BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
In 1969, the Rolling Stones – who have been touring since about 1343 – put out an album that had as one of its songs, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
The U.S. House and Senate should do a quorum call right after the prayer and have every Member sing that song, every day they’re in session – which is only about five days a month. Continue reading
BY DOUG BADGER
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Congress and the President are on holiday, resting up for the next round of budget wars that will resume after Labor Day. The issues they will face when they return are familiar: the federal government is about to lose authority to do what it does best (or, at least, most naturally) – borrow and spend.
Absent a fresh appropriation of funds, government agencies will close October 1; and unless Congress agrees to raise the government’s credit card limit, Treasury will default on its debt at a yet-to-be-determined date in October or November.
The positions taken by the two parties also are familiar. The President wants a straight increase in the debt ceiling, while Republicans insist on pairing new borrowing with spending reductions. The President says that he will not negotiate with Republicans on this point. On appropriations, House Republicans favor steep cuts in domestic spending Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
22 House Democrats joined with just about every Republican to delay the individual mandate included in the massive Obamacare law still being implemented three years after it was signed by the President.
House Republicans scheduled a vote on the mandate delay shortly after the President decided to delay the mandate on the business sector on his own accord.
If a mandate is good enough for the business community, the reasoning goes, it ought to be good enough for Generation Y.
And the fact of the matter is that the individual mandate is going to hit young adults the hardest. They are the ones who will be forced to buy insurance they don’t want and can’t afford.
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Originally printed in The Hill
The dog days of summer used to be dedicated to the appropriations process on Capitol Hill.
Both the House and the Senate would slog through 13 spending bills, usually under an open amendment process. Members of the various subcommittees would fend off hostile amendments, defending projects, programs and spending levels.
When the bills passed the House or Senate floors, members of both bodies would put out press releases, touting the bacon they would be bringing home for local constituencies. And back home, those constituents would applaud news of funds from Washington, to build bridges, to fund the local Veterans Affairs hospital, or whatever else was being touted by those press releases. Continue reading
BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com
When we find things that are better-written, more clear and to the point than anything we can write on a subject, we try to reprint it for your edification. Such is the case with most things Chuck Blahous writes. See for yourself:
Last week House Republicans, under the leadership of Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, unveiled their draft budget for the coming fiscal year. Senate Budget Committee Democrats also released their budget blueprint assembled by Chairman Patty Murray. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Last night, as I welcomed a group of executives from the American Public Transportation Association, I said the following: “Welcome to Washington, where we put the fun in dysfunction. Well, at least it is fun for us.”
I then pointed out, “most economists think that the best thing you can do for the American people is to come up with a short-term plan to boost economic growth and a long-term plan to deal with our long-term fiscal crisis. What did the politicians do? They came up with short-term plan that could stall Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Don’t tell the Tea Party, but the tag team of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are currently mopping the floor with Barack Obama.
The president convincingly won a second term in November, but since that time, the congressional Republican leadership has outfoxed, outmaneuvered and plain out-strategized him on just about every issue. Continue reading
BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com
No, it wasn’t the 79-yard punt by Duke punter Will Monday in the 2012 Belk Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina, although that was pretty darned great, you gotta admit.
No, the greatest ‘punt’ of the recent college bowl season was performed collectively in a three-legged kick down the road by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker John Boehner on New Year’s Eve in Washington, D.C. in the Fiscal Cliff Bowl Sponsored by The AARP, Grover Norquist, and The American People. Continue reading
BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com
‘Hey! Waddya Mean I’m Part of the 1%?’
Has anyone seen the slightly amateurish ads lately by the Obama campaign that tries to hammer Governor Romney on ‘cutting Big Bird’ out of the federal budget?
Probably not since even Big Bird and PBS have asked the Obama campaign to take them off the public airwaves.
At a time when we have 23 million un/underemployed people in this nation, gas prices spiking like Billy Idol’s peroxided hair, and the Middle East completely coming apart at the seams, the geniuses behind the Obama Phenomenon of 2008 have resorted to a childish attack on Governor Romney on a serious issue such as budget discipline behind…..Big Bird? Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
I consider myself a Chamber of Commerce Republican.
By that I mean I generally support where the Chamber of Commerce is coming from when it comes to the functioning of the free market system. And my politics tends to reflect that worldview.
According to the Chamber’s own website, it all started: “The idea of a national institution to represent the unified interests of U.S. business first took shape when President William Howard Taft, in a message to Congress on December 7, 1911, addressed the need for a “central organization in touch with associations and chambers of commerce throughout the country and able to keep purely American interests in a closer touch with different phases of commercial affairs.” Four months later, on April 22, 1912, President Taft’s vision became a reality when a group of 700 delegates from various commercial and trade organizations came together to create a unified body of business interest that today is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
The Chamber of Commerce is a pragmatic institution. Continue reading