Outside the Beltway

After weeks of protests and years of frustrations, Ricardo Rosselló, the Governor of Puerto Rico, announced last night that he will be resigning from office.

Trump has selected current Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to replace John Kelly as Chief of Staff, but that’s unlikely to change how the West Wing operates.

Deficits continue to rise.

We’re set to return to the era of trillion dollar budget deficits, and Republicans won’t do a thing about it.

Like many Presidents before him, Donald Trump wants a line-item veto. Getting there won’t be easy, nor should it be.

Republicans spent the eight years of Obama Administration railing against fiscal irresponsibility. Now that they have power, they’re the ones being fiscally irresponsible.

Budget hawks in the GOP face a showdown with Donald Trump’s spending ambitions this year that will likely decide whether we’ll ever get spending under control.

A top House Republican suggested today that only Governor’s should be President. His argument has both practical and historical merit.

Contrary to the White House’s arguments, negotiating over the debt ceiling is not at all historically unprecedented.

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is the latest conservative to endorse the foolish idea of a Constitutional Convention.

Jerry Brown’s second go-round as governor has been very, very good to the Golden State.

CNN is reviving the Crossfire shoutfest with Newt Gingrich, S.E. Cupp, Stephanie Cutter, and Van Jones as hosts.

The Chairman of the House Budget Committee is proposing a budget that is based largely on fantasy.

Kevin Drum argues that, “We Don’t Have a Spending Problem. We Have an Aging Problem.”

Our politicians have averted an artificial crisis of their own making. The next one’s in two months.

Ronald Reagan won the tax fight. The debate now centers on whether to continue cutting taxes or slightly reverse the trend.

A quick post on a pet peeve.

Some people on the right apparently want to return to this map.

Romney needs a far better answer to the Bush question.

Do fiscal conservatives realize they’re being sold a bill of goods?

I give it a C+/B- (adequate, passing, nothing exceptional).

The battle lines are being drawn for another showdown over the debt ceiling.

Mitt Romney is proposing one of the biggest peacetime increases in military spending in U.S. history.

Optimism sells. Someone should remind the GOP of this fact.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg had some advice on Constitution drafting for Egyptians

The Establishment opposition to the current frontrunner has little to do with his policy ideas.

“Democratic” pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen argue that President Obama should decline to run for re-election.

Rick Perry’s tax plan isn’t very impressive.

President Obama is proposing a special tax rate for millionaires.

Jon Huntsman is not going to be the Republican nominee in 2012, but he seems ready to carve out a niche for himself.

Rick Perry may be much less than meets the eye.

The immediate reaction among the political class to the debt downgrade was the play the same old stupid games.

Now that America’s political leadership have probably averted a self-inflicted global economic calamity, it’s time to assess the winners and losers.

President Obama and Congressional Republicans have the outline of a deal to raise the debt limit past the 2012 elections.

It’s another Friday of drama in the debt ceiling crisis.

By insisting on perfection in the debt ceiling debate, the Tea Party has made itself irrelevant to the process.

The constitutional purists in the Tea Party apparently do not understand either bicameralism nor separation of powers.

John Boehner’s debt ceiling plan is being amended. And not in a good way.

The main problem remains the House.

John Boehner and Harry Reid introduced their debt plans. Now, where do we go from here?

By choosing to go it alone on a debt ceiling plan, the GOP is taking a big risk.

The House GOP’s proposed Balanced Budget Amendment contains the seeds of its own utter worthlessness.