Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Jim Pethokoukis and Pejman Yousefzadeh to discuss last night’s State of the Union speech. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy | Read More »
Much has been made of Michelle Bachmann’s “Tea Party” response to the State of the Union. For days the media has been playing this up as a major conflict within the Republican Party. In fact, a number of Republican leadership aides pulled out all the stops trying to get the networks to ignore Michelle Bachmann. Kudos to CNN for its willingness to cover the speech | Read More »
The Washington Post reports that Representative Ryan will be giving it from the House Budget Committee room, which is simultaneously: nicely symbolic; and a reminder that there’s a reason why Ryan is now the House Budget Chair. It’s an interesting choice. As the WaPo noted, the last two choices were Governors Jindal (2009) and McDonnell (2010). While I actually liked Jindal’s response, there’s no denying | Read More »
You know, the Democratic party is probably really regretting not targeting Paul Ryan‘s seat last quarter. Not that it would have actually worked, but at least they could have told themselves that they tried to avert events like these: For those without video, this is three and three-quarter minutes’ worth of Rep. Ryan ripping apart last year’s useless CBO report on Obamacare costs, with some | Read More »
Promoted from the diaries by Dan Spencer. “We will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone,” plainly reads a section now under much scrutiny in the House Republican’s ‘A Pledge to America.’ It was a section that was written by the now Majority Whip, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California’s 22nd district. Unfortunately an | Read More »
Elections. Have. Consequences. And here’s one coming up, now: the incoming House majority will be establishing a rule that will give the House Budget chair the ability to set the spending ceiling for any 2011 budget. This rule is currently causing House Democrats to freak out like koalas deprived of their eucalyptus leaves/junkies deprived of their heroin/hipsters deprived of their iPhones, for two reasons: The | Read More »
Senator John Thune took to the Senate floor yesterday to criticize his fellow 2012 presidential contenders for playing politics with the Obama-Kyl tax deal. “It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize this deal,” Thune said. “And it would perhaps be politically expedient to stand on the sideline and criticize this tax deal. But to advocate against this tax deal is to advocate | Read More »
Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson, Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Bernanke’s latest QE2 moves, the GOP’s opportunity society, and why health care, not the economy, may have been the biggest issue in Tuesday’s election. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment.com and Stephen Clouse and Associates. We’d also like | Read More »
Recently, we have seen a number of odd and highly unnecessary comments about the need for truces on social issues. Notably, Mitch Daniels, the Governor of Indiana and possible 2012 Presidential candidate, told the Weekly Standard that we “would have to call a truce on social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a while.” And now you have one | Read More »
From the Diaries by Erick. Introduction My first political act was attending a Ronald Reagan rally back in 1980. Since then I’ve watched with great disappointment the ability of the GOP to turn opportunities into wasted piles of crap and to push soft Republicans and weary independents into the arms of the Democrats or those who don’t vote. Such moves have led to this kind | Read More »
“I don’t think that conservatives have to assume that the Roadmap with its inherent tradeoffs is The Conservative Plan From On High for the next several decades. ” I like Paul Ryan. He is an above-average conservative who can often articulate good policy, even though his actual voting record sometimes does not reflect his conservatism. These days his “Roadmap” is all the rage in conservative | Read More »
Democrats trying to defend their flailing healthcare bills have tried, repeatedly, a two-pronged attack on the mostly united Republican opposition to the various plans floated by the Senate and House Democrats and the Obama White House. One is to suggest that Republicans are criticizing the proposed Democratic solutions without having any of their own – implying that there really is no other choice but to | Read More »
On Tuesday night, be given a health care bill the size of Delaware that nobody in your office had a chance to read (over 1,000 pages, in this case). On Wednesday, watch it be jammed through various committees. On Thursday, find out from that the nonpartisan oversight group that’s supposed to be regulating this sort of thing hasn’t been able to read it, either. Note | Read More »
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), ranking member on the House Budget Committee, has done the American people a great service as the debate commences on President Barack Obama’s budget. We’ve all heard the argument from congressional Republicans: “It spends too much, borrows too much and taxes too much.” Put those words next to pictures and you begin to realize their significance. The following 11 slides should | Read More »
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