Now is Not the Time to Shirk From Obamacare Fight

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  November 11th at 12:30 PM  | 

By now, we are all intimately acquainted with the bromide that “Republican’s only control one-half of one-third of government.”  Nonetheless, we must remember that, in the realm of appropriations, they control the most consequential body of government; the House of Representatives.  Unfortunately, almost a year into their stewardship of that body, they have shown only a tepid inclination to defund Obamacare. Despite months of diligent | Read More »

Bipartisan Big Spenders Appointed to Conference Committee for Spending Bills

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  November 3rd at 09:02 PM  | 

After dithering for almost three years without a budget, Democrats are in a hellfire rush to finish all of the 12 annual appropriations bills.  Unfortunately, Republicans leaders are in such a hurry to bury the hatchet on spending fights, they are willing to void all of the House-passed bills, in return for bipartisan conference reports.  These conference committee versions – chock full of Senate Democrat amendments | Read More »

The RSC Jobs Plan: Jobs Through Growth

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  November 2nd at 01:30 PM  | 

One of the more positive ancillary benefits of this presidential primary season is the newfound focus on taxation, regulation, and energy production.  The prominence of the presidential election has helped jumpstart a vital discourse on long-term reforms for those three policies. The RSC, which is the most respected conservative group within Congress, has proposed a jobs growth plan today, which seeks to achieve those reforms, | Read More »

Republicans Must Oppose Reid’s Minibus Bill

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  November 1st at 10:30 AM  | 

Update: 16 Republican Senators voted to empower Harry Reid and expand Food Stamps.  It is now up to House members to demand a full floor vote with amendments to this bill. Last week, we noted that Harry Reid, with the help of Republican leadership, is attempting to come late to the 2012 budget game and commandeer the entire process through a series of ‘minibus’ bills.  | Read More »

Stop Harry Reid’s Egregious Budget Power Grab

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  October 26th at 12:02 PM  | 

Senate Democrats (and all other Democrats, for that matter) have not passed a budget for over 900 days, yet they are planning to come late to the game and commandeer the appropriations process.  After delaying the process for over two years, Harry Reid, with the help of some Senate Republicans, is planning to expedite appropriations bills in a way that disavows standard procedures of transparency.  | Read More »

Joe Walsh as the Model for 2012 House Candidates

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  October 3rd at 08:12 AM  | 

In order to ‘fundamentally restore’ America, we will need to win back the House and Senate in 2012, in addition to the White House.  Yes – you read that correctly.  We don’t control the House yet. There is a popular misconception that all of the 87 freshmen members are intrepid conservatives – members of the “Tea Party Congress.”  Sadly, many of the newbies are ‘business | Read More »

GOP Plans to Cave on Transportation Spending

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  September 27th at 12:45 PM  | 

We’ve seen this show before.  Republicans propose grand ideas to cut spending and implement free-market reforms; they speak ebulliently about their new ideas, and …they summarily scuttle them and cave to the Democrats. Earlier this year, Republicans proposed a commendable plan to end the bipartisan pork fest of surface transportation spending.  Instead of continuing the inexorable expansion of transportation spending, House Transportation Committee Chairman John | Read More »

Hold the Line Against Venture Eco-Socialism in the CR

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  September 25th at 07:26 PM  | 

No wonder Democrats casually disregard our budget crisis.  They have a penchant to drop zeros from government expenditures!  Last month, Democrat congressional candidate Dave Weprin thought that the national debt stood at $4.0 trillion.  Now Harry Reid has filed cloture on his version of the FY 2012 CR that has a missing zero from some of the disaster aid expenditures.  According to CQ Politics, Reid’s | Read More »

Republicans Should Stop Reauthorizing Stuff they Denounced

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  September 19th at 12:16 PM  | 

There is an old adage that defines insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”  What’s worse than insanity is hypocritical insanity, which may be defined as doing the same thing that your opponent did over and over again, while expecting different results.  Unfortunately, that is an apt description of the House GOP leadership of late. During the 2010 | Read More »

GOP Must Use Political Victories to Oppose Obama’s Stimulus in its Entirety

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  September 14th at 02:52 PM  | 

The Democrats have provided Republicans with a historic opportunity to go on offense against Keynesian stimulus, and apply jujitsu against the Democrat 2012 playbook – Mediscare tactics.  They shouldn’t blow it. Last night, Democrats got wiped out in two special elections; losing by 22% in Nevada CD-2 and by 8% in a New York district that hasn’t voted Republican since 1922.  These victories were buoyed | Read More »

