Free Republic

Many commentators have wondered why the stock market has done so well during a period when the economy has been relatively weak. A common explanation has been that the Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates so low that investors have little choice but to buy stocks in hopes of returns that exceed inflation. There is some truth to that, but another reason is the gridlock on Capitol Hill. A poorly kept secret is that almost all laws are bad for business. Some regulation is necessary. Clear rules are beneficial to business. But changing regulations frequently is bad for business and...

Institutions Worthy of Our Parties: Should the U.S. Switch to a Parliamentary System? Efforts to curb legislative partisanship have weak track records, so maybe we should consider changing the other side of the equation in order to establish a government that can actually get things done. Rick Hasen has a really interesting paper up discussing partisan polarization and the possibility of changing the Constitution to deal with it. (And you should really read Jonathan Bernstein’s response, too.) Hasen starts off by asking whether we should be considering moving toward a more parliamentary style of government. It’s a fair question. We...

For those convinced that President Obama doesn’t deserve any blame for the fiscal gridlock, let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that Mitt Romney was elected president, and was dealing with the same Congress that Obama has faced so much trouble in getting legislation to avert sequestration and myriad fiscal emergencies. Would a President Romney be confronting the same crisis? It’s impossible to know for sure, but a look at Romney’s compromising tendencies with a Democratic Legislature as governor of Massachusetts suggest that things would look very different. Romney cut his business and political profile as a deal-maker, reaching bipartisan...

Hollywood legend and Republican supporter Clint Eastwood told CNBC that Washington gridlock is sending the nation racing towards another contentious debt deadline. "It's almost like they don't give a damn," he said, in a "Squawk Box" interview that aired Friday. The Oscar-winning director who's also known for his tough-guy roles asked rhetorically, "If they don't give a damn, why did they expect anybody else to?" Advertise | AdChoices With the deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff" barely in the rearview mirror, President Barack Obama and Republican leaders are on the clock again, scrambling to compromise on a package to...

Do you expect more or less gridlock in Washington after Tuesday's election results? More gridlock -- the balance of power is the same, as are the divisions Less gridlock -- with no major election for two years, the parties have to work together

Reid: 'Laughable' for Romney to think Dems will pass his agendaBy Mike Lillis - 11/02/12 03:56 PM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned Mitt Romney this week that upper-chamber Democrats would be no rubber stamp for Republican ideals if the GOP contender wins the White House next Tuesday. The Nevada Democrat is pushing back against Romney's claims that he's better able to break Washington's partisan gridlock because he could work with congressional Democrats in ways President Obama wasn't able to work with Republicans. The notion of working across the aisle has emerged as a key selling point for Romney,...

Even if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan win on November 6, his agenda will be stymied if Republicans can't pick up at least three more seats than their current 47 and control the Senate. That's clear from the last two years, when Harry Reid's not-so-deliberative body became the graveyard for fiscal and other reform. House Republicans won an historic midterm election in 2010, picking up 63 seats. They also gained six Senate seats, but a handful of weak GOP candidates (Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Christine O'Donnell) cost them control of the upper body. Back in charge in 2011, Mr. Reid...

Link only - Harry Reid's ongoing war on Nevadans

Charlotte, North Carolina (CNN) -- President Barack Obama dismissed criticism he doesn't spend enough time developing relationships with Washington deal-makers who can help push his agenda forward. In an exclusive interview with CNN chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin, Obama said he is determined to make time for his family. "Sometimes Michelle and I not doing the circuit and going out to dinners with folks is perceived as us being cool," Obama said. "It actually really has more to do with us being parents." The president has been criticized from all sides for failing to achieve more bipartisanship, especially given...

"It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism" - By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein ......The authors are two Washington insiders masquerading as "scholars" and, judging by their book, partisan Democrats pretending to be "independents" or "centrists." Both Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein have worked in D. C. for more than three decades, and, for the past quarter century, have maintained positions as senior fellows and congressional experts... This is a bad book in every way that a book can be bad. It is misleading, simplistic...

