Outside the Beltway

Freshman GOP Representative Allen West is a loose cannon and unfit for office.

The Gang of Six is back together. And they have a plan.

The idea that the GOP can block a debt ceiling vote and benefit politically is, quite simply, absurd.

Some things are worth repeating.

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

Byron York had some not unreasonable questions for Susan Feinberg, the woman who confronted Paul Ryan over $350 wine he consumed at a Capitol Hill restaurant. She won’t answer.

It’s still politics as usual in Washington.

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

What exactly is the GOP trying to accomplish in the debt ceiling negotiations?

A setback for Planned Parenthood opponents.

We might be looking at a potential fiscal crisis.

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.

The main issue, above all else, is taxes.

We need to stop talking as if the Medicare debate is a question of the Ryan Plan v. the Status Quo.

Arguments for the Ryan Plan that characterize it as being “against bureaucracy” are apparently oblivious to the fact that private health insurance is full of bureaucracy.

You don’t often see a candidate for President tell Iowans that he wants to eliminate ethanol subsidies, but Tim Pawlenty did.

No, Ron Paul is not a viable candidate for president.

Ohio State researchers: ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs.

Mitt Romney began his effort to confront what is likely to be his biggest political liability in the 2012 campaign.

An attempt at explaining where I am coming from on in the health care discussion.

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

The GOP seems to be losing the public relations battle over deficit reduction.

Contempt for Congress is an old American tradition. Unfortunately.

According to a new poll, the American public still isn’t sold on the idea of cutting entitlements to cut the budget deficit.

In all honesty, much of what is coming out of the mouths of self-described conservatives is actually pretty darn radical.

President Obama’s budget speech was light on specifics, but that’s because it was really the opening salvo of the 2012 campaign.

Prepare to be underwhelmed by President Obama’s big deficit speech on Wednesday.

A government shutdown is not just a hypothetical in a debating contest. It will affect real people.

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

Rather than fighting over the remnants of the FY 2011 budget, the GOP should make a deal and get ready for the bigger, and more important, battle ahead.

The American people have no idea what’s really in the Federal Budget, which makes any discussion about what to cut virtually impossible.

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

Judge Roger Vinson stayed his own ruling in the Florida ObamaCare lawsuit today and acted to speed up the appellate process, but not by much.

The most likely cuts in federal spending are likely to actually increase the deficit over time.