Outside the Beltway

There are still three days left, but it’s looking less and less likely that a budget deal will be reached in time to avoid a government shutdown.

Paul Ryan unveiled an ambitious plan to cut the deficit today. The question is whether it will be the beginning of a debate, or an opportunity for Democratic demagoguery

Rather than fighting over the remnants of the FY 2011 budget, the GOP should make a deal and get ready for the bigger, and more important, battle ahead.

The American people have no idea what’s really in the Federal Budget, which makes any discussion about what to cut virtually impossible.

Nor, it would seem, are really tired clichés.

Republican budget cuts to this point have been less than serious.

So far, the Republican House’s effort to cut back Federal spending isn’t very impressive.

With minor exceptions, all of the potential candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012 seem to have accepted the idea that defense spending, and the Bush-era interventionist foreign policy, are off the table when it comes time to talk spending cuts.

Republicans are about to take a walk along the third-rail of American politics.

As the standoff in Wisconsin drags on, there is no sign that the public accepts the argument being made about public sector unions by Governor Scott Walker and other Republicans.

More evidence of what we already knew: the public isn’t especially interested in cutting entitlements.

Speaking before Congress yesterday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke debunked the assertion that the GOP’s relatively modest $61 billion spending cut package would significantly harm economic growth.

The privitization of Federal helium reserves is a textbook example of the damage to the nation that can be caused by imprudent budget cutting.

Moodys warns the the Republican plan to cut spending could cost the economy 700,000 jobs.

A new national poll suggests that moves to restrict the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions are not popular with the public at large:

Since Barack Obama took office, federal taxes have been lower for pretty much everyone.

The drive to cut taxes is at the heart of the budget mess.

It’s time to end the ability of public sector labor unions to hold taxpayers hostage.

The primary job of the Federal Government today is to take money from Peter and give it to Paul.

You don’t have to be Admiral Akbar to suspect that the President’s refusal to deal with entitlements in his budget proposal is a trap for the GOP.

President Obama’s new budget involves nothing less than a thumb in the eye of anyone who hoped he would seriously address federal spending in his first term.