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December 26, 2012

Charity Begins With Wealth Creation By John Stossel

Charity -- helping people who have trouble helping themselves -- is a good thing two times over. It's good for the beneficiary and good for the donor, too. Stephen Post's fine book, "The Hidden Gifts of Helping," reveals that 76 percent of Americans say that helping others is what makes them most happy. Giving money makes us feel good, and helping face-to-face is even better. People say it makes them feel physically healthier. They sleep better.

Private charity is unquestioningly better than government efforts to help people. Government squanders money. Charities sometime squander money, too, but they usually don't.

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December 26, 2012

Getting More for Less in Health Care By Froma Harrop

Sad, sad, sad that in talking about budget cuts, we use painful words like "extracting billions from Medicare" or "slashing the Medicare entitlement." Has it ever occurred to the gladiators that improving the quality of health care can also save money? If Medicare spends less on a patient because the hospital does a good job the first time, that's what we call a win-win situation. The patient gets better care. The taxpayers get billed only once. Yay.

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December 24, 2012

Here Comes the Cliff By Michael Barone

Last week, Republicans proved they are not a governing party. Next week we will see whether Democrats are.

A governing party would have, reluctantly, passed Speaker John Boehner's Plan B, which would have preserved the current tax rates on everyone with incomes under $1 million.

Passage would have put Senate Democrats on the spot, since they voted for a similar measure in 2010. They might have engaged in negotiations with Boehner that could have been more productive than his negotiations with Barack Obama this month and in the summer of 2011.

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December 21, 2012

What Americans Should Learn From the 'Republican Apocalypse' By Joe Conason

What may finally consume the House Republicans is their boundless contempt for the American public -- a contempt bluntly demonstrated in their refusal to consider any reasonable compromise with President Obama to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" on Dec. 31. They know from the election results (and every poll) that the public believes taxes should be raised on the wealthy. They know that the public wants bipartisan compromise. And they know that the approval rating of the House Republicans, in contrast to the president's upwardly trending numbers, are veering toward historic lows.

December 21, 2012

Boehner’s Plan B Hurt the GOP By Scott Rasmussen

President Obama and congressional Democrats are still winning the messaging battle in the debate over the impending "fiscal cliff."

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December 20, 2012

Tim Scott and Daniel Inouye Show a Better America By Michael Barone

On Monday, the U.S. Senate got its newest member and lost its most senior member.

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December 20, 2012

Online and in Your Face By Froma Harrop

They don't like the crowds, the traffic, the parking chaos. They dislike the sameness -- the same mall chain stores piping in the same holiday music and selling the same made-in-China sweaters, whether in Spokane, Indianapolis or Raleigh. They stress out when waiting for someone to take their payment. Small wonder that 45 percent of consumers are doing at least some holiday shopping this year via the Internet, according to the Deloitte consulting firm.    

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December 19, 2012

It's the Spending, Stupid! By John Stossel

Listening to progressive media pundits, I'd think the most evil man in the universe is Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. His crime? He heads a movement that asks political candidates to pledge not to raise taxes.

I think Grover accomplished a lot. But I wish he'd convinced politicians to pledge not to increase spending.

President Obama says raising taxes to cut the deficit is a "balanced" approach.

Balanced ...

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December 18, 2012

Real "Realism" on Gun Control By Froma Harrop

The usual gun extremists largely went into hiding this weekend after the obscenity in Connecticut. The National Rifle Association offered only a flowery expression of sympathy for the victims. Real brave, aren't they?

One foe of gun control who did speak out was Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican. He said the "more realistic discussion" is "how do we target people with mental illness who use firearms?"

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December 17, 2012

While Feds Dawdle, States Tackle Fiscal Problems By Michael Barone

Democrats in Washington declare that they will absolutely, positively allow no changes whatever in the nation's unsustainable entitlement programs -- Social Security and Medicare.

But out in the states, politicians of both parties aren't averting their gaze from impending fiscal crises. They are working to change policies that put state governments on an unsustainable trajectory.

The most obvious example was the passage of a right-to-work law last week in Michigan, the birthplace of the United Auto Workers union.

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December 15, 2012

South Carolina Doubles Down on 2014 By Geoffrey Skelley

When Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) unexpectedly announced that he planned to resign his seat in early 2013 to become president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, he set in motion an odd American political occurrence: the double-barreled Senate election. This is when there is both a Senate special election and a regularly-scheduled Senate election held on the same day in the same state. In 2014, South Carolina will have a special election for the rest of DeMint's term at the same time Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) is up for reelection.

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December 14, 2012

House 2014: A Narrowing Battlefield? By Kyle Kondik

Ticket-splitters are getting rarer and rarer, at least based on the dwindling number of congressional districts where different parties won the presidential vote and the House seat. And that potentially reduces the number of targets for both sides as we examine 2014’s House playing field.

December 14, 2012

Health Care Law Is Still Fighting For Its Life By Scott Rasmussen

Having survived the Supreme Court and the November elections, President Obama's health care law now faces an even bigger hurdle: the reality of making it work.

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December 14, 2012

Raising Medicare Age Won't Save Money But Will Cost Lives By Joe Conason

Raising taxes on the rich alone won't close the deficit or erase the national debt, as Republicans superciliously inform us over and over again. But in their negotiations with the White House to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, congressional Republicans seem obsessed with a change in Medicare eligibility whose budgetary impact (when compared with ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy) is truly negligible -- but whose human toll would be immense.

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December 13, 2012

Fiscal Cliff Creates Problems That Don't Faze Obama By Michael Barone

Is Barack Obama bluffing when he threatens to go over the fiscal cliff if Republicans refuse to agree to higher tax rates on high earners?

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December 13, 2012

Crashing Federal Hypocrisy on Pot By Froma Harrop

Ah, the great American West, where man can generally breathe free and also inhale -- woman, too. Thank you, thank you, voters in Colorado and Washington state, for legalizing marijuana. But will Washington, D.C., leave you alone? Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that the Justice Department will weigh its response to the state referenda.

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December 12, 2012

Government Gone Bad By John Stossel

Politicians claim they make our lives better by passing laws. But laws rarely improve life. They go wrong. Unintended consequences are inevitable.

Most voters don't pay enough attention to notice. They read headlines. They watch the Rose Garden signing ceremonies and hear the pundits declare that progress was made. Bipartisanship! Something got done. We assume a problem was solved.

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December 11, 2012

Debt-ceiling Nonsense Once Again By Froma Harrop

Nothing like a debt-ceiling brawl to raise the public's anxiety levels. The Republican threat two summers ago to let America default on its borrowing helped lower America's credit rating and sent consumer confidence back into intensive care. The people were not amused.

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December 10, 2012

Mexican Migration May Be Over By Michael Barone

Is mass migration from Mexico to the United States a thing of the past? At least for the moment, it is. Last May, the Pew Hispanic Center, in a study based on U.S. and Mexican statistics, reported that net migration from Mexico to this country had fallen to zero from 2005 to 2010.

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December 7, 2012

Arithmetic For Republicans: Why Boehner's 'Offer' Just Doesn't Add Up By Joe Conason

If President Obama honestly wants to negotiate an agreement with Republicans before the year-end fiscal deadline, he must be deeply frustrated. And if he doesn't really want to negotiate with them, then he should be delighted, for the same reason: Their latest "offer" laid before him by House Speaker John Boehner demonstrates again their refusal to reveal their true intentions -- and their inability to do simple arithmetic.

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