At a time when the national debt exceeds $16.5 trillion, the unemployment rate is 7.9 percent, and the United States is searching for ways to reduce dependence on oil from the Middle East, it sure would be nice to have a project that assuages all three concerns at the same time. Such a project exists – it is called the Keystone Pipeline. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence of the positive impact that the pipeline would have on the American economy, as of March 7, 2013, the Obama Administration and the State Department had delayed making a decision to approve or reject the project for 1,630 days.
Medicaid Expansion: Put It on My Tab
Sequestration will reduce the rate of growth in federal spending, but it nonetheless presented something of a predicament for budget hawks.
The Case Against Keystone XL Gets Weaker
Late Friday afternoon, right around when most people likely tuned out and stopped reading the news, the State Department released a report stating that the Keystone XL Pipeline would have little impact on climate change.
Delivering a Turnaround to the Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is broken. It is fixable.
National Debt Estimates Vary By Tens of Trillions
Trying to figure out the exact size of the national debt is a more complicated question than one may think.
Last Night’s Biggest Snub? Taxpayers
Last night, as you may have heard, America’s film industry threw itself a massive party, and while some of the attendees looked to be in danger of starving, none of them looked especially poor. Anyhow, today the media is buzzing over Ang Lee’s upset and the 22-year-old Jennifer Lawrence’s win for Best Actress. However, before the Oscars began, Glenn Reynolds (of Instapundit fame) pointed out an Oscar injustice that should have moviegoers across the country livid: the billions in tax breaks and giveaways handed to movie studios each year. Here’s Reynolds, from Saturday’s Wall Street Journal.
Admitting Failure is the First Step Toward Success
If President Obama’s State of the Union Address could be said to have a message – a common thread, as it were – that message might have been, “There is a whole pile of wonderful legislation with bipartisan support just waiting to be passed.
Rep. Pelosi’s Comment Misses the Mark on the U.S. Budget Problem
This weekend, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) spoke with Chris Matthews on “Fox News Sunday.” During the interview, Pelosi delivered a quote that may be the early front runner for most absurd quote of 2013: “It is almost a false argument to say that we have a spending problem.
Emergency Spending: a Bipartisan Failure
On January 29, 2013, President Obama signed into law a $50.5 billion relief bill aimed at helping victims of Hurricane Sandy. Despite complaints from many fiscal conservatives – Citizens Against Government Waste included – that the bill had been unnecessarily fattened up in order to serve parochial interests, the deal got done. Its passage marked an important victory for politicians like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), both of whom had publicly and loudly excoriated Congress for dragging its feet.
Sequestration: The Sky is Not Falling
WasteWatcher
January, 2013