The Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, will be unveiling his FY2012 budget tomorrow. Not all the details are public information, but what we do know is very encouraging. Ryan’s plan is a broad reform package, including limits on so-called discretionary spending, limits on excessive pay for federal bureaucrats, and […]

Press reports indicate that there is a tentative agreement between Republicans and Democrats to trim $33 billion of spending for the remainder of the current fiscal year. Here are a few blurbs from a story in The Hill. A source familiar with the talks said members of the Senate and House Appropriations panels are working […]

Yesterday, I analyzed how the GOP should fight the budget battle, but I may have made a big mistake. I assumed the Republican leadership actually wanted to do the right thing. I thought they learned the right lessons from the disastrous Bush years, and that the GOP no longer would be handmaidens for big government. […]

According to news reports, Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to reach any sort of budget agreement before April 8, when a short-term spending bill for the current fiscal year expires. Barring some new development, this could mean a shutdown of the non-essential parts of the government. This makes both sides very nervous. Democrats don’t want […]

I posted yesterday about the stunning political incompetence of Republican Senators, who reportedly are willing to give Obama an increase in the debt limit in exchange for a vote (yes, just a vote) on a balanced budget amendment. As I explained, there is no way they can get the necessary two-thirds support to approve an […]

The old joke in Washington is that Democrats are the evil party and Republicans are the stupid party (which is why you should guard your wallet and freedom whenever you hear talk of “bipartisanship”). The GOP definitely is doing what it can to prove that at least one side of that joke is true. Republicans […]

There’s a significant debate now taking place in Washington – largely behind closed doors, but sometimes covered by the media – on whether fiscal conservatives should maintain a rigid no-tax-increase position. One side of the debate features Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, which is the organization that maintains the no-tax increase pledge. The […]

In the past 10 years, the burden of federal spending has skyrocketed, more than doubling from$1.86 trillion in 2001 to an estimated $3.82 this year. President Bush deserves a lot of the blame thanks to the no-bureaucrat-left-behind bill that bloated the Department of Education, the corrupt farm bills, the pork-filled transportation bills, the new prescription […]

In this discussion on Larry Kudlow’s show, I reiterate the central point from my National Review article and explain that the government shutdown in 1995 led to real fiscal restraint. If that was a loss for the GOP, I hope they lose again this year. But will this happen? If Republicans don’t surrender, a shutdown […]

A large number of Democrats voted with Republicans in the House yesterday to pass a two-week spending bill that includes $4 billion in cuts compared to what Obama requested. This is a modest victory for the GOP since they can truthfully claim that they are on target to impose the equivalent of $100 billion of […]