Outside the Beltway

He doesn’t do a very good job.

The House GOP has scheduled a vote next week on a debt ceiling package that is solely designed to mollify the base.

The idea that we can avoid the consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling is patently absurd.

The participants in the debt negotiations are being led by constituencies that have little interest in compromise.

While unemployment remains stubbornly high, Washington is spending its time fighting over the budget deficit

Judging by the June jobs report, there’s no economic recovery coming in the near future.

There’s apparently a new proposal on the table at the debt negotiations, and it looks very interesting.

Recent polls seem to indicate a shift in public opinion in a more libertarian direction.

Grover Norquist believes ending government handouts must be offset by tax cuts.

Tim Pawlenty’s new fiscal plan isn’t very grounded in reality.

A system designed to protect the innocent has instead become a menagerie to imprison them. A legal code designed to proscribe specific behavior has instead become a vast, vague, and unpredictable invitation to selective enforcement.

All in all, not looking like it will be a fun summer.

Mitch Daniels, the candidate of George Will and a host of mainstream Republicans hoping for something better in 2012, has announced he will not be running for president in 2012.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who will enter the Presidential race tomorrow, says he wouldn’t have tried to have Osama bin Laden killed.

Republicans seem to have realized that the Ryan Plan’s Medicare reforms aren’t going anywhere.

Will days of strong economic growth ever return? And what happens if they don’t?

Sarah Palin was back speaking to a Tea Party crowd yesterday, but it just doesn’t seem like matters anymore.

Will the Ryan Plan ever be voted out of the House?

What, if anything, does the budget deal mean for the future?

Paul Ryan unveiled an ambitious plan to cut the deficit today. The question is whether it will be the beginning of a debate, or an opportunity for Democratic demagoguery

Can a candidate appealing enough to the base to win the Republican nomination beat Obama?

Another survey shows that Americans don’t know much about their own history, but does it really matter?

Speaking before Congress yesterday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke debunked the assertion that the GOP’s relatively modest $61 billion spending cut package would significantly harm economic growth.

Moodys warns the the Republican plan to cut spending could cost the economy 700,000 jobs.

Neither side is covering themselves in glory in the battle over the Badger State budget.

The debate over Senator Rand Paul’s proposed $500 billion spending cut plan has focused almost exclusively on one issue, and one nation.

We won’t be able to solve our fiscal problems until the American people grow up. So far, there are no signs of that happening.

Some people in the D.C. area are worried that the Federal spending gravy train may be coming to an end. They should be.

With just over a week to go before the 112th Congress convenes, battle lines are already being drawn in battle over the defense budget.

President Obama is already taking heat from the left for his compromise on tax cut extensions, but will it actually hurt him in the end?

The Republican talking point that lowering taxes lowers spending and raising taxes increases spending is denied by reality.

The battle between social and fiscal conservatives continues, with the SoCons now saying that criticism of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is now considered evidence of ideological impurity.

Okahoma’s James Inhofe has a message for the Tea Party movement — don’t be fooled by the “War On Earmarks.”

Eliminating earmarks is good policy and good politics.

Rand Paul is taking some heat for remarks that may or may not indicate that he’s backtracking on his previous vow not to seek earmark spending for Kentucky. Yes folks, the phony war on earmarks is back.