Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune
Here's the essence of the deal that the White House and Congress reached to pull America back from the fiscal cliff:Say your family has horrendous financial problems "” you're deep in debt, just paying the interest is killing you, but you keep borrowing more because you spend more than you make. At some point, the credit card companies will shut you down for nonpayment.So, you go to a financial counselor and one of the first things he says is:"Take a pay cut."
Complainign about the tax increased they voted for?
On January - 9 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Now, now. Calm down. Yes, I know you voted for Obama, but didn’t you ever stop to think that he’d tax you, too? You didn’t? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Disillusioned Obama voters are waking up to face the reality that Obama didn’t exempt them in his quest to steal money from all Americans to pay for his expanding government. It turns out that those making $30,000 a year will pay more taxes than those making $500,000 because of the deal Obama pushed for after the fiscal cliff debacle. Obama voters, the joke’s on you. Oh, one other little tidbit. The Democrats want to find $1 trillion more in taxes in 2013. The message is sinking in. Here are some tweets from Obama voters: @CZebari22 Damn the taxes killed me. I should have voted Romney @crushonchrissy I’m starting to regret voting for Obama. @gekka_88 I have a friend who voted for Obama publicly complaining about the new #SS tax raise. I would just like to say: You did this to yourself. @VAisforlovas But really how am I ever supposed to pay off my student loans if my already small paycheck keeps getting smaller? Help a sister out, Obama One comment on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. whined:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/08/Obama-Voters-Furious-About-Tax-Hikes
Hobby Lobby Fights the Good Fight vs. ObamaCare
On January - 9 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Bill Flax, Forbes
Welcome to Obamaland where our inalienable rights are being gradually degraded. Now that President Obama needs never to curry electoral favor again will government's grasping overreach soon strangle a successful arts-and-crafts company?"We're just going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it," says attorney Kyle Duncan of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty. Mr. Duncan represents Hobby Lobby, a family-owned retail chain risking severe penalties for putting principles before profits. Limited self-government descends into tyranny.
Welcome to Obamaland where our inalienable rights are being gradually degraded. Now that President Obama needs never to curry electoral favor again will government's grasping overreach soon strangle a successful arts-and-crafts company?"We're just going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it," says attorney Kyle Duncan of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty. Mr. Duncan represents Hobby Lobby, a family-owned retail chain risking severe penalties for putting principles before profits. Limited self-government descends into tyranny.
How The CIA Produced An Oscar Contender
On January - 8 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
During President Obama’s 100 or so campaign trail speeches this past year, he usually received the biggest applause for mentioning the killing of Osama Bin Laden. The lines were real crowd pleasers. Zero Dark Thirty picks up where the cheers from the Obama rallies died off. Rather than casting Obama and the White House as heroes, though, the film lets the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency play the protagonists with the true claim to Bin Laden’s scalp.
Ryan Trying To Find ‘Sweet Spot’
On January - 7 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
WASHINGTON — After Senator John McCain’s failed presidential bid in 2008, he repaired to the Senate to become a thorn in President Obama’s side.
The Dismal Obama Recovery Continues
On January - 6 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
John Steele Gordon, Commentary
It’s another dreary jobs report out this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, detailing yet another month of the apparently endless “Obama Recovery,” the worst since the Great Depression lingered on and on in the 1930s.Employment rose by 155,000 and the unemployment rate stayed the same at 7.8 percent (the November unemployment rate, originally reported at 7.7 percent, was revised upwards a notch in this report). It’s not surprising that it stayed the same, as the civilian workforce rose by 192,000 last month. In other words, job growth is...
It’s another dreary jobs report out this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, detailing yet another month of the apparently endless “Obama Recovery,” the worst since the Great Depression lingered on and on in the 1930s.Employment rose by 155,000 and the unemployment rate stayed the same at 7.8 percent (the November unemployment rate, originally reported at 7.7 percent, was revised upwards a notch in this report). It’s not surprising that it stayed the same, as the civilian workforce rose by 192,000 last month. In other words, job growth is...
Obama’s Big Opportunity on Gun Control
On January - 6 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
David Shribman, Pittsburgh PG
Barack Obama's determination to enact a gun control measure in the wake of the Connecticut shootings could transform his place in history.Success, which is anything but assured, given the lobbies arrayed against him and the many failures of such measures, could upend more than two centuries of American tradition. It also could boost the president into the pantheon of liberal presidents, placing him beside Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson as the principal progressives in modern American history.This may seem discordant with the prevailing view of Obama as a reluctant warrior, a...
Barack Obama's determination to enact a gun control measure in the wake of the Connecticut shootings could transform his place in history.Success, which is anything but assured, given the lobbies arrayed against him and the many failures of such measures, could upend more than two centuries of American tradition. It also could boost the president into the pantheon of liberal presidents, placing him beside Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson as the principal progressives in modern American history.This may seem discordant with the prevailing view of Obama as a reluctant warrior, a...
