I’m rather tired of all the people who don’t like Romney trying to claim Rick Santorum is not a big government conservative, or not a pro-life statist. I would support him before I would support Romney too, but I have no intention of giving up ideological and intellectual consistency in the name of beating Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You | Read More »
This is what we get from a new House Republican majority? Call me naive, but from the onset of this legislative session I really expected we would witness some transformational change in the way Washington does business. That was obviously a foolish expectation. GOP leaders agreed last night to pass the omnibus bill with largely the same provisions as the one they introduced yesterday. After | Read More »
“We all know which ones have been fighting hard to keep their campaign promises and which ones have remained stealth senators following the rudderless lead of Senator McConnell.” The defeat of Ron Johnson for a leadership post in the Senate should serve as a wakeup call to conservatives. Despite our hard work during the 2010 elections, we have not done enough to elect conservative warriors | Read More »
Here we go again. After a full year of grandstanding against another extension of unemployment benefits, some Republicans are ready to cave. “do we believe in free-market doctrine, which suggests that extended UI hurts the economy, or the Keynesian multiplier, which suggests that UI helps the economy?” If you ever wondered why it is so hard to cut spending, and more importantly, to downsize government, | Read More »
Last year, the American people voted overwhelmingly for a Republican House of Representatives. Based upon their campaign pledges, the prevailing expectation of a “Republican House” was a body of revitalized Republicans who would not fund Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, downsize Freddie/Fannie, oppose appropriator-concocted omnibus bills, and fight for at least some of their priorities in the Ryan budget. A year later, the prevailing sentiment amongst the | Read More »
There is an old adage in Washington that describes the political system as consisting of three political parties; Democrats, Republicans, and Appropriators. The Appropriations Subcommittee chairmen, often referred to as the “College of Cardinals,” usually agree to concoct legislation that fuses the worst elements of the evil and stupid parties, resulting in something worse than a pure Democrat proposal. This is exactly what transpired with | Read More »
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 »
This is the result of roughly ten years’ worth of looking on – sometimes horrified; sometimes amused; sometimes bewildered – at our current Media environment. Note that capital, by the way: I’m pretty much describing the Media as a singular and monolithic institution, mostly because on a practical level that’s pretty much how it acts towards conservatives/Republicans. Also, I’m really not interested if individual Media-units | Read More »
This is unsurprising, but also really pathetic. “Conservative” elites are unhappy with the Republican field. Bill Kristol pines for a smart guy. Let me put this in perspective for you. The group of “smart” conservatives who were okay to let No Child Left Behind go through, who did little to oppose Medicare Part D, who advocated for TARP, and endorsed the idea of “big government” | Read More »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Republicans and conservatives have correctly asserted that the federal government doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. However, a more trenchant summation of our public policy vices would go something like this: we don’t have a spending problem, per se; we have a big government problem. While such a characterization might sound redundant, the Orwellian language used to describe spending cuts throughout | Read More »
“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 »
I’m already hearing whining and lamenting about my post this morning on conservatives’ need to do more than pledge. It’s only 10 a.m. and I’m getting the “how dare you question my integrity” emails and the “who the heck do you think you are” emails. “But . . . meow . . . I’m a 501(c)(3). I can’t do anything . . . meow.” That’s | Read More »
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