Free Republic

The other day a group of us were at a restaurant. All of a sudden there was a child stomping his feet and stating he was not going to do what he was told. He made a big scene even after he was told that these are the rules and you have to follow them. It was quite surprising that people were watching this and not pointing out the wrongness of the behavior. Then everyone realized that it wasn’t a five-year-old but rather our president on TV stating he was not going to negotiate with Republicans about the debt ceiling....

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's second term wish-list -- his ideas for jump-starting the job-starved economy -- looked a lot like his warmed-over, half-baked proposals of the past. With rare exceptions, Obama's fifth State of the Union address was a costly laundry list of more big government programs aimed at his party's political base. More job-training programs? There are 47 different federal job-training programs right now, costing $18 billion a year, according to the General Accountability Office. And 51 other programs offer job-training assistance. With the unemployment rate rising last month to nearly 8 percent and likely heading higher, and economic...

First, the good parts. They stood out. Indeed, the president's general tone Tuesday night, despite the reflexive class warfare here and there, was much less fast and furious than his re-inaugural address -- as if now he wanted to work with the opposition rather than just excoriate it. "We can do this," Mr. Obama assured the country. Just what we can do -- will it be for good or ill? -- may not always be clear, but at least Tuesday night he seemed interested in bringing us together instead of driving us further apart. The partisan boilerplate that issued forth...

The lesson from the State of the Union address is this: Barack Obama has no second term agenda. Oh, sure, he campaigned furiously for the job, starting in about January of 2011. But his campaign almost never outlined his plans for a second term, focusing instead on interest group payoffs and demonization of his rival. Late in October of 2012, as if recognizing that they'd forgotten to attend to it, the Obama campaign released a 20-page glossy handout called a "blueprint for America's future." It featured splashy photos of the president on nearly every page, along with generic promises like...

“We need a balanced approach.” How many times have you heard that poll-tested line from Obama? Unfortunately, the President’s rhetoric doesn’t match his actions. Only four weeks after raising taxes on the majority of Americans, the President wants to raise taxes again. Predictably, his definition of balance means more taxes right now in exchange for soaring rhetoric about cutting spending that is backed only by accounting gimmicks and broken promises. No issue is a greater threat to our economic prosperity than government overspending – a lopsided imbalance that has led to over $146,000 in debt per American taxpayer. In the...

In an earlier era, Dr. Benjamin Carson's speech before the National Prayer Breakfast last week would have been a really big deal rather than mere fodder for a brief squall on Twitter and cable news. Born in crushing poverty to an illiterate single mother dedicated to seeing her children succeed, Carson became the head of the department of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins medical institutions when he was 33. He's been a black celebrity role model ever since. Even if you didn't like the substance of what Carson had to say at the breakfast, his speech made for great political...

The House Republicans, in serious trouble with public opinion as they blinked facing the "fiscal cliff" over New Year's, seem suddenly to be playing a more successful game -- or rather, games -- an inside game and an outside game. The inside game can be described by the Washington phrase "regular order." What that means in ordinary American English is that you proceed according to the rules. Bills are written in subcommittee and committee and then go to the floor. When the House and Senate pass different versions -- likely when Republicans control the House and Democrats have a majority...

Not long after President Obama proclaimed in his second inaugural that "an economic recovery has begun," we learned that the U.S. economy actually shrank in the last quarter. Many economists believe this is a temporary setback. This recovery may be the weakest in American history, but the economy isn't cratering either. Still, you can bet that if the economy continues to contract, Obama will propose the same remedy he always has: more "investments" in education, infrastructure and various industries of the future. It seems that whatever the ailment, Dr. Obama always writes the same prescription. This is hardly shocking: Building...

Americans who are concerned about traditional freedoms and the Second Amendment have no difficulty understanding the message of the popular bumper strip: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." It should be just as easy to grasp the corollary: If nukes are outlawed, only terrorist countries will have nukes. But somehow, Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel don't get it. In a 2007 campaign speech, Obama promised: "Here's what I'll say as president: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons." Chuck Hagel is listed as one of six directors of a dangerous group called "Global...

Guatemala -- Where is that, you ask? Generally this column comes to you from Washington, D.C. or New York City. Occasionally it comes from London or Paris. Today it carries the dateline of a seaport in Guatemala, and if it were written a day ago or two days hence it would carry the dateline of Belize. It is freezing up north. The inclement weather has driven me to tropical parts. Global warming sounds more and more agreeable to me and, frankly, if you have your wits about you, to you, too. The frozen remains of palm trees have supposedly...