Tax Code May Be Most Progressive Since 1979
On January - 5 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Annie Lowery, NY Times
WASHINGTON — With 2013 bringing tax increases on the incomes of a small sliver of the richest Americans, the country’s top earners now face a heavier tax burden than at any time since Jimmy Carter was president.House Speaker John A. Boehner and President Obama worked together to avert a fiscal crisis at the start of the year.
WASHINGTON — With 2013 bringing tax increases on the incomes of a small sliver of the richest Americans, the country’s top earners now face a heavier tax burden than at any time since Jimmy Carter was president.House Speaker John A. Boehner and President Obama worked together to avert a fiscal crisis at the start of the year.
Liberals Nip Obama As He Battles GOP
On January - 5 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Jonathan Alter, Bloomberg
You can already hear the rumbling in the distance -- a train of noisy liberal Democrats barreling straight for the White House. They should arrive just in time for President Barack Obama's second inauguration.The president already has his hands full dealing with angry and unrealistic Republicans. Now he's getting reacquainted with their counterparts on the left -- a less ideologically inflexible bunch but not necessarily any more susceptible to reason.
You can already hear the rumbling in the distance -- a train of noisy liberal Democrats barreling straight for the White House. They should arrive just in time for President Barack Obama's second inauguration.The president already has his hands full dealing with angry and unrealistic Republicans. Now he's getting reacquainted with their counterparts on the left -- a less ideologically inflexible bunch but not necessarily any more susceptible to reason.
Cronyism Lives On in Cliff Bill
On January - 4 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Veronique de Rugy, National Review Online
There have been a few very good opinion pieces about the large amount of special-interest goodies in the fiscal-cliff bill. This morning the Wall Street Journal, for instance, had a piece in its Review and Outlook section titled “Crony Capitalist Blowout,” which gave a good summary of all the crony tax credits in the already infamous deal:In praising Congress’s huge new tax increase, President Obama said Tuesday that “millionaires and billionaires” will finally “pay their fair share.” That is,...
There have been a few very good opinion pieces about the large amount of special-interest goodies in the fiscal-cliff bill. This morning the Wall Street Journal, for instance, had a piece in its Review and Outlook section titled “Crony Capitalist Blowout,” which gave a good summary of all the crony tax credits in the already infamous deal:In praising Congress’s huge new tax increase, President Obama said Tuesday that “millionaires and billionaires” will finally “pay their fair share.” That is,...
How Washington Learned to Love Hostage-Taking
On January - 4 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Alec MacGillis, TNR
President Obama's decision to agree to a "fiscal cliff" deal that doesn't address the debt ceiling was premised on the thinking that congressional Republicans will not be as successful at holding the economy hostage in the coming months as they were in the summer of 2011. For one thing, the administration believes the business community, and elite opinion more broadly, will be much more vocal than they were last time around in cautioning Republicans against debt-ceiling hijinx.Is this a fair assumption to make? Well, there are already signs that business leaders...
President Obama's decision to agree to a "fiscal cliff" deal that doesn't address the debt ceiling was premised on the thinking that congressional Republicans will not be as successful at holding the economy hostage in the coming months as they were in the summer of 2011. For one thing, the administration believes the business community, and elite opinion more broadly, will be much more vocal than they were last time around in cautioning Republicans against debt-ceiling hijinx.Is this a fair assumption to make? Well, there are already signs that business leaders...
A Uniquely Polarizing President
On January - 3 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
We're all talking about Republicans on the Hill and their manifold failures. So here are some things President Obama didn't do during the fiscal cliff impasse and some conjecture as to why.He won but he did not triumph. His victory didn't resolve or ease anything and heralds nothing but more congressional war to come.
We're all talking about Republicans on the Hill and their manifold failures. So here are some things President Obama didn't do during the fiscal cliff impasse and some conjecture as to why.He won but he did not triumph. His victory didn't resolve or ease anything and heralds nothing but more congressional war to come.
Our Clown-Around Congress
On January - 3 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Eugene Robinson, Indianapolis Star
WASHINGTON -- To say that Congress looked like a clown show this week is an insult to self-respecting clowns.Painful though it may be, let's review what just happened. Our august legislators -- aided and abetted by President Obama -- manufactured a fake crisis. They then proceeded to handle it so incompetently that they turned it into a real one.The bogus "fiscal cliff" -- and please, let's never, ever use those words again -- was designed as a doomsday mechanism to force Congress and the president to make tough decisions. But resistance to the very concept of...
WASHINGTON -- To say that Congress looked like a clown show this week is an insult to self-respecting clowns.Painful though it may be, let's review what just happened. Our august legislators -- aided and abetted by President Obama -- manufactured a fake crisis. They then proceeded to handle it so incompetently that they turned it into a real one.The bogus "fiscal cliff" -- and please, let's never, ever use those words again -- was designed as a doomsday mechanism to force Congress and the president to make tough decisions. But resistance to the very concept of...
Tactical Win for Obama in Ongoing Budget War
On January - 3 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Paul Krugman, NY Times
The centrist fantasy of a Grand Bargain on the budget never had a chance. Even if some kind of bargain had supposedly been reached, key players would soon have reneged on the deal — probably the next time a Republican occupied the White House. Paul Krugman For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT. For the reality is that our two major political parties are engaged in a fierce struggle over the future shape of American society. Democrats want to preserve the legacy of the New Deal...
