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    Morning Bell: Accelerating Us Off a Cliff

    Speaking to House Democrats at their Kingsmill Resort & Spa retreat last month, President Barack Obama defended his economic stimulus plan, claiming: “[We] are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy … More

    We’ve Heard This Rhetoric on Defense Spending Before

    In his February 24, Address to Joint Session of Congress, President Barack Obama promised to “reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use.” In the DC Examiner, Heritage senior fellow James Carafano wonders that means: All the “Cold War” weapons still … More

    Morning Bell: Geithner in Wonderland

    When President Barack Obama introduced Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) as his nominee for Commerce Secretary, Obama said of Gregg: “He shares my deep-seated commitment to guaranteeing that our children inherit a future they can afford.” After yesterday’s Senate Budget Committee hearing, we now know why Gregg eventually decided he could … More

    Obama’s Budget vs. Obama’s Stimulus

    George Will writes today: The administration insists that it really does have a single priority: Everything depends on fixing the economy. But it also says that everything depends on everything: Economic revival requires enactment of the entire liberal wish list of recent decades. The implausibility of this opportunistic hypothesis is … More

    The Global Government Debt Bubble: Local Government Edition

    We’ve warned before that the federal government’s exploding appetite for debt was helping to create a Global Government Debt Bubble. The Obama Administration has even been trying to worsen the problem by lobbying other countries to borrow even more money, despite the fact that our own record borrowing makes their … More

    No Defense for Obamanomics

    Laura Tyson’s “In Defense of Obamanomics” in the Wall Street Journal Monday well portrayed the view of history and government from the classical American socialist perspective – more government is inherently better (except when it involves national defense), higher taxes are inherently better, especially when falling on the most productive, … More

    How to Hide a Trillion Dollars

    The Obama Administration’s recent budget has some of the most revealing text in the smallest font. Put on your green eyeshade and get out your wonk decoder ring. We’re heading down into the weeds to hunt budget big game. Footnote 5 of Table S-6 starts off “Shown here are those … More

    Waste of a Speech

    Yesterday, President Obama declared that in addition to solving all of the country’s other ills that he was going to eliminate government waste. His target—defense spending. “I want to focus on one particular example, and that is the situation in defense contracting.” This was a speech I long expected. Our … More

    Morning Bell: It’s About the Spending

    Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) ought to be commended for exposing the left’s commitment to reforming the way Washington does business as nothing more than empty rhetoric. Last night Coburn forced votes on two amendments to the $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill that forced liberal Senators to approve of $10 million … More

    Where’s the Pork?

    We just finished watching President Barack Obama’s press conference on his plan to save taxpayers $40 billion a year by reforming government contracting. And with apologies to the Wendy’s franchise, “Where’s the beef?” There was zero substance in that speech. Not one specific idea for exactly how he will achieve … More