If you thought Republican presidential hopefuls were insane to refuse to raise their hands during a 2011 primary debate when asked whether they'd support a deficit reduction deal with $10 in spending cuts to $1 in tax increases, look at Washington today. In August 2011, President Barack Obama signed a debt ceiling deal that promised more than $2 trillion in spending cuts over a decade and zero dollars in new revenue. The package included $1.2 trillion in "sequestration" cuts -- $85 billion this year out of a $3.8 trillion federal budget -- which are supposed to begin March 1. This...

The New York Times mobile app sent me a breaking news update Wednesday morning: "U.S. Economy Unexpectedly Contracted in Fourth Quarter." Based on high government third-quarter spending and government policies and politics occurring during the fourth quarter, the slowdown should come as no surprise. The third quarter final gross domestic product growth was 3.1 percent. That relatively high number (compared to full year 2011 at 2 percent) was driven primarily by an increase in inventories and an increase in government spending. While the growth number was hailed by many as a reason to cheer, it had to have been...

The 2012 presidential campaign is over, but not for President Obama. The community organizer turned Senator turned president, who ran on hope and change in 2008 and its antipode character assassination in 2012, has no intention of putting politics behind him. Rather, he is seeking to wage a total war against the Republicans for their political immiseration. Total war is a two-pronged approach to battle: first, mobilizing the entire population for the war effort; and second, targeting the entire enemy population, not just its military. Examples from World War Two include German submarine attacks on merchant ships and passenger ships,...

Imagine a day President Obama enters Oprah Winfrey's public confessional: Oprah: As you know Mr. President, I was one of your supporters. This is a difficult interview for me. Americans have many questions. Let's begin by going back to the start of your second term. It was a time of partisan division--the fiscal cliff and the debt limit fights. The economic recovery was anemic at best. Your calls for unity in confronting those challenges were fervent. You talked about a "balanced" budgeting approach but, as we came to see, your "balanced" cuts weren't cuts at all. When the unfunded off-budget...

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) Summary of Operations for fiscal year 2012, released last week, shows an agency that is significantly over-funded. In 2010, the Obama Administration increased the agency’s budget even though it previously operated with a fiscal year-end surplus. Now, the operating report reveals that the agency’s business continues to erode with the decline of unionization in the private sector making its increased appropriation even more unnecessary than it was in 2010. According to the report, issued by Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon, total case intake decreased by three percent; unfair labor practice case intake decreased by...

Welcome to an America with liberalism in full ascendancy as golfer Phil Mickelson apologizes for doing nothing wrong while the Obama administration lambasts its opponents for justly demanding it apologize for doing plenty wrong on Benghazi. Welcome to a land where the gravest problem threatening the nation is spending, where the Democratic president refuses to cut, where the Democratic Senate lawlessly refuses to pass a budget and where Democrats thwart congressional GOP efforts to enact spending and entitlement reform, yet the public is conned into believing that Republicans are the problem. Welcome to a culture in which the political left...

Commentators both left and right agree that Barack Obama's second inaugural speech Monday was highly partisan, with shout outs to his constituencies on the left and defiance of his critics on the right. Obama quoted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and made brief reference to Abraham Lincoln's sublime Second Inaugural ("blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword"). But there was not much in the way of "with malice toward none, with charity for all." There were more references than in many inaugural speeches to specific programs and policies. One interesting question is what the practical effect...

WASHINGTON - If you thought President Obama's first term was one long, uninterrupted political brawl, the next four years will make that period look tame by comparison. If you need any evidence for this prediction, Obama's in-your-face, second inaugural address is Exhibit A. It was a speech tailored to make the hearts of liberal Democrats beat faster, cheering what some in the Washington news media called "Obama unbound." It was a speech that sent an unmistakable message to his party's base that this time around, it's no more Mr. Nice Guy. The gloves are off, these are my issues, and...

Please tell me this is some sort of a sick joke. Phil Mickelson is a professional golfer. He makes boatloads of money. Millions. What’s more, he makes boatloads of money for a lot of other people in the process, including generating massive contributions to charity. He’s a jobs creator and an engine of economic growth, as are many other pro golfers and athletes. So Mickelson takes a look at his income tax burden, and is displeased. First we have Obama and the Democrats riding roughshod over the GOP and enacting a 4.6% tax increase on the evil rich. Then...

Last week the inside pages of the daily newspapers mentioned something that should alarm every American taxpayer. The little noted expiration of the two year old payroll tax break of 2011-12, and the consequent increase of the Social Security payroll tax from 4.2% of wages paid to 6.2% of wages paid became effective on New Years Day, 2013. The roughly 140 million Americans on corporate payrolls will see their take-home pay shrink commensurate with their income. Those earners at the poverty level will see a $ 234.00 yearly tax increase, while those in the highest income bracket subject to the...