Dan Balz has an amazing article in today’s Washington Post. One of the puzzling questions about Barack Obama's presidency is how the post-partisan candidate of 2008 became the polarizing chief executive of 2010. The answer may be surprising. He was far more polarizing from the start than many recognized. His choices in office and his […]
The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol has some good advice for President Obama on what he should say tonight in his oval office speech on Iraq. And I hope you would also explain that, whatever one's views of the decision to go to war, we now have a moral obligation and strategic opportunity to help a […]
Liken it to whatever natural disaster you will, it looks like Democrats are going to get demolished come November. The 10-point margin for Republicans on the generic ballot is the largest since Gallup started polling on that subject in the 1940s. Democrats have had bigger margins (at the height of the Watergate scandal), but never […]
I generally go with incompetence – it’s better to think the best of people. But to hear New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie explain how his state lost out on $400 million in federal education funds, you wonder if there might be a little something else involved. One wonders if any beltway reporters would be interested […]
Unbelievable. Embattled Rep. Maxine Waters on Friday blamed the Bush administration for her ethics problems -- saying she had to intervene with the Treasury Department on behalf of minority-owned banks seeking federal bailout funds -- including one tied to her husband -- because the Treasury Department wouldn't schedule its own appointments. Frankly, I’m surprised they’re […]
Q: Democrat or Republican? A: Democrat. How bad is this fall’s races shaping up for the Democrats when they’ve got their own people running ads like this one?
Generally, I don’t begrudge how people spend money they’ve earned. What they choose to do with their money is between them and God. However, what I won’t tolerate is the filthy rich blowing their own money while at the same time telling those less well off how to spend theirs. I wasn’t going to comment […]
I mentioned Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi of the “unemployment benefits are really stimulative” last week to point out the ridiculous nature of his claims. Well, Geoff over at Innocent Bystanders took a look at Zandi’s report and finds that – suprise – government spending doesn’t have a multiplicative effect on the economy greater than […]
In tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal Arthur Laffer has an excellent op-ed where he asks the following question: Anyone who is familiar with the historical data available from the IRS knows full well that raising income tax rates on the top 1% of income earners will most likely reduce the direct tax receipts from the now […]
An oft-ignored bit of insanity in the health-care bill was the expansion in the use of IRS form 1099. For those of you who don’t know what it is, a 1099 has been used for as long as I can remember for businesses to report money paid to independent contractors. I got a 1099 from […]