If Obama wants to shutdown the government by vetoing spending bills that comply with the sequester, then Republicans should let him.

I recently gave five reasons why the shutdown fight was worthwhile and my number one reason was that it’s better to be on offense than defense. It seems I’m not the only one to reach this sensible conclusion. Here’s some of what Fred Barnes wrote today for the Wall Street Journal. In the deal that […]

The wailing and hysteria in Washington is over. The politicians now have the authority to borrow more money and the bureaucrats are all back at work (rested and refreshed after their paid vacation, so they’ll probably tax, spend, and regulate with extra fervor). So what can we say about this fight? I have five semi-random […]

Even though it’s an uphill battle, I’m glad there are some lawmakers willing to fight Obamacare. They realize a hard battle today could help save America from genuine fiscal crisis in the future. I don’t know how this government-shutdown battle (which is morphing into a debt-limit battle) will end, but I’m hopeful the taxpayers get […]

It appears that the government shutdown, which technically is a battle over annual appropriations legislation for so-called discretionary spending, is going to drag on for a while. The Obama Administration has shown zero willingness to negotiate, even though Republicans have made a series of offers to resolve the conflict. And the longer this fight lasts, […]

I’m not overly optimistic about the outcome of the government shutdown fight. In part this is because our system of government, based on separation of powers, means it is very difficult to change the status quo. This system, by the way, generally has been good for the country. It probably helps to explain why the […]

What’s the likely outcome of the government shutdown fight? Well, in my libertarian fantasy world, we leave it closed. Or at least we never bother to reopen counterproductive bureaucracies such as the Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Commerce, Department of Transportation, etc, etc. […]

The politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and interest groups in Washington are hyperventilating that the federal gravy train may get sidetracked for a day or two by a shutdown fight between Republicans and Democrats. I’m not sure why they’re so agitated. After all, the shutdown is really just a slowdown since only non-essential bureaucrats are sent home. […]

I was on the road this afternoon when I caught on the radio Rush Limbaugh’s mention of a 2011 article by CF&P Chairman Dan Mitchell, in which he argued against the conventional wisdom that the 1995 government shut down harmed Republicans. This debate matters because the argument is frequently used to break down the will […]

There were reports about 10 days ago that the crowd in Washington reached a budget deal, for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, with $33 billion of cuts. That number was disappointingly low. I wrote at the time that if this was a kiss-your-sister deal, we didn’t have any siblings that looked like Claudia […]