President Obama has said that the cuts included in his fiscal 2012 budget will force “tough choices and sacrifices.” Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner invoked a former tax-hiking president in defending his chamber’s proposed budget reductions.
Everyone has priorities. During the past week, Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people.
As congressional Republicans mull whether to address the government's long-term fiscal problems -- House Republican leaders are being pushed by the 87 freshmen to do so, while some Senate Republicans are seeking some bipartisan accords with Democratic colleagues -- two Republican governors barreled into Washington with the message that the lawmakers better get moving. And that congressional Republicans might do just fine politically if they do.
In 2009, when CNBC's David Faber asked former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan what lessons could be learned to prevent another great financial meltdown in the wake of the mortgage-financing collapse, Greenspan did not have a happy-face answer.
Yes, Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and badly beaten. Yes, that is a terrible thing. She is, however, reported to be in "remarkably good spirits." Indeed. She is alive, not beheaded, not held hostage, not any number of terrible things. Being raped is bad, but it isn't the worst thing. Not getting out alive is the worst thing.
Washington politicians have worked themselves into a fine lather lately debating spending cuts. Yet as familiar rhetorical jabs are exchanged over proposed reductions to things like NPR and the National Archives, the real spending debate is being ignored.
“Don’t fight the Fed” is an old stock market adage. Successful investors pay a lot of attention to it. It means that when the central bank is easy, it’s bullish for stocks. And when the bank turns tight, it’s bearish for stocks. Obviously, the Bernanke Fed has been ultra-easy for a couple of years now: The bullish stock market has just doubled its value from the early March 2009 bottom.
My first reaction to stories about the Public Policy Polling survey that found that 51 percent of GOP primary voters believe President Obama was not born in the United States was disbelief.
In politics, simple phrases can hide complex agendas. The budget debate offers the perfect stage for mouthing "home truths" that are not quite true. Let's air a few examples.
Among the mysteries of modern politics in America is why so many of our leading pundits and politicians persistently seek to undermine Social Security, that enduring and successful emblem of active government. In the current atmosphere of budgetary panic, self-proclaimed "centrists" are joining with ideologues of the right in yet another campaign against the program -- and yet again they are misinforming the public about its purposes, costs and prospects.
One way to judge the merits of the budget Barack Obama unveiled this week is by the comments of his political allies. "It's not enough to focus primarily on the non-security discretionary part of the budget," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad.
After the riots in Athens, the Greek authorities decided to enact new laws to deal with their obvious problems. The new laws, which treat rich and poor alike for the first time, have been seen has harsh. The name of the legislator who wrote the laws is a man called Draco. The date is believed to be 621 B.C. And more than 2,600 years later, the adjectival form of his name -- draconian -- is still tossed around here in Washington anytime someone proposes real budget cuts.
There is a crisis in America's federal courts that has absolutely nothing to do with politics, although that is its cause.
As a rationale for invading Iraq, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said: "The people of the Middle East share the desire for freedom. We have an opportunity -- and an obligation -- to help them turn this desire into reality."
The liberal group Moveon.org has been sending out e-mails to warn that Republicans are back in control of the House and to ask recipients to sign a petition that states, "Congress must protect NPR and PBS and guarantee them permanent funding, free from political meddling."
On Feb. 15, on the recommendation of its Peace & Justice Commission, the Berkeley (Calif.) City Council is set to vote on a resolution to invite "one or two cleared" Guantanamo Bay detainees to resettle in Berkeley.
A week after Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday celebration, comparisons between Presidents Obama and Reagan continue.
As America approaches the deadline for increasing the statutory national debt -- or risking a catastrophic default on our obligations to creditors and citizens -- there is no shortage of stupid ideas to restore fiscal order.
At one level, it's astoundingly funny: a congressman telling a woman with whom he is flirting that the only picture he has of himself is shirtless. If there is one thing every congressman has, it is pictures of himself in a shirt. Often, stuffed.
