THE WASHINGTON TIMES

EDITORIAL: Democrats taxing nomination

It's bad enough to have a tax cheat as Treasury secretary, but now the Obama administration wants the Justice Department's Tax Division to be run by somebody who is inexperienced in tax law. This suggests that the administration disdains tax law altogether.

January 28, 2010

EDITORIAL: Kill Big Bird

Congress can save a quick $420 million a year by zeroing out the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It's a needless drain on the public coffers that has outlived its usefulness.

January 28, 2010

EDITORIAL: Safe at any speed in Virginia

The most concrete achievement in the early days of the Republican congressional takeover of 1995 was, arguably, the elimination of the hated 55 mph national speed limit. Millions across the country experienced firsthand the benefit of moving beyond the "Washington knows best" mentality that had gripped transportation policy since the 1970s.

January 27, 2010

EDITORIAL: Justice foils FOIA

The Justice Department is withholding documents demanded by this newspaper under terms of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In so doing, the department is asserting privileges that do not exist or do not apply. Ironic as it may sound, Justice seems to be breaking the law.

January 27, 2010

EDITORIAL: Dump Bernanke

The Obama administration insists that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke must be reconfirmed for a second term or financial markets will panic. Other defenders, such as Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, claim that critics are scapegoating Mr. Bernanke for economic problems because they don't know whom else to blame. Both shots are off the mark. The Federal Reserve is a very powerful agency, and the truth of the matter is that Mr. Bernanke has abused that power. The Fed chairman should not be reconfirmed for another term.

January 27, 2010

EDITORIAL: Obama, the god that failed

President Obama said Monday that he would "rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president." He will be lucky if he's not an abject failure. There's usually a reason for a presidency lasting a single term, as Mr. Obama's slow-motion train wreck is demonstrating.

January 27, 2010

EDITORIAL: Spending freezes over

President Obama is finally - sort of - pointing in the right direction. His call for a three-year freeze on non-security discretionary federal spending represents a minor triumph for fiscal conservatives. Even if the president doesn't mean it, public opposition to his expansion of government is so strong that he at least has to pretend to want to slow down bureaucratic growth. Conservatives now have an opportunity to challenge Mr. Obama not only to make good on the freeze, but also to limit the size and scope of government more broadly.

January 27, 2010

EDITORIAL: Obama’s loose grip on reality

President Obama's response to the catastrophic political failures of his freshman year in office is to fight harder for more of the same. Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett made the point explicitly on Sunday, asserting that the White House is "not hitting a reset button at all." That reflects the kind of political savvy that handed the safest Democratic Senate seat in America to a Republican.

January 26, 2010

EDITORIAL: The land of the ‘mostly free’

The results are in: The Obama presidency and the Democratic Congress have made the United States less economically free. That means our prosperity is endangered.

January 26, 2010

EDITORIAL: Hypocrisy on influence peddling

President Obama angrily denounced the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in favor of free speech multiple times last week. In that case, the government sought the power to ban movies and books that mention candidate names within 60 days of an election. Mr. Obama and proponents of campaign finance reform believe such censorship is necessary to regulate money spent on elections.

January 26, 2010

EDITORIAL: The upside of Yankee imperialism in Haiti

America's critics are claiming that the United States is using the pretext of earthquake relief to take over Haiti. The Haitians should be so lucky.

January 25, 2010

EDITORIAL: Faux health reform

Democrats are in turmoil. In the wake of last week's Republican Senate victory in liberal Massachusetts, there's no agreement about what to do with the government health care bill. A dazed Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted she didn't have the votes to pass it in the House, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin still seem determined to ram it through.

January 25, 2010

EDITORIAL: Obama’s demonization of banks

President Obama has decided to take on the banking industry with the most intrusive regulatory and tax package since the New Deal of the 1930s. If the president's failed freshman year didn't convince the O Force of his own fallibility, confronting Wall Street should bring him back down to Earth.

January 25, 2010

EDITORIAL: Thank Allah it’s Friday

Using the word Allah can be hazardous to your health. Catholic churches in Malaysia are being firebombed after a court ruling in that country permitted the use of the word Allah as a generic term for God. Some adherents of the religion of peace are pushing back hard against any notion of a vanilla Allah.

January 22, 2010

EDITORIAL: Obama team pushes quotas

Far from being a "post-racial" presidency, the Obama administration continues to pick the scab of racial discord. The prime culprit is the heavily politicized Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which under the Obama team won't act to protect the civil rights of white Americans but insists on finding white racism where it doesn't exist.

January 22, 2010

EDITORIAL: Obama appointee: Freedom is exaggerated

Yesterday's huge Supreme Court victory for free-speech rights in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission serves as a warning to the Obama administration on other speech-related issues. Several Obama appointees have denigrated the importance of the First Amendment, and one presidential appointee, Mark Lloyd, holds views fundamentally at odds with the Supreme Court and America's whole tradition of protecting free speech.

January 22, 2010

EDITORIAL: Massachusetts, a swing state

Republican Scott Brown's historic come-from-behind senatorial victory in the Democratic bastion of Massachusetts sends a clear message to the party in power: Stop what you are doing or face the consequences. President Obama's big-government agenda accomplished the unimaginable - it made liberal Massachusetts a swing state.

January 21, 2010

EDITORIAL: Stinking up Congress

Forget fish in a barrel. Identifying ridiculous examples of congressional spending priorities is like shooting pigs in a slop pen.

January 21, 2010

EDITORIAL: Guns decrease murder rates

More guns in law-abiding hands mean less crime. The District of Columbia proves the point.

January 21, 2010

EDITORIAL: More government won’t work

Government is bigger than ever and controls more aspects of American life than at any time in U.S. history. Last year, the federal government ate $3.52 trillion out of a $13.2 trillion economy. With the current trajectory of big government under the Democrats, the federal bureaucracy will devour as much as 50 percent of this nation's economic activity by midcentury. To illustrate how wasteful that is, take a look at the empty space above this editorial. That's what government creates - nothing.

January 20, 2010