Posts Tagged ‘Paul Ryan’
September 7th, 2011 by John Feehery
Ev and Gerry started the whole response thing.
Everett Dirksen and Gerry Ford, the former Senate Republican leader from Illinois and the former House Minority Leader (and later President) from Michigan used to have a radio show broadcast from the Capitol.
They turned that radio show into a televised rebuttal to President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address.
Dirksen, with his mop of white hair, and Ford, with his bald pate, must have been quite a sight in the years leading up to the Age of Aquarius. Dirksen was the one who famously said, “a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.”
I could understand the frustration of the two Republican (and minority) leaders. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t much to tell the truth, and Republicans at the start of 1966 didn’t have any legislative power. Dirksen, a genius when it came to the political communication innovation, probably dreamed up the idea of a joint response, and a new idea was born: Let’s tell our side of the story. Read more...
Tags: Age of Aquarius, America, Ames Straw poll, assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Livingston, Bob McDonnell, Bob Michel, Bobby Jindal, Congress, Denny Hastert, Dick Armey, Everett Dirksen, Gerry Ford, GOP, Government, House Republicans, Jennifer Dunn, Jim Wright, John Boehner, Lyndon Johnson, Michele Bachmann, Mike Mansfield, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, NFL, Obama, Paul Ryan, Politics, President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address, President Obama, Presidential election, Republican, Richard Nixon, Robert Byrd, Ronald Reagan, Senate Republican leader from Illinois, spending, Steve Largent, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Politics, Theory, election, speeches | No Comments »
August 19th, 2011 by John Feehery
For a lot of non-Tea Party Republicans, Rick Perry’s entrance into the Republican Primary makes Mitt Romney look a lot more attractive.
It is wrong to say that the Republican establishment wants Mitt Romney to be their Presidential candidate. First, that assumes that there is a Republican establishment that can make a decision, which I think is a vast overstatement. Second, if there were such an establishment, it is a non-evangelical elite that is simply not that comfortable with Romney’s Mormonism, and has been casting a wide-net for anybody other than Romney and Bachmann. Some had put their hopes in Pawlenty, others begged Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush to enter the race, to no avail, and now they are turning their attention to Paul Ryan, which will probably yield the same results.
At this moment, it now looks that the choice comes between Perry and Romney. Michele Bachmann, whether she knew it or not, was always a placeholder for Perry, and my guess is that she will quickly fade in the polls. Read more...
Tags: Chris Christie, Democrats, Haley Barbour, Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, Michelle Bachmann, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, Obama, Paul Ryan, Politics, preseidential race, Presidential election, presidential election 2012, Republican, Republican Primary, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Religion, election | 3 Comments »
May 25th, 2011 by John Feehery
Republicans can’t help but learn a few lessons from their loss last night in the New York 26 race.
They have had a hard time winning special elections, especially in the Empire State stretching back to 2006, and yesterday was no exception.
The first lesson, of course, is don’t pose for pictures on Craigslist, in the name of meeting new friends. If Chris Lee hadn’t done that, there wouldn’t have been a special election in the first place.
The second lesson is to beware of Democrats posing as Tea Party adherents. Jack Davis siphoned off enough of the vote to sink the GOP candidate. He said he was a Tea Party guy, but his Tea Party flavor leaned more to the latte crowd.
The third lesson is that the Democrats are very good at playing the Medicare card. Republicans? Not so much.
Republicans think they can go in and offer a total transformation of a senior’s program that is not only very popular, but for many voters, is their only lifeline. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Chris Lee, Democrats, Economy, election, GOP, Government, health care, Jack Davis, medicare, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Paul Ryan, Politics, Presidential election, Republicans, spending, taxes, Tea Party
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, health care, spending, taxes | No Comments »
May 9th, 2011 by John Feehery
There is a reason that the baby-boomers have baby in their nickname. Generationally, they have acted collectively as a bunch of spoiled brats. They were the “me” generation, the disco generation, the greed-is-good generation, the housing bubble generation, and now they are the keep your hands off my Medicare generation.