WASHINGTON -- Frankly, I wish the Pew Research Center would occasionally keep its thoughts to itself. Sometimes those thoughts are merely insipid and beneath the attention of serious minds. Sometimes they are alarming and capable of stirring up an already excitable populace. There is talk of cannibalism being practiced by the criminal element. There is Lady Gaga. These are worrisome times. Yet the Pew Research Center has gone and done it again. The Center released a study Monday that employed exhaustive polling and ingenious charts to render my fellow Americans restive, or so it seems. The Pew Research Center's overall...

For much of human history, world leaders never met each other. Oh, they might have met on the field of battle, or at the arranged weddings of their children… but for the most part, rulers didn’t meet unless they ruled neighboring countries. The world was simply too big a place, distances too great, the burdens of monarchy too demanding, to risk a three or six month voyage. You might not have a throne to return to, by the time you returned. So they invented diplomats. Nations would appoint permanent ambassadors, or at least temporary envoys, to visit other heads of...

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday that the General Assembly’s failure to pass a set of tax increases and revenue enhancements considered a cornerstone of this year’s budget marked “the low point” of his five years in office. Lawmakers ran out of time on the measures when the session expired at midnight Monday, causing a so-called “doomsday budget” to go into effect. The state is facing some $512 million in cuts starting July 1 unless the governor calls a special session before then to generate more revenue and reverse budget cuts, which he seems likely to do. But...

President Barack Obama turned up the heat on the GOP Saturday, sounding a now-familiar refrain about obstructionist tactics by congressional Republicans and holding up as an example a pledge by one senator to block presidential nominations until the president gives in to his demands. “We weren’t sent here to wage perpetual political campaigns against each other. We were sent here to serve the American people. And they deserve better than gridlock and games,” Obama said in his weekly address to the nation. “One senator gumming up the whole works for the entire country is certainly not what our founding fathers...

(Excerpt) President Obama has an unwelcome holiday gift for New Yorkers — he’ll be coming to Midtown the same day the streets will be impossibly clogged by the Rockefeller Plaza tree-lighting ceremony. He has picked Wednesday, one of the busiest gridlock-alert days of the year, to descend on the area with his motorcade for a fund-raiser and party. While throngs squeeze into the blocks around Rockefeller Center, where teen heartthrob Justin Bieber will be performing, the president and his entourage will be just a few blocks away at the Sheraton New York Hotel. It’ll be the double whammy of all...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Democratic opposition to a Republican-backed Medicare prescription drug bill is "a party position," signaling an aggressive effort to unite the rank-and-file, scuttle the bill and claim credit with voters.</p>

News Advisory: Hundreds of senior activists will descend on Capitol Hill Wednesday, November 19, to express their outrage and opposition to the proposed Medicare prescription drug bill announced by conferees. "We vehemently disagree with those who say any bill is better than nothing," said George J. Kourpias, president of the Alliance for Retired Americans. "We believe no bill is better than a bad bill. Seniors will not be fooled by what amounts to nothing more than a payout to special interests. Our members have long fought for a meaningful prescription drug benefit under Medicare, and what the conferees have offered...

<p>WASHINGTON -- As Congress limps toward adjournment, the rancor between Republicans and Democrats is palpable on Capitol Hill, and much of the people's business is languishing. A Medicare prescription-drug plan is stalled. An energy bill has been bottled up for weeks in a conference committee. And filibusters are everywhere.</p>

New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel told The Daily Caller that “gridlock” in Congress has made it “necessary” for President Barack Obama to unilaterally implement mortgage refinancing and student loan programs without congressional authorization. TheDC asked Rangel if he thinks there are other areas where Obama should bypass Congress. “I do, but I don’t want it to be interpreted that I welcome the executive branch using their powers instead of having the legislative branch do it. It’s necessary now because it’s a gridlock between the president and the United States. I hope that is just so very, very unusual,” Rangel...

ASPEN, Colo. – At a bustling farmers’ market, Trevor Washko worked on a square of leather in his booth of finely stitched journals. To his right was a stand packed with fresh-picked fruits and vegetables; to his left, a cooking demonstration. “We are not at all anything like the way we are portrayed by the media,” Washko said of the extraordinary mix of super-rich and resort workers who live in Aspen. Washko spent life in Springfield, Ill., until he graduated from college and moved to Colorado. He has worked as a naturalist, as a field guide, in several service jobs...