National Politics
Big Business learns that Big Government giveth and taketh away: On Capitol Hill and in the White House on Monday, Democrats were fuming over a series of announcements that started Friday from Fortune 500 firms saying their bottom lines will take huge negative hits because of changes in tax law mandated by Obamacare. That hit…
Poor Jim Spencer and Curtis Ellis: they’ve been waiting for a poll to confirm their preconceived notions and CNN provided it, so now they can write the column they’ve been yearning to write: Now (finally!), a poll conducted by CNN gives us some hard data on the Tea Party Nation. Neither “average Americans,” as they…
The bond market continues to struggle as it tries to deal with the new health care paradigm: Interest rates climbed in the bond market Thursday after a government debt auction drew tepid demand. Auctions Tuesday and Wednesday also saw lower demand….The auction of $32 billion in seven-year notes saw demand fall from the past two…
By accident of commercial breaks, I caught a few moments of the Rachel Maddow show, last night, and that’s all that was necessary to observe that left-wingers very much wish to convince themselves that the Republican Party is locked in an extremist echo chamber, with its far-right base requiring uniformity of opinion out of step…
One of the selling points of healthcare reform, repeated yesterday by President Obama when he signed the bill into law, is that it will reduce the federal deficit. To bolster this statement, which is absurd on its face, they point to the conclusion of a CBO report promulgated at the request of and with the,…
Charles Blow informed New York Times readers, Friday, that President Obama may be “unbreakable”: First, let’s take his job approval rating. Yes, it slid during the summer, but it stabilized around 50 percent in November and has hovered there ever since. The empty-headed chattering class began another round of speculation and inane analysis this week…
Congressman James Langevin (D-RI), who had been on the fence, issued the following statement this afternoon. It appears that he has been persuaded in part by the revised CBO report. In a few minutes I will be making an announcement about the upcoming vote on health care legislation. Because I value your continued support, I…
The fiction, manufactured by the CBO in a report revised and reissued at the instruction of the Dem leadership desperate to round up votes, that the pending healthcare reform bill will lower the deficit is quickly being exposed. Over at The New Atlantis, James Capretta enumerates some items. For starters, as I mentioned yesterday, the…
Monique and Matt talked about the foolishness that is “deem and pass” on last night’s Matt Allen Show. The biggest question seems to be: Whom do the legislators think the maneuver is going to fool, especially now that it’s become a catch phrase? Stream by clicking here, or download it.
An explanation by Byron Tau of “deem-and-pass”, currently being contemplated by House Democrats as a means of getting health care reform on the books. Okay, so here’s how the “deem-and-pass” procedure would actually work. The House Rules committee is often called the “traffic cop” of the House – controlling what bills come to the floor…