Free Republic

By taking advantage of  “must-pass” pieces of legislation, Republicans have three chances this year to restrain the burden of government.  They didn’t do very well with the ‘CR fight” over appropriated spending for the rest of FY2011, which was their first opportunity. I was hoping for an extra-base hit off the fence, but the GOP was afraid of a government shutdown and negotiated from a position of weakness. As such, the best interpretation is that they eked out an infield single.The next chance to impose fiscal discipline will be the debt limit. Currently, the federal government “only” has the...

No wonder the media are fascinated by Donald Trump’s chances of becoming the Republican presidential candidate in 2012. After all, when the Conservative Political Action Committee this year polled members on their choices for a 2012 candidate, the winner, by a seven-percentage-point margin, was Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). This is in sharp contrast to last year’s poll, in which the winner by nine points was Ron Paul. When a Rasmussen poll sized up potential general election candidates against President Barack Obama, the most competitive Republican hopeful turned out to be Ron Paul. When NPR ran a March Madness contest of Republican politicians—a...

We initially supported the deal House Speaker John Boehner cut with the White House to cut $38.5 billion from the rest of the fiscal year 2011 budget. It was only a pittance in the context of all of Washington’s red ink, but it seemed an acceptable start, even if we assumed it would be imperfect in its details. What we didn’t assume was that the agreement would be shot through with gimmicks and one-time savings. What had looked in its broad outlines like a modest success now looks like a sodden disappointment. All the cuts in the deal aren’t equal....

WASHINGTON — A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in claimed savings by the end of this budget year.

Republicans introduce legislation in the House and Senate to make English the official language of the U.S. Republicans in both the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would declare English the official language of the United States and require the development of English language testing guidelines for those applying for U.S. citizenship.The English Language Unity Act would set out a new chapter in U.S. code that imposes an obligation on U.S. officials to "preserve and enhance the role of English as the official language of the Federal Government." Part of this chapter would include a "uniform English language rule"...

Obama's clean energy boondoggle will be expensive for America President Barack Obama uttered not a peep about global warming in his State of Union this year. No dire warnings about climate apocalypse. No calls for cap-and-trade. Has this cold winter convinced him to put his global warming agenda on ice?Hardly. Indeed, even in this age of deficits and debt, the president’s budget is chock full of global warming items—except he wraps them around a new cause: clean energy.And that may be enough to get Republicans to sign on.That "clean energy" is code for "anti-warming" is obvious, given that even Environmental...

The Daily Beast calls Gene Sharp "The 83 Year Old Who Toppled Egypt." The New York Times reports that "for the world's despots, his ideas can be fatal." In the last month he's been praised in venues ranging from Scientific American to the BBC. It's an unprecedented level of attention for a scholar whose work has always circulated on the edge of our political debates, gathering influence but never driving the discussion. "It's really been quite amazing," Sharp says of the sudden wave of media attention. "It's never happened before." Sharp didn't topple Mubarak, of course. The Egyptian people did that. What he did...

Legislation being pushed by House Republicans could require many states to disclose larger shortfalls in their pension plans and force them to take more aggressive steps to get their finances in order. The Public Employee Pension Transparency Act, introduced by Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) earlier this month, would compel states and municipalities to meet stringent standards for reporting on the finances of employee-pension funds, and would expressly ban any federal bailouts. Opponents view it as another congressional Republican swing at public-employee unions, which have come under fire as federal and state governments seek to tame budget deficits. Republican governors...

WASHINGTON – Few memories haunt Republicans more deeply than the 1995-96 partial shutdown of the federal government, which helped President Bill Clinton reverse his falling fortunes and recast House Republicans as stubborn partisans, not savvy insurgents.Now, as Congress careens toward a budget impasse, government insiders wonder if another shutdown is imminent — and whether Republicans again would suffer the most blame.Leaders of both parties say they are determined to avoid a shutdown. But they have not yielded on the amount of spending cuts they will demand or accept. Meanwhile, shutdown talk is rippling through Washington and beyond.The Obama administration is...

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? House Republicans can pass all sorts of legislation to reduce the burden of government spending, but they don't control the Senate and they can't override a presidential veto. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, lacks the power to compel Congress to approve Democratic goals, including higher taxes. This is a recipe for gridlock. And gridlock means bigger government: Democratic proponents of the status quo are in much stronger position to prevail because there are few ways for budget cutters to exert their will. But there is some hope because of a "must-pass"...