Heritage Action’s Legislative Scorecard

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 25th at 02:30 PM  | 

Well, the first comprehensive conservative report card of Congress is out, and we can now determine which members of the “Tea Party Congress” drink a hardcore brew. Today, Heritage Action for America released their legislative scorecard for the pre-recess 1st session of the 112th Congress.  Unlike most other scorecards, this one was designed to separate the men from the boys.  Most traditional scorecards, and most | Read More »

GOP Picks for Super Duper Committee Won’t Make a Difference

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 10th at 01:28 PM  | 

Well, the much anticipated picks for the debt deal Super Committee have been announced.  There will be much ink spilled over who was chosen and who was rejected.  However, the salient point is not the orientation of the committee, but the entire premise behind the committee itself. Many conservatives will laud the choice of Pat Toomey for the committee; others will decry the pick of | Read More »

Why We Fight

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 31st at 07:26 PM  | 

Over the past week, the Tea Party has been impugned and maligned with more ferocity than ever before.  Amidst our push to balance the budget, downsize job-killing government agencies and programs, and preserve our AAA credit rating, we have been condemned as extremists, suicidal, and traitors.  Sadly, most of these acrimonious ad hominem attacks were propagated by those who purport to share the aforementioned goals, | Read More »

A Deal No Republican Can Support

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 31st at 12:30 AM  | 

On Friday, House Republicans voted overwhelmingly for a plan that would raise the debt limit a whopping $2.5 trillion.  All but 22 members, including many stalwart conservatives, supported the bill because they were promised that the second installment of the debt limit increase ($1.6 trillion) would only be approved under two conditions: 1) A debt commission identifies at least $1.6 trillion in spending cuts.  2)  | Read More »

Here’s the Latest Democrat Plan

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 28th at 07:49 PM  | 

Well, we really stuck it to the Democrats today.  Instead of passing Cut, Cap, and Balance, a plan that will never pass the Senate and would have foisted the blame of a default upon us (supposedly), we orchestrated a plan to really own them.  We came up with Boehner plan 2.0 that..well, …..will not pass the Senate – and will force a default, unless we | Read More »

Boehner Grounds into a Double Play

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 26th at 08:43 PM  | 

Late this afternoon, the CBO reaffirmed all of our concerns with Speaker Boehner’s Budget Control Act of 2011 – plus interest (pun intended). We have asserted ad nauseam that any proposed budget plan that fails to countermand the current prodigal spending levels, including the modestly reduced spending levels of 2011, is not worth the paper it is printed on.  The CBO estimates that Boehner’s $1.2 | Read More »

The Unanswered Questions for GOP Leaders from Freshmen

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 24th at 07:30 PM  | 

Forget the tax issue or the timetable for a moment; any proposed “spending cut” deal that fails to slash funding for discretionary spending and welfare programs to pre-Obama levels, as proposed in Paul Ryan‘s budget, is worthless.  As Congressman Dennis Ross (R-FL) tweeted earlier today, “debt “deals” that count on 10 years worth of spending cuts are the Mr Snuffleupagus of budget tricks. No one | Read More »

Democrats Threaten FAA Shutdown Over Rural Pork

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 22nd at 07:58 AM  | 

Amidst the circus surrounding the looming debt ceiling deadline, there is another deadline that is coming due tonight at midnight; funding for the FAA.  The Democrats in the Senate are obdurately refusing to pass either a short-term or long-term extension of the FAA reauthorization, threatening to furlough 4,000 precious union workers beginning Saturday.  Their rationale?  Saving Harry Reid’s rural pork. Much like highway and surface | Read More »

Time to End Bipartisan Profligacy of Transportation Spending

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 18th at 08:35 AM  | 

One of the preferred methods liberals use to tax and spend is to create special “trust funds” for particular expenditures, with the intent of hiding the funds within the Treasury’s general fund.  The system goes something like this: levy a tax that is supposedly earmarked for a specific expense and impounded in a trust fund (lock box); gradually purloin the fund by using it for | Read More »

The Entire Premise Behind Debt Negotiations is a Farce

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 15th at 12:06 PM  | 

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Taylor of Caroline, November 26, 1798 Obama and the Democrats have no intention to cut | Read More »