The Demon Behind the Benevolent Mask of the Welfare State II: Property Rights Edition

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  March 18th at 01:15 PM  | 

“While assessing the proposed additional levy on bank accounts in Cyprus, Putin said that such a decision, should it be made, would be unfair, unprofessional and dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

(HT: Yahoo News)

It’s rare that I find myself admiring Vladimir Putin as a human rights visionary. It was a glaring omission from the syllabus back when the KGB used to train agents for USSR. Be that as it may, even Communists and Fascists sometimes make valid points. It makes their evil all the more pernicious, but it doesn’t make Vladimir incorrect in his assessment of the Eurozone’s behavior towards Cyprus this past weekend.

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In Response to RedState, Mitch McConnell Doubles Down on Surrender

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  March 18th at 01:08 PM  | 

“Mitch McConnell is playing three card monty with the Republican base and thinks we are foolish enough to believe his distractions.” Mitch McConnell wants to clear the air based on my earlier RedState post. In the post, quoting Yahoo! News, I noted McConnell said, “When it came to Obamacare, we gave it everything we have, everything we have, and we just lost.” In response to | Read More »

Welcome to Budget Irony Week

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 18th at 11:54 AM  | 

It’s ironic to see Republicans speak so passionately about this year’s Ryan budget, even as they simultaneously vote to vitiate last year’s Ryan budget with the CR. Every Republican in Washington will give lip service to the importance of balanced budgets and cutting spending as they vote to pass the House budget for FY 2014 this week.  The RSC has introduced an even more aggressive | Read More »

Mitch McConnell Declares Surrender on Obamacare

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  March 18th at 03:30 AM  | 

Joining Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell is declaring surrender on Obamacare. He will no longer fight it. You’d never know that if you paid attention to his preferred words about Obamacare at CPAC. McConnell told the crowd that “Obamacare should be repealed root and branch.” He also told the crowd that those who think he’s given up the fight | Read More »

Your surprise ObamaCare taxes of the week

By: John Hayward  |  March 15th at 01:33 PM  | 

Wow, hey, whaddya know?  Starting in 2014, your employer (and, by extension, you) will begin paying a fresh new $63 annual ObamaCare fee, to cover the extra cost of insuring other people’s pre-existing conditions.  The Associated Press describes how this little “unexpected expense” popped out of recently unearthed regulations: The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the | Read More »

The Williamsburg Accord: A Conservative Folly

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 14th at 06:53 AM  | 

Do you want to know why the Ryan budget is a waste of time?  Worse, do you want to know why the entire House majority is a waste of time?  Look no further than John Boehner’s comments to Sean Hannity regarding fighting Obamacare in the debt ceiling: “There will be opportunities ahead, but do you want to risk the full faith and credit of the | Read More »

Obamacare Will Not Crumble Without a Government Shutdown

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  March 14th at 12:11 AM  | 

There are many naive fools who think Obamacare will crumble under its own weight. History shows us that government entitlements never crumble under their own weight. Rather, countries crumble under the weight of those entitlements. “[Republicans] speak against Obamacare building rhetorical Maginot lines that they themselves intend to go around.” Democrats were willing to lose their congressional majority to pass Obamacare. They lost the House. | Read More »

By Hook Or By Crook, They Will Get Their Revenue

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  March 13th at 11:00 AM  | 

In what had to be one of the more epic political understatements of the last five years, President Obama announced in his grandiloquent, condescending manner that he wouldn’t balance the budget just for the sake of balance. Well that’s a relief. Maybe our President could try balancing it so that we don’t wind up allocated a significant chunk of our GDP in the out years to paying off our current year ongoing spending binge. Oh, wait, I get it! The light bulb just turned on. President Obama doesn’t even intend to TRY and balance the Federal Budget. Wow! That makes it easy.

So if we no longer care about balancing the Federal Budget in any way, shape or form, could we all just scrap the idea of jacking everyone’s taxes through the roof. I mean Ben Bernanke will just print us out of any trouble. The dollar is the world’s de facto currency. Our government’s spending is no problem. Therefore, we can all just keep our money and live happily ever after in our Post-Modern, Disney Consumption Land. Barack Obama is far too nice a gentleman to even consider another round of tax increases. Bwank! Thanks for playin’!

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Defunding Obamacare is This Easy

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 12th at 06:55 PM  | 

After the House caved on funding Obamacare in the CR, the fight moves to the Senate.  Senator Ted Cruz has taken the lead in fighting Obamacare.  For the first time in almost two years we are actually having a discussion about the rising cost of health insurance engendered by Obamacare.  Cruz is proposing an amendment to the CR, which is already full of Barbara Mikulski’s | Read More »

Big Government, small people

By: John Hayward  |  March 12th at 03:27 PM  | 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decided to print out all 20,000 pages of ObamaCare regulations, stack them in a single pile, and photograph the result using a chair for reference.  It came out looking like this: That’s a good seven feet of regulations.  The top 828 pages, by the way, were released in a single day.  The draft application to apply for benefits under ObamaCare | Read More »

Ryan Budget: Balancing with More Taxes

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 12th at 10:18 AM  | 

Paul Ryan released his budget proposal for FY 2014 today, and as expected, it will balance within 10 years.  Let me first say that this budget would be superior to the status quo a million times over.  Medicaid and Food Stamps would be block granted to the states and Medicare would be subject to at least some free market reforms.  Most importantly, it defunds the | Read More »

The drive to defund ObamaCare: doomed, but useful

By: John Hayward  |  March 11th at 01:13 PM  | 

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) is at it again, producing one of those antiquated “budget” documents that seem so painfully square to hip, swinging, money-no-object, deficit-reduction-means-tax-increases Democrats.  Washington stopped producing anything resembling the conventionally understood accounting instrument of “budgets” many years ago (you know, the green-eyeshade stuff where assets equal liabilities, and income more or less covers expenses) but even the silly deficit-riddled | Read More »

What’s the Point of the Ryan Budget?

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 11th at 12:26 PM  | 

This week the House and Senate will focus on spending measures for two different years, but they are both intertwined.  The Senate will vote on the House-passed CR to fund the government for the rest of the current fiscal year, while the House will introduce the “Ryan” budget resolution for FY 2014. With much anticipation and gusto, Paul Ryan will release his budget this week | Read More »

Ohio Finds New Hope Against ObamaCare

By: Breeanne Howe (Diary)  |  March 11th at 09:00 AM  | 

State Representative Ron Young and Rep. Andy Thompson have introduced a bill in the Ohio House known as, “The Health Care Freedom Act,” that could offer new hope in the fight against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), otherwise known as Obamacare.  The bill focuses on the Obamacare provision that seeks to fine citizens for failing to purchase healthcare.  As the Health Care | Read More »

Union Briefs for Friday, March 8, 2013: Government union flea bytes…

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  March 8th at 06:30 AM  | 

From unions forcing workers to pay for politics and applauding ObamaCare, to getting a better deal from the taxpayers than the taxpayers get themselves, it’s Friday and here are your Union Briefs…

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