Outside the Beltway

Don’t believe the fear mongering about the coming decreases in the growth of defense spending.

The much celebrated ban on earmarks isn’t stopping Congressmen from trying to earmark.

Grover Norquist has become the target of blame for problems that are far more deep than just one man.

Are Republicans mostly to blame for the supercommittee failure?

With the Super Committee dead, 2012 is likely to see a fight over the defense cuts set to take place starting in 2013.

Another meme debunked, plus some thoughts on policy.

Not surprisingly, the Supercommittee is a Super Failure.

Rick Perry is out with a plan to reform Washington. Mostly, it’s just a bunch of gimmicks.

Congressmen apparently regularly make investment moves based on the information they learn. Of course, for them it isn’t illegal.

Perversely, highly qualified nominees for the courts are more likely to be rejected by Congress.

For the most part, all those plans the candidates release are barely worth the paper they’re written on.

Increasing taxes on the rich may be a fiscal policy worth talking about, but it won’t make the poor richer.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor abruptly canceled a long-scheduled speech to the Wharton Business School after school officials changed the guest list.

Even if the Senate operated under wholly majority rules, it would not be the House.

Harry Reid takes to the Washington Post with a piece headlined “Trying to restore Senate comity,” which points out that Republicans are big poopy heads who hate America. Somehow, I think this will not have the effect of restoring comity to the Senate.

Not surprisingly, the “Super Committee” to deal with the deficit isn’t making much progress.

Harry Reid’s “nuclear option” has changed the rules of the game, for now.

Harry Reid is playing hardball, invoking a tactic that he himself decried being threatened when Republicans were in charge.

Beginning with “BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building,” a series of tweets with the #CongressHostage hashtag have been decidedly unfunny.

Neither political party is resonating with the public right now, and neither is acting in the manner the public would like.

House Energy and Commerce Committee “is investigating Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, requesting lots of docs.”

When the old rules don’t apply anymore, the system breaks down.

FEMA is about to run out of money, but don’t worry your Congressman is getting his vacation time in.

The second half of the President’s political strategy is in place. Don’t mistake it for a serious legislative effort.

We won’t solve our fiscal problems by soaking “the rich.”

Public disapproval of Congress continues to fall.

Ezra Klein argues that there aren’t many jobs for which Hill experience is an asset.

The “how to pay for it” part of the President’s jobs plan seems destined to be rejected by the GOP. Which may be exactly what the President wants.

With the economy at the forefront of the public’s mind, the GOP needs to be careful in its response to President Obama’s new jobs bill.