They have done a good job in keeping the focus on them throughout their birth and now into their retirements. And the baby-boomers aren’t going away anytime soon. They have been so focused on themselves, in all likelihood, they are going to live a long time.
Republicans have decided that if they are going to do anything on Medicare reform that nothing they do will impact the baby-boomers. They have decided that the under 55-year-old set will have to bear the burden for all of the excesses of those who are older then 55.
That sounds all well and good if you are over 55. And if you are older than 55, you probably are ok with this thing. Republicans I talk to have found that this is an effective talking point when they go into town hall meetings. Read more...
Tags: baby-boomers, medicare, medicare reform, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Retirement
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Politics, Promises, Theory, corruption, health care, spending, taxes | 1 Comment »
April 5th, 2011 by John Feehery
President Obama emailed his supporters that he is running for re-election. I guess he did that as a way to tell young voters (who largely powered his initial election campaign) that he is still with them.
Young voters ought to delete the email. If there is any one fundamental truth about this President, it is that he is at heart a conventional politician, not a transformational leader. And while Chuck Todd pointed out the irony of Obama announcing his re-election on the same day that Eric Holder announced that the President was going to backtrack on one of his top campaign promises (that KSM would stand trial in a civilian court), I don’t think that young people care a lick about that kind of stuff.
What they should care about is Medicare. And Medicare, left unchecked, will ultimately destroy America for young people. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, election, entitlement spending, Government, health care, Media, Medicaid, meidcare, Obama, Paul Ryan, Politics, Presidential election, re-election, spending
Posted in Government, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, spending | No Comments »
April 21st, 2010 by John Feehery
International tax policy is boring.
Jobs, American competitiveness, and the future of the world economy and America’s place in it, is not so boring.
The boring stuff has a profound impact on the more exciting stuff.
This morning, Doug Holtz-Eakin, the President of the American Action Forum, hosted a policy forum entitled “Why Does International Tax Policy Matter.” The forum included presentations by rising political star Paul Ryan, a House Republican from Wisconsin; Gene Sperling, a senior Counselor to the Treasury Secretary; William Beach, an economics scholar from the Heritage Foundation; and Barbara Angus, a highly-regarded international tax lawyer who used to work for the Treasury Department.
The presentations varied in their excitement level, ranging from somewhat interesting, to kind of boring to deathly boring. For the layman (and I consider myself a layman), the stuff might be dull, but there is nothing dull about the real impact of our current international tax policy. It is killing jobs and facilitating the movement of our companies from the US to places elsewhere, usually through mergers or acquisitions. If you don’t believe me, think now who owns the King of Beers. Read more...
Tags: American Action Forum, Barbara Angus, doug holtz eakin, Gene Sperling, international tax policy, job creation, Paul Ryan, Value Added Tax, William Beach
Posted in Government, Politics, Theory, taxes | No Comments »
January 21st, 2009 by John Feehery
Positive Signs from the House GOP
It is a long way until the next election. President Obama has just ended his first full day in the White House. All the talk show chatter has centered on how Hollywood invaded the District to celebrate the anointed one. All the serious press is focused on the decline and fall of the world financial sector. Nobody is really paying too much attention to the machinations of House Republicans.
But things are starting to look bit brighter for the lower chamber’s minority party. I know that is counter-intuitive, but I am started to see signs of revival from them.
With the departure of the President Bush, Congressional Republicans now have the opportunity to draw bright lines of distinction between them and the Majority Party. They no longer have to govern, but that doesn’t give them a license to be irresponsible. The American people don’t want blind partisanship. They want solutions.
And the House GOP is offering positive solutions, not just missiles aimed at the new President. Under John Boehner’s direction, the new Whip, Eric Cantor (who would have been a good Vice Presidential candidate), led a listening session with top economists that explored the best options to grow the economy. Read more...
Tags: boehner, Cantor, House GOP, McCarthy, Obama, Paul Ryan
Posted in Theory | No Comments »
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