'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Sen. Max Baucus, who as chairman of the Finance Committee guided Obamacare down the tracks in the U.S. Senate, is changing his tune now that he's about to retreat into Montana to hide in placid retirement. He sees "a huge train wreck coming down" with the implementation of President Obama's health care takeover. Now he tells us.
The press has amplified 1 percent, 99 percent and 47 percent in recent days as a succinct measure of political culture and public opinion. Here is a fourth measurement to add to the collection: 9 percent. That is the number of Republicans who approve of Congress, this according to Gallup. Things are pretty tepid elsewhere: 15 percent of Americans overall and 17 percent of Democrats give the lawmakers a thumbs-up.
The stock markets took a late-afternoon fall Monday after European Union finance ministers failed to come up with the full amount of money pledged for a bailout fund.
I am a Republican who worked for President George W. Bush both when he was governor of Texas and when he was president, and I am now working to create jobs in renewable energy. The recent opinion column by Reps. Raul R. Labrador and Mike Pompeo ("Era of energy subsidies is over," Commentary, Monday) told only half the story.
The call for an end to all energy subsidies from Rep. Mike Pompeo, Kansas Republican, and Rep. Raul R. Labrador, Idaho Republican, could be a laudable goal if it treated all energy resources fairly and treated energy fairly relative to other sectors ("Era of energy subsidies is over," Commentary, Monday). Unfortunately, their proposed legislation doesn't work that way. It unfairly singles out the most promising source of new manufacturing jobs while protecting billions of dollars in incentives for other energy sources and all non-energy sectors. Honest reform of tax incentives must start with a level playing field. The Pompeo/Ladrador proposal fails to do that.
Those quarterback sacks, the excruciating tackles: Republicans are apparently more appreciative of NFL "violence" than Democrats. There's a partisan divide even when it comes to football, says a new Poll Position survey of 1,032 voters revealing that GOPers actually favor the rough stuff more than other respondents in multiple demographic categories. A quarter of all Americans say that professional football is "too violent," compared to 21 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats.
America's energy woes show what's wrong when politicians intervene in the market. When government tilts the playing field to favor an industry, rivals want their own slice of the pie. As gasoline prices skyrocket, natural-gas backers sense an opportunity to grab a larger share of the fuel market and want lawmakers to climb aboard the "green" fuel express.
Consumer advocates are eagerly awaiting March 11, the formal launch date for the government database SaferProducts.gov, where people can share complaints of injury or worse from everyday products such as cribs, highchairs, space heaters and toasters. But the database, overseen by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, isn't universally popular.
The Obama administration says it's wrong to try to change the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to babies born in the United States.
"Each one of these problems results from legislation you authored and your colleagues supported," Mr. Pompeo wrote. "You drafted it, you twisted arms to get it passed, and, until now, you have lauded it as a model for all the world. Your attempts to pass the buck to President Obama's team will not work, nor will they absolve you of responsibility for the harm that you have brought via this law."
"It is becoming increasingly clear this program is failing," Mr. Pompeo said.
