Sen. Charles E. Schumer on Sunday had some political advice for his Republican counterparts: Throw Rep. Paul D. Ryan overboard.
If the Democrats are counting on making a comeback in the 2012 elections by demagoguing the Republican Medicare reforms, they had better think again. The No. 1 political issue for the remainder of this year and most likely in 2012 will be the lackluster, persistently high-unemployment Obama economy, which Republicans will nail to Democrats' hides from Maine to California.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has no interest in resolving the looming debt and entitlement crisis. The Nevada Democrat would rather use the Senate chamber this week to kick off the 2012 campaign season, starting with a scheme to use the reform proposal crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan as a tool to scare seniors. Mr. Reid calls the House budget a "plan to end Medicare."
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a Democratic bill that would have repealed about $2 billion in annual tax breaks for the five biggest oil companies, though Democrats say they'll push for the measure during negotiations to increase the nation's debt limit.
While last week's editorial on the merits of a Balanced Budget Amendment promotes a desirable objective, it would have been better had The Washington Times not equated the failure to lift the debt limit to the functional equivalent of defaulting on U.S. debt ("Use the Constitution to cut spending," Comment & Analysis, Thursday).
With gas prices once again flirting with $4 a gallon nationally, Democratic senators called CEOs from the country's five major oil companies to Congress on Thursday for what has become a regular scolding over their high profits, and said the time has come to end tax breaks the industry enjoys.
With a key test vote in the Senate on Monday, Democrats are playing the national security card in their push to get the No. 2 man at the Justice Department confirmed.
What is the Tea Party? Who is the Tea Party? Big media types and the larger left have their demagogic spin: Tea Partyers are racist, backwoods, anti-government dunderheads with a predisposition toward domestic terrorism. In a word, they're "extremists."
Should a president have to wait ... and wait ... and wait for the Senate to approve the people he nominates to serve in high office?
