The legislative process can also be a learning process, and as Congress considers health care legislation -- the latest act being the Senate Finance Committee's vote in favor of Chairman Max Baucus' bill, or "conceptual language" -- we have been learning something useful. It's that legislators would like to provide generous, even gold-plated health insurance coverage to almost all Americans, but that no one wants to pay for it.
Voter perception of the nation's current course holds steady this week, with 34% saying the United States is heading in the right direction, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Some experts have argued during the current health care reform debate that behavioral changes are needed before costs will come down in America.
The British government is selling a number of things it owns to pay off its growing debt, but voters have mixed feelings about the U.S. government doing the same thing. Amtrak and the ownership stakes in General Motors and Chrysler can go, as far as voters are concerned, but don’t touch the government’s land and the U.S. Postal Service.
As much as the Beltway chattering class refuses to admit it, Barack Obama's electoral victory last year had nothing to do with his oft-repeated, generic pledge to bring "hope and change" to Washington, D.C.
Want to hear a real laugher? Despite the current disharmony in politics, there's one policy on which all of Washington agrees. Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, president and Congress all agree that after last fall's financial crisis, the federal government has to regulate the financial industry more closely to protect our economy from risk of systemic financial collapse.
Republican-turned-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter trails potential GOP challenger Pat Toomey by five points in an early look at Pennsylvania's 2010 Senate race. But another Democrat, Joe Sestak, runs dead-even with the likely Republican candidate.
OK, so President Barack Obama hasn't accomplished enough to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize under the conventional approach.
North Carolina is about to become the second state to penalize its employees for being obese, but just 30% of Americans favor making government workers who are overweight pay more for their health insurance.
President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, but nobody thinks he deserves the Nobel in economics. Despite $800 billion of economic stimulus and the accumulation of a $1.4 trillion deficit, he has been unable to lower the unemployment rate below 9.8%.
Support for Republican congressional candidates dipped slightly this week in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.
Americans are more confident than they’ve been all year that housing values are going up and also are more likely to say their home is worth more than they owe on it. But they still don’t think it’s a good time to be selling.
U.S. voters want aggressive action to restrict illegal immigration, but they don’t think immigrants should bear the brunt of the enforcement efforts on their own. Most say the federal government and those hiring illegal immigrants also need to be brought into the discussion.
I must be the only "foodie" who didn't love "Julie & Julia," the movie about Julia Child and the office worker she inspired, Julie Powell. Am I allowed?
Republican Robert F. McDonnell still holds a seven-point lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the race for Virginia governor.
"What happened to global warming?" read the headline -- on BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event: Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by man and may not be as dire and eminent as alarmists suggest.
Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans who follow sports at least somewhat closely say ticket prices for professional sporting events have kept them from going this year, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Only 31% of likely voters say the United States is heading in the right direction, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
With Congress considering climate change legislation that many say will have a major impact on the U.S. economy, voters for the first time this year are almost evenly divided when asked if there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection.
Forty-four percent (44%) of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s little changed from a week ago. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% are opposed to the plan.
