored this alarm bell. This time must be different. It would irresponsible and reckless for them to even consider raising the limit without also enacting spending cuts and reform. The nation’s credit worthiness is directly tied to our fiscal stewardship, not our …
A budget agreement that fell short in dollars but was advertised as “the largest spending cut in history“ is being challenged by new reports that the old ways of Washington have yet to be overcome. News outlets such as The Washington Post, Fox News and the Associated Press suggest “creative accounting” may have been used to get to the figure of $38.5 billion in cuts. We’re still poring over the numbers, but this is a good time to remind the public that Congress needs to do the opposite of what former …
This Congress was sent to Washington with a simple mandate from the American people: cut federal spending and get government under control. Friday night’s budget compromise to avert a government shutdown embraced these principles, but also left plenty of work to be done. Congress has finally started cutting spending instead of running up the tab on future generations, and we hope the budget deal changed the culture of Washington. No longer should budgets be railroaded through Washington that increase spending and grow government. From here on out, the question should …
President Barack Obama deflected blame for high gas prices yesterday, by blaming American consumers for their automobile choices. According to the AP, at an event at a wind turbine plant, “Obama needled one questioner who asked about gas prices.” Obama laughingly said: “If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know…you might want to think about a trade-in.” (The AP later scrubbed this quote from its stories) For most Americans, however, high gas prices are no laughing matter. And for the …
This weekend, Energy Secretary Steven Chu appeared on Fox News Sunday and host Chris Wallace asked him about his desire in 2008 for Americans to punitively pay more at the pump in order to wean them off of gasoline. Shockingly, Chu did not walk back his comments as he has attempted to do in the past. In fact, he embraced the strategy noting that his focus is to ease the pain felt by his energy policies by forcing automakers to make more fuel-efficient automobiles: WALLACE: In that regard, in 2008 …
As Americans continue to feel the effects of President Obama’s anti-oil agenda at the pump, defensive liberals are circling back to a familiar line of counter-attack: blame Bush. The media vacuum on gas prices has made this line of attack all the more promising with very little national coverage being given to the president’s destructive domestic drilling agenda. Unfortunately it misses an obvious point. President George W. Bush was mostly attacked for wanting to drill too much (or being “cozy” with the oil industry), while President Obama’s policies are rooted …
Over the past week the nation witnessed the spectacle of Wisconsin and Indiana Democrat lawmakers fleeing across state-lines into Illinois, Bonnie and Clyde-style, though in this case in hopes that their absence would stave off having to make tough decisions. Back home, their votes were needed to rescue their states from dire fiscal problems, and that is the case in states across the rest of the Midwest and the rest of the nation. Budget deficits are bulging and competition for scarce financial resources is growing more alarming. This Prohibition-era retro …
This week the media’s attention is finally focused on oil prices. After two years of continually rising consumer gas prices in America, the oil futures market has captivated the Mideast storyline. And attention is much needed. December 2010 saw the highest gas prices for the month of December in our nation’s history. This month, we’re setting similar records with the national average of $3.14/gallon–fifty cents higher than it was a year ago. If this trend continues, the summer of 2011 will hit consumers much harder than in the summer of …
Last night, on a purely partisan 47–51 vote, the Senate rejected an amendment that would have stopped government unions from organizing Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees. The vote was made possible by an announcement two Fridays ago by President Barack Obama political appointee and TSA Administrator John Pistole. Pistole rejected TSA’s original policy that collective bargaining’s inherently adversarial process would impair TSA’s ability to protect American air travelers. Pistole’s decision, coupled with Democratic control of the Senate, will net the labor movement—a majority of whom already work for the government—45,000 …
Anyone who has ever watched Law & Order knows that someone is held in contempt of court when they egregiously disrespect the role of the court and the rule of law. Holding someone in contempt is a powerful sanction in a judge’s arsenal to redress an intentional disregard for the law and the courts. So it is no small matter when yesterday Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman held the Obama Interior Department in contempt of court for dismissively ignoring his ruling to cease the job-killing drilling moratorium imposed by …
