Nothing focuses the mind, Oscar Wilde famously said, like the sight of the gallows. And so it is with Republican Governors on the brink of losing $6 billion in federal aid thanks to automatic budget cuts currently set to kick in on March 1. But it shouldn't have taken the specter of the sequester's body […]

Ever since the tragic attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, "Benghazi" has been the Republican response to almost every question. Despite receiving the report of the State Department's Accountability Review Board (whose recommendations were immediately endorsed by the Obama administration), hearing the testimony of the […]

Less than two weeks ago, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf warned the House Budget Committee that the looming March 1 sequester would have a devastating impact on U.S. employment. "We think that would reduce the level of employment at the end of the year," Elmendorf cautioned, "by about 750,000 jobs." Apparently, Republican House […]

No account of how the United States ended up at the brink of the $1.2 trillion, ten-year budget sequester is complete without these two phrases: "debt ceiling hostage-taking" and "Super Committee." Nevertheless, in his grandstanding campaign to lay blame for the automatic spending cuts at President Obama's feet, Watergate journalist turned deficit hawk Bob Woodward […]

As the federal government nears the March 1st deadline to avoid the $1.2 trillion, ten year budget sequester, the media are breathlessly playing the blame game. While House Speaker John Boehner continued to decry "the Obama sequester" in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "the President is raging against a budget crisis he created," John […]

Six days after Abraham Lincoln's 204th birthday, the Great Emancipator is very much in the news on this President's Day. Pundits, polls and politicians of both parties are once again recognizing America's 16th president as its greatest. Inspired by the Oscar-nominated film, a Mississippi physician prompted his state to formally and finally ratify the 13th […]

Barring a last minute miracle compromise, on March 1 the first year of the $1.2 trillion, decade-long budget sequester will begin. With few exceptions, that's a development neither party wants to come to pass. For Democrats, the sequester doesn't just mean the potential loss of 750,000 jobs in 2013 alone, but slashing non-defense discretionary spending […]

As things now stand, Senate Republicans will carry through on their threat to filibuster Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense. As the GOP's number two man John Cornyn declared Wednesday, "There is a 60-vote threshold for every nomination." Two votes short of the needed filibuster-breaking tally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called […]