Outside the Beltway

The White House has apparently rejected using a tortured interpretation of the 14th Amendment to deal with the debt ceiling debate.

Judging by the June jobs report, there’s no economic recovery coming in the near future.

President Obama smiled as he signed the 2009 stimulus into law, but the results aren’t anything to smile about.

Barack Obama’s leadership style may be his undoing.

Does a little known provision in the 14th Amendment make the entire debt ceiling debate irrelevant?

The Senate Republican leader is running a shrewd political game. But what’s good for the GOP is bad for America.

Recent polls seem to indicate a shift in public opinion in a more libertarian direction.

What was that, a joke about shovel ready jobs not being so shovel ready. Yeah unemployment a topic ripe for great comedy.

We might be looking at a potential fiscal crisis.

Tim Pawlenty’s new fiscal plan isn’t very grounded in reality.

The jobs market has been weak for much longer than just the past two years.

And even more bad news.

All in all, not looking like it will be a fun summer.

Ohio State researchers: ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs.

Will days of strong economic growth ever return? And what happens if they don’t?

Obama’s main politics are hardly as leftist as many make them out to be. Indeed, much of them could have fit well in the the GOP of 1990s and early 2000s.

Will the Ryan Plan ever be voted out of the House?

Is our current economic situation the result of massive government intervention? The Randians certainly think so.

Whenever I despair at the current state of the Republican Party, I remind myself that things aren’t much better across the aisle.

Did the GOP toss social conservatives under the bus when it gave away the Planned Parenthood rider?

Can a candidate appealing enough to the base to win the Republican nomination beat Obama?

Can the massive destruction caused by the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns stimulate the economy?

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.

Is the only possible motivation conservatives could possibly have for calling out the lunatic fringe a desire for the acceptance of liberals?

It is always easier to compromise on more spending and less taxes.

The Republican Study Committee has come up with some significant budget cuts.

Time for midterms.

There is a problem with political rhetoric in this country, but telling people to be nicer to each other isn’t going to cool it down.

Peter Orszag, President Obama’s first budget director, is headed to Citigroup and a multimillion dollar salary.

Several smart center-left commentators argue that President Obama is not triangulating. At least one argues there’s no such thing.

The Senate has constructed the legislation to correspond to the Obama-McConnell deal, sweeteners and all.

Krauthammer thinks Obama tricked the GOP into agreeing to Stimulus II.

President Obama is already taking heat from the left for his compromise on tax cut extensions, but will it actually hurt him in the end?

President Obama and the GOP have reached a deal on extending the Bush tax cuts that gives the GOP virtually everything it wanted.

Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is speaking positively about an Amendment that would drastically alter the relationship between the Federal Government and the states, and a method of ratifying it that could do serious damage to the Constitution as a whole.

Is the TSA groping passengers to force them into using intrusive scanners for which they’ve committed $173 million?

Virginia Senator Jim Webb is the last of a dying breed of Democrats, but his party may need him if it wants to remain competitive anywhere outside of a Blue State.

The race between Jeb Hensarling and Michelle Bachmann for Chair of the House GOP Conference is a microcosm for a battle that is likely to take place within the GOP for the next two years.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson takes a look at the Tea Party movement and claims to find racism.

Is the public anger at Obama really just papered over racism?

If you’re looking for a reason why the GOP is likely to do very well tomorrow, voter response to the “right track/wrong track” question is a very good guide.

Another round of GDP growth figures are out, and they show that the U.S. economy continues to grow far slower than necessary to sustain job growth. Is this a temporary problem, or something we can expect to live with for the foreseeable future?