The centrist fantasy of a Grand Bargain on the budget never had a chance. Even if some kind of bargain had supposedly been reached, key players would soon have reneged on the deal — probably the next time a Republican occupied the White House. Paul Krugman For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT. For the reality is that our two major political parties are engaged in a fierce struggle over the future shape of American society. Democrats want to preserve the legacy of the New Deal...
Return of the Real Obama
On January - 3 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
The Real Test for Obama
On January - 3 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Steve Kornacki, Salon
The 113th Congress will convene for the first time at noon today, and barring an unforeseen morning development, it will in one of its first act elect John Boehner as speaker.Boehner has been an unusually weak speaker, one who has little power to bend his own party's rank-and-file to his will and little space to cut deals with the other party. That's not about to change, as his handling of the fiscal cliff showdown demonstrated, which is why I wondered a few weeks ago why he'd want to sign up for two more years. But he evidently is willing to pay the price, and we saw on...
The 113th Congress will convene for the first time at noon today, and barring an unforeseen morning development, it will in one of its first act elect John Boehner as speaker.Boehner has been an unusually weak speaker, one who has little power to bend his own party's rank-and-file to his will and little space to cut deals with the other party. That's not about to change, as his handling of the fiscal cliff showdown demonstrated, which is why I wondered a few weeks ago why he'd want to sign up for two more years. But he evidently is willing to pay the price, and we saw on...
Cliff Deal Only Whets Obama’s Appetite For More Taxes
On January - 3 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Obama Signs Defense Bill Into Law
On January - 3 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
HONOLULU -- President Barack Obama has signed a $633 billion defense bill for next year that tightens penalties on Iran and bolsters security at diplomatic missions worldwide after the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Obama had threatened to veto the measure because of a number of concerns, including limits on his authority to transfer terrorist suspects from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for one year.
But Obama said that although he continued to oppose certain sections of the bill, "the need to renew critical defense authorities and funding was too great to ignore."
The bill includes cuts in defense spending that the president and congressional Republicans agreed to in August 2011, along with the end of the war in Iraq and the drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan.
Report: Harry Reid Disliked Cliff Deal, Threw Obama Proposal Into Burning Fire
On January - 2 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday.
It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.
Back To Hawaii!
On January - 2 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
WASHINGTON, Jan 1 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama departed the White House on Tuesday to resume his Hawaii vacation shortly after Congress approved legislation that raises taxes on the wealthiest Americans and avoids the "fiscal cliff" of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts.
The president left the White House shortly before midnight. He had cut his vacation short on Wednesday to oversee negotiation of a deal before a year-end deadline.
House Passes Senate Fiscal Bill
On January - 2 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Montgomery & Helderman, Washington Post
Congress approved a plan to end Washington’s long drama over the “fiscal cliff” late Tuesday after House Republicans surrendered to President Obama’s demand to let taxes rise on the nation’s richest households.The House voted 257 to 167 to send the measure to Obama for his signature; the vote came less than 24 hours after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the legislation.
Congress approved a plan to end Washington’s long drama over the “fiscal cliff” late Tuesday after House Republicans surrendered to President Obama’s demand to let taxes rise on the nation’s richest households.The House voted 257 to 167 to send the measure to Obama for his signature; the vote came less than 24 hours after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the legislation.
No Regulation? No Problem
On January - 1 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
John Stossel, FOX Business
In the short time since President Obama was re-elected, government has issued hundreds of new regulations. The bureaucrats never stop. There are now more than 170,000 pages of federal regulations.President Obama wants still more rules. Cheering on increased financial regulation, he said, "We've got to keep moving forward." To the president, and probably most Americans, "forward" means passing more laws.It is scary to think about a world without regulation. Intuition leads us to think that without government we'd be victims of fraud, as I explain in my latest...
In the short time since President Obama was re-elected, government has issued hundreds of new regulations. The bureaucrats never stop. There are now more than 170,000 pages of federal regulations.President Obama wants still more rules. Cheering on increased financial regulation, he said, "We've got to keep moving forward." To the president, and probably most Americans, "forward" means passing more laws.It is scary to think about a world without regulation. Intuition leads us to think that without government we'd be victims of fraud, as I explain in my latest...
The Man Who Said ‘Nay’
On January - 1 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Maureen Dowd, New York Times
Michael Bennet was supposed to be going off a cliff in Vail.But instead of his usual New Year’s trip to a ski lodge with his wife and three daughters, the Colorado senator found himself in a strange, unfamiliar place in the middle of the night: breaking with the president and his party to become one of only three Democratic senators and eight senators total to vote against President Obama’s fiscal deal.
Michael Bennet was supposed to be going off a cliff in Vail.But instead of his usual New Year’s trip to a ski lodge with his wife and three daughters, the Colorado senator found himself in a strange, unfamiliar place in the middle of the night: breaking with the president and his party to become one of only three Democratic senators and eight senators total to vote against President Obama’s fiscal deal.
