By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
President Obama signed an order Friday night to begin automatic budget cuts across most federal departments. The White House released a copy of the order at 8:31 p.m. Friday, directing federal agencies to reduce spending in various accounts by percentages calculated by the Office on Management and Budget.
President Obama stepped before the television cameras Tuesday morning to urge congressional Republicans to avoid the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts scheduled to hit the government at the beginning of March.
Republican leaders pushed back against new pressure from President Obama that they must compromise to avert looming budget cuts, countering that Democrats must accept serious reforms to entitlement programs to get a deal through Congress.
President Obama thinks the debate over raising the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling isn't the place or the time to be discussing runaway spending.
The dizzying budgetary roller coaster careened closer to the "fiscal cliff" this week when House Speaker John A. Boehner tossed a new "Plan B" into negotiations with the White House.
Is House Speaker John A. Boehner hero or villain? Depends on who's talking.
The Republican National Committee's new special panel to study where the party went wrong in this year's election is already taking heat from leaders who say the RNC's first priority should be addressing its own ineptitude and cronyism and reining in the rampant profiteering of consultants.
If some Republicans have their way, the party soon will make history for all the wrong reasons.
The leaders of the Simpson-Bowles commission are still shopping their 2-year-old, $4 trillion debt-reduction plan around Washington, and they say it is gaining enough traction to possibly form the basis for a bipartisan federal debt-cutting deal by year's end.
The top Republican and Democrat on Capitol Hill have announced an agreement to keep the government running on autopilot for six months when the current budget year ends on Sept. 30.
Republicans welcomed former Vice President Dick Cheney to Capitol Hill on Tuesday as they ramped up their battles with Democrats over next year's spending, with parties at odds over extending the Bush tax cuts and allowing dramatic spending reductions to kick in January.
President Obama is willing to put our national defense at risk for a win on his campaign pledge of higher taxes. He's shown no interest in leading an effort to handle the sequester, the $1.2 trillion in automatic reductions that will hit Jan. 2.
Saving its biggest case for last, the Supreme Court is expected to announce its verdict Thursday on President Barack Obama's health care law. The outcome is likely to be a factor in the presidential campaign and help define John Roberts' legacy as chief justice. But the court's ruling almost certainly will not be the last word on America's tangled efforts to address health care woes. The problems of high medical costs, widespread waste and tens of millions of people without insurance will require Congress and the president to keep looking for answers, whether or not the Affordable Care Act passes the test of constitutionality.
Congressional Republicans are demanding that the country's largest senior advocacy group respond to charges that it sacrificed the interests of older Americans in order to help muster support for President Obama's health care law.
Some are already anticipating the Supreme Court's ruling on President Barack Obama's health care law as the "decision of the century." But the justices are unlikely to have the last word on America's tangled efforts to address health care woes. The problems of high medical costs, widespread waste, and tens of millions of people without insurance will require Congress and the president to keep looking for answers, whether or not the Affordable Care Act passes the test of constitutionality.
