In praise of simplicity

By: Sarah Rumpf (Diary)  |  December 9th at 07:27 PM  | 

I am in Washington, D.C. for a few days, and while I was at a coffee shop this morning, my online news feed was full of discussions about this fiscal cliff mess: what the President is proposing, how the Republicans are reacting, whether there is any chance of a deal, how bad it will hurt our economy if we go off this fiscal cliff, whether it’s even remotely possible to avoid it, and so on.

What frustrates me is that, as usual, the debate in this town misses the main point – neither side is taking any steps to address why we’re in this mess in the first place…

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Why it’s unconstitutional for Obama to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally

By: Sarah Rumpf (Diary)  |  July 27th at 11:21 AM  | 

I have been seeing an unusual (and somewhat alarming) Constitutional issue pop up during the last few months’ debt ceiling debate: does the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution authorize the President to raise the debt ceiling without approval from Congress? This post will be a little more legalese than most people like to read, but please bear with me. Obama admitted recently that his attorneys | Read More »

The Cut, Cap, Balance vote and what it says about the Florida Senate race

By: Sarah Rumpf (Diary)  |  July 22nd at 08:39 PM  | 

Today the Senate voted to table the “Cut Cap Balance” Act, which the GOP-led House had approved on Tuesday. “Voting to table” is Congress-speak for “we’re too chicken to deal with this, so we’re voting to sweep it under the rug.” What exactly scares the Senate so badly about this bill that they don’t even want to debate it? I was proud to watch my | Read More »

My Message to House Republicans

By: Sarah Rumpf (Diary)  |  July 19th at 08:07 AM  | 

Dear House Republicans, Today you are voting on the Cut, Cap, Balance Act (H.R. 2560). The Democrats are going to say you want to hurt poor people and senior citizens. The media are going to call you extremists. The Washington insiders are going to tell you this is all unnecessary. They are all wrong. It does matter. It is necessary. If the Cut, Cap, Balance Act | Read More »

Give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a trillion

By: Sarah Rumpf (Diary)  |  May 18th at 11:36 PM  | 

I saw a frightening graphic of our national debt at the Washington Post today. [Click here to see a graph of our national debt and debt ceiling over the past 31 years, and projections for the next decade] Note the red line on the graph – that’s the debt ceiling. See how every single time it gets raised, our national debt grows to match it? | Read More »