July 21, 2011
Bad Reason, Good Reason
Bad reason: Opposing the grand bargain because you think a grand bargain would help President Obama get re-elected. Good reason: Opposing the grand bargain because you think raising taxes will hurt the economy. Bad reason: You strongly support a tax...
July 20, 2011
A Grand Bargain?
I love when the Senate comes up with a grand bargain. It gets all the Washington insiders excited. The pundits love grand bargains. The media goes crazy over grand bargains. I remember when the Senate came up with a grand...
July 19, 2011
Fixers and Breakers
There are two kinds of politicians. Fixers come into office to fix things. They seek to fix problems for their constituents, fix the legislative process and fix government. Breakers come into office to break things. They seek to take down...
July 19, 2011
The Lessons of 1990
I learned to drink coffee in 1990. I worked for House Minority Leader Bob Michel as a junior-level staffer, and I spent many a late night and quite a few weekends at the Capitol building, doing junior-level stuff as Republicans...
July 18, 2011
Where’s Nancy?
The media loves to spend time speculating about how John Boehner and Eric Cantor are going to round up the votes to pass President Obama’s debt limit legislation. But they haven’t asked one of the most important questions out there?...
July 15, 2011
History
I can’t tell if this current Congress is making history, defying history, ignoring history, or will soon be history. I had dinner last night with a Freshman member of the House, and he told a group of us that most...