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Tuesday, the voters began applying the brakes to the Obama administration’s leftward joyride. If the Democrats are listening, they’ll get the message. What we saw last week had an undeniable intensity. The voters are restive and fearful.
Well, I’m glad that’s settled. The agreed-upon media-pack narrative explaining last year’s market mayhem? Brace yourself: The problem was lavish bonus plans at financial firms.
No wonder the Obama administration wanted the House to finish work on its health care bill before the summer recess. The more people learn about the legislative blob slouching toward passage, the less they like it. In a recent Rasmussen tracking poll, opposition to health care reform as proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats had risen to 54 percent. Support dropped to 42 percent.
Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s effort to encourage development in the inner city has taken form as the “New Tools” initiative. Supporters say it will emphasize self-reliance and entrepreneurship in economically distressed neighborhoods.
The trees became scarce as we headed west, until we saw them only around human settlements or along the course of streams. At some point, we left the East and entered the American West, a land marked mainly by lack of water. I had never been to Dodge City, but it was typical of so many Western towns — defined by the railroad, with a main drag that paralleled the tracks. From the east, it announced itself less by sight than by smell. Soon enough, we came upon the source — a sprawling network of feedlots on a low hill.
Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl nailed it: President Obama’s decision to scrap missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe “turns back the clock to the days of the Cold War, when Eastern Europe was considered the domain of Russia.” You can be sure that Poland and the Czech Republic, where the missile facilities would have been based, have gotten the message, even as temporizers in Washington pretend Obama’s move was deft and clever.
The first hints of real trouble can be found in President Obama’s initial address to a congressional joint session on Feb. 24. That’s when the jarring incoherence of his lavish plans came into full view. He said the “state of the economy is a concern that rises above all others.” He said it was imperative that the nation bring its budget under control so that we don’t bequeath to our children a debt “they cannot pay.”
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama called Afghanistan a “war of necessity.” Now we’ll see if he means it. He faces a pivotal decision. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has turned in a report calling for a shift in strategy, one that implicitly requires significantly more troops. The mission, says McChrystal, is protecting the population; the war can’t be won solely by offensive operations against the enemy.
The debate over health care reform has reached an odd interlude. The rowdiness of the town halls continues, but behind the scenes the players are looking over their cards and considering their next moves. Last week, the Obama administration seemed to back away from the controversial public option, the government-backed entity that supporters say would “compete” with private insurance.
I almost feel sorry for Rep. Dennis Moore. The Kansas Democrat always seems so torn. He only wants to do the right thing. But deciding what to do is so hard. On health care, no surprise: He’s landing on the Democratic side, supporting legislation making its way through House committees. But he’s packaging his support with a show of agonizing discomfort and sincere concern, implying that if it were up to him he would handle things more reasonably.
What we’re seeing in Washington these days is beginning to look like Jimmy Carter II.
The health care reform plans taking shape in Washington are bound to fail. What the Democrats seem to have in mind will do nothing effective to deal with rising costs. If reform fails to curb costs, a budgetary disaster will result. Massachusetts has already implemented the sort of micro-managing, government-dominated reform the Democrats advocate. Costs exploded.
President Barack Obama has a persona that seems made for politics. He’s fluid, even-tempered, good-humored — the very picture of a balanced personality. But he also has an inflexible streak. It’s becoming more apparent as his term progresses, and it could lead to his undoing.
How do you end up with a vibrant economy and lots of net job creation by forcing people to pay higher energy prices? Well, you don’t, and that’s why the cap-and-trade bill is one of the biggest threats to the U.S. economy ever to emerge on Capitol Hill.
In a recent letter to The Star, a writer couldn’t understand why auto workers were blamed for the car companies’ problems. Workers don’t design cars, he wrote. They don’t set prices or decide where cars are made. The key decisions are made by top management.
With great fanfare, President Barack Obama recently announced plans for a national high-speed rail network. This generated a lot of excitement among rail buffs, but on closer examination the plan is mostly puffery.
My question was simple: “Can we win in Afghanistan?” But that only prompted another question: “How do you define victory?”
A visit to a quiet block on Eighth Street, immediately west of Broadway, provides a clue to what’s missing from the Power & Light District.
In a recent interview, New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg observed that a Republican comeback might come sooner than many expect.
President Barack Obama’s “first 100 days” draws to a close Wednesday — a traditional moment for evaluating a new administration.
What I found most amusing about last week’s tea party protests was the palpable defensiveness of many Democrats and lefties in general.
Last week in Prague, President Barack Obama said he would lead an effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
How did things get this crazy? You turn on the news and the headline is something like “President fires CEO,” and a blogger points out that’s about as expected as “Pope fires missile.”
President Obama is a man in a hurry. He knows that time is not on his side. He will never be as powerful as he is now, and his opposition — the leaderless GOP — will never be as weak.
President Obama says international investors should have “absolute confidence” in the safety of U.S. government debt. Uh-oh. It’s scary when this subject even comes up.
The union card-check bill was introduced in Congress last week, and backers are making another big push in a bid to win passage. The measure, still bearing the grossly misleading title “Employee Free Choice Act,” passed the House in 2007 and failed in the Senate. Here’s hoping it dies again.
A key measure of the nation’s economic health is its ability to attract capital, not only the financial kind, but capital of the human sort.
Since the beginning of the year, the stock market has fallen about 20 percent — about half that drop coming since the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
The liberal blogger Mickey Kaus once thought he was paranoid for predicting that the Democrats, once in power, would immediately try to undermine welfare reform.
There’s no sense trying to defend last year’s Wall Street bonus package. Bonuses are supposed to be paid for performance, and last year was a financial disaster. Yet the 2008 payout — $18.4 billion — was the sixth largest ever.
