Free Republic

The State Department has released a statement that is favorable to the Keystone XL pipeline...

The State Department is warning Republicans that forcing a decision on the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline within two months wonÂ’t bring the project approval they're seeking. House Republicans are including a provision in payroll tax cut legislation that would require State to issue a permit for the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline within 60 days, unless the president determines that itÂ’s not in the national interest. Senate GOP leaders are also pushing the Keystone provision. But a State spokesman said Monday that the 60-day time frame would leave the administration unable to issue the permit for TransCanada Corp.Â’s proposed $7...

Last year a one year cut in the payroll taxes that working Americans pay to finance Social Security was enacted in the name of so-called economic “stimulus.” But, like the rest of the economic stimuli that have come from Washington over the last three years, the only thing that has been stimulated is the growing hole of national debt into which we sink deeper and deeper. But now, not without surprise, our president and his Democrat colleagues want to continue, and possibly expand, this payroll tax holiday despite its obvious failure. But wait a second. Failure is a matter of...

Republicans in the House of Representatives said on Friday they will attach a bill designed to speed approval of the Keystone pipeline to payroll tax cut legislation House Speaker John Boehner hopes to pass this month. The move is designed to ratchet up the heat on President Barack Obama, whose administration has put the Keystone XL pipeline on hold pending a study of a new route, pushing a decision past the 2012 presidential election. When complete, the pipeline would deliver some 700,000 barrels a day of oilsands crude from the Canadian province of Alberta to refineries on the U.S. Gulf...

Economic Policy: The Democrats' aggressive push to extend the payroll tax cut for another year has nothing to do with boosting economic growth and everything to do with class warfare politics. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) made it known this week that it plans a full-court press to extend the temporary payroll tax cut into 2012. Enacted as part of the deal last December to extend the Bush income tax cuts, it trimmed workers' Social Security tax rate to 4.2% from 6.2% this year. President Obama routinely includes the extension as part of his jobs plan because, he says, "it...

Pummeled by ghastly economic news, President Obama called Monday for more spending and extended tax cuts that he said would help stimulate the economy — but these also could deepen the deficit problems that helped the federal government earn its first-ever debt downgrade last week. The president made the proposals as world stock market indexes were tumbling, and his remarks seemed designed to help the White House regain its political footing by resetting the congressional agenda next month. Mr. Obama said he wants the 2 percent payroll-tax cut extended into next year, the creation of an infrastructure bank by Congress...