Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Praying for the Right (or Left) result – Cal Thomas Ideals vs. Realities – Thomas Sowell Rural US disappearing? Population share hits low – Hope Yen Government Soliciting Contracts for Dubious CLASS Program – Lachlan Markay Muslim world still anti-Western despite Obama – Kim Holmes Opposing view: Reagan would approve of today’s GOP – Lee Edwards Red Tape Rising: A 2011 Mid-Year Report – James Gattuso & Diane Katz The Road …
The debt standoff in D.C. is first and foremost about irresponsible government—not just right now but for a decade by both parties, both houses of Congress, and two Presidents. There are also a number of secondary issues, including the impact on America’s biggest foreign creditor: China. Hang on—this is going to get a bit complicated. First, there’s the idea that China can just stop buying foreign currency assets. False. The PRC’s own balance of payments rules mean they have to keep buying, and they know they have to. The situation …
President Obama and congressional leaders can’t seem to agree on any plan to avert a debt crisis. As the White House’s Aug. 2 deadline approaches, the House has adopted the Cut, Cap and Balance Act, while the Senate has floated a number of bad ideas. Earlier this year, The Heritage Foundation formulated its own plan called Saving the American Dream to fix America’s debt problem. It keeps spending low without raising taxes. Entitlement programs are the biggest driver of debt, so reforming them first will put us on a course to a …
Proponents of government spending are fond of citing 1937 as an example of when government implemented sharp austerity, and the economy derailed. This argument is dead wrong. On Thursday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued that fiscal austerity right now would make our economic crisis worse. “Even if we manage to avoid immediate catastrophe, the deals being struck on both sides of the Atlantic are almost guaranteed to make the broader economic slump worse,” writes Krugman. As his proof, he offers that “if the negotiations succeed, we will be set to replay the great mistake of …
Government bureaucrats are living the good life. Salaries and benefits are 30 percent to 40 percent higher for federal workers than their private-sector counterparts. They enjoy great benefits, such as early retirement with generous pensions. And now, the rest of America is starting to take notice. This week on Scribecast, we spoke to Iain Murray, vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He’s the author of a new book called “Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You” (Regnery, 256 pages). It documents …
U.S. employers added only 18,000 jobs last month — a remarkably low figure that contributed to the increase in unemployment to 9.2 percent. That’s the bad news. Fortunately for American workers, the future is bright, but only if regulators in Washington, D.C., get out of the way. A new study from the respected IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and IHS Global Insight reveals that the offshore oil and gas industry on its own could produce more jobs per month next year than the 18,000 that were created by all U.S. …
Senate Democrats are on the warpath against the House-passed Cut, Cap and Balance Act. They have taken to calling it the “Cut, Cap, and Kill Medicare Act.” At a press conference on Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) aptly summed up the left’s characterizations of the legislation, calling it “cruel, dangerous, and stupid.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Thursday called it “some of the worst legislation in the history of this country.” But a CNN poll released Thursday shows that two-thirds of Americans support the system established by the …
[Klein responded in a post Wednesday afternoon. See below for our reply.] Ezra Klein, the Washington Post’s liberal political blogger, has been pushing a pair of questionable assertions in his posts on congressional Republicans’ plan to, as they say, “cut, cap, and balance” the federal budget. Klein has claimed, falsely, that the plan would cap federal spending at 18 percent of GDP. In fact, the Cut, Cap and Balance Act passed by the House on Tuesday brings spending down to 22.5 percent of GDP in 2012, then gradually reduces it …
Rep. Dave Schweikert (R-AZ) attempted on Tuesday to explain the debt debate — how the budget gap should be closed — in terms everyone can understand. Schweikert noted on the House floor that proposals to deal with the deficit from President Obama and other liberals — such as ending tax breaks for corporate jets (though not the ones included in the stimulus), letting existing tax rates for higher income Americans expire, and exempting five oil companies from the domestic production tax credit — would get us about half an hour …
The recently rekindled Gang of Six presented its $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction plan to Senate colleagues yesterday. As the debt-limit deadline approaches, the six senators are hoping to gain support. “We told our colleagues this morning that we want to hear from them in the next 24 hours,” Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) said. “Are they with us or not?” After reading what Heritage’s David Addington had to say about the plan, hopefully the answer is “no.” (Pictured are Republican Sens. Mike Crapo, Tom Coburn and Saxby Chambliss.) At the White House, meanwhile, …
