Members of Congress left plenty of unfinished business as they hustled out of town last weekend, but they did manage to boost spending through another half-baked legislative measure. The fiscal year (FY) 2013 Continuing Resolution (CR), H.J. Res.117, now on the way to the President’s desk, funds the federal government …
The political grandstanding around sequestration is shameful. As Bob Woodward described in his book The Price of Politics, the present crisis was not the product of ineptitude or misplaced priorities (who would have thought those would be considered lesser evils?). It has been caused by the conscious decisions of political …
The White House is attempting to use the U.S. military as a bargaining chip to force Congress to raise taxes—the looming “sequestration” budget cuts were never supposed to happen, because Congress was supposed to come to a budget agreement. Now the military faces deep, across-the-board cuts. The President has attempted …
U.S. political leaders are facing a crossroads. They can step up and solve the budget impasse, or they can do nothing and let mandated sequestration cuts take effect. The latter course would have grave consequences for the nation. Lawmakers should keep several things in mind as we hurtle toward the …
Voter ID laws have emerged as a major dispute in the months before the 2012 election, pitting the Obama administration against a growing number of states seeking to ensure the integrity of their elections. Two states, South Carolina and Texas, are already engaged in lawsuits with the Justice Department to …
A senior Defense Department official testifying before the House Armed Services Committee last week said implementing sequestration, across-the-board budget cuts set to take effect in January, “would represent a major step toward creation of an unready, ‘hollow’ military force.” Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s second-in-command, told House members that sequestration …
Liberals are still lavishing praise on the Occupy movement, months after it dissipated. The most recent example came Monday from Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, who proclaimed Occupy “will always merit praise for placing inequality at the center of our politics.” A new film from Citizens United paints a different …
Lawmakers in Washington have six months to figure out a way to avoid the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts agreed to in last year’s debt-limit deal. Those cuts disproportionately target defense, prompting concerns from across the political spectrum. Leading the charge in Congress is Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), chairman of the …
The year was 1979. America’s military had emerged from the Vietnam War earlier in the decade and was now facing sizable and significant budget cuts. Capt. Tom Shanahan, commanding officer of the USS Canisteo, had just returned from the Mediterranean Sea and was now leading an overhaul of his fleet …
