I’m sorry, folks: there ain’t nothing going on that can justify a front-page story. The closest I can come to it is the news that the preliminary estimate of the economy’s 1Q growth was only 2.5%, and even then most of the reporting seems fixated on blaming the slowdown on the $85 billion dollars cut from the budget this year (despite the fact that the | Read More »
In her speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a onetime presidential candidate, said this: A new book is out talking about the perks and the excess of the $1.4-billion-a-year presidency that we’re paying for. And this is a lifestyle that is one of excess. Now we find out that there are five chefs on Air Force One. There | Read More »
It’s awful that the Democrats want to squeeze a trillion dollars in new taxes out of Americans with Senate Budget Committee chair Patty Murray’s (D-WA) budget proposal, but hey, at least they offer a “balanced approach” by cutting a trillion in spending too, right? Wrong. The “spending cuts” are almost entirely fraudulent. They’re just paperwork shuffles and accounting tricks. It begins with one of the most | Read More »
Presto, change-o! At the beginning of the year, we were sternly lectured that huge tax increases were absolutely necessary to confront our looming debt crisis. America was driven to the edge of the “fiscal cliff,” ostensibly producing business panic that explained a fair measure of Barack Obama’s permanent economic malaise, by the President’s refusal to budge an inch from his demands for those deficit-fighting tax | Read More »
Roll Call reports today that teams of AIPAC lobbyists are fanning out across the Capitol in an effort to block sequester cuts for Israeli foreign aid. We’re talking about a $155 million cut from $3.1 billion, for goodness sakes. Nonetheless, here’s a novel idea that would kill two birds with one stone. Egypt receives about $1.5 billion in foreign aid per year. Additionally, Obama is | Read More »
As you all are probably aware, the Oscars were this past weekend, and as usual, the gift bag was huge. It was at a five year low $47,803, mind you, but by the standards of us poors, it was gigantic. So that got me thinking, what kind of gift bag would our beloved Congressmen and Senators get from President Obama for putting up with this | Read More »
It’s really simple, folks. Everything boils down to Obamacare. Do we really believe that Obamacare will make private health insurance unaffordable? Do we really believe Obamacare will bankrupt the nation and relegate the next generation of Americans to a dimmer future of less freedom and opportunity? Do we really believe Obamacare will create incorrigible dependency? Dow we really believe that Obamacare will lead to a | Read More »
OK Americans, you; and I mean you personally, have a serious ego problem. You are not grateful enough. President Obama works so hard for you, and you don’t show him adequate love. He’s had it. He won’t be putting up with any more of your shenanigans. Therefore, you are going to get both gun control and sequestration – good and hard!
You see, some people are actually bringing up the point that sequestration was a proposal put forth by The Executive Branch. The audacity of these peons! They think they are citizens when in fact they are subjects. Morale Conditioner, Chuck Todd lectures us on how to think properly harmonious social thoughts.
Read More »CHUCK TODD: Of all the dumb things Washington does, this “who started it” argument has proven to be one of the dumber ones, especially since we’re so close to the actual cuts going into place.
With sequester coming in less than a week, there’s a certain amount of sudden nervousness about it… among the DC/Beltway demographic (it’s never a real crisis until it affects the Imperial District, you see). So you can expect to see a few rhetorical Hail Mary plays being thrown, in the hope that one of them will resonate with the voting public… but, still. Is this | Read More »
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss a clash between an American company and the French, the job impacts of the sequester, and an economic outlook.
Read More »In August 2011, Obama hatched a deal to grant himself a free $2.1 trillion increase in debt, which would take him past the 2012 elections, thereby sparing him the embarrassment of another debt limit request during the campaign season. He knew that such a request was so bold it needed to be ensconced in a deal that would give voters the impression he was committed | Read More »
And he’s going to do it with the usual living props, too: “President Barack Obama will once again call on members of Congress to avoid the mandatory spending cuts due to hit at the end of the month, joined by first responders whose jobs may be on the line, according to a White House official.” Some thoughts on this: This is remarkably small-ball for a | Read More »
The time for equivocation over defunding Obamacare is over. The time for recalcitrance to fulfill the budgetary is long overdue. Now is the time for action. Over the past two years, we’ve heard a variety of excuses in defense of Republicans for failing to cut spending in any consequential way. Well, come March 1 those excuses are obsolete. The sequester is something that Republicans agreed | Read More »
This is a pretty clear statement. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that he would not accept a plan to avert the sequester by raising taxes, just days before Democrats are expected to propose exactly that. “My constituents in Kentucky will not accept a tax hike in the place of spending cuts that were already agreed to by both parties,” McConnell said. “We | Read More »
Throughout the past few years, we’ve noted that there’s too much focus on the dollars and cents of the budget. Even Obama and Democrats are talking about billions in spending cuts. It’s beginning to sound like an Old McDonald song: “a few trillion here and a hundred billion there; here a trillion there a billion, everywhere a spending cut.” However, once we cut through the | Read More »
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