It’s not just an article of faith among many in the Republican Party that the government by some rule of nature/psychology/economics can’t be a solution. This idea has morphed into a commitment to make it impossible for government to properly function, preventing it from ever being a solution. The conservative philosophy about the role of government has transitioned into an active effort to realize a self-fulfilling anti-government prophesy, as the proposal for smaller single-issue bills and the RIENS Act demonstrate.

Collectively as a country we can claim no credit for this positive popular revolution against a dictator we spent so much money trying to keep in power.

Wyoming’s two Republican senators, Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, are pushing for a rules change that would only allow an individual bill to deal with a single issue, in order to prevent the current practice of Congress passing massive omnibus bills. From Politico: Enzi, Barrasso and their co-sponsor in the House, freshman Rep. David Schweikert [...]

It is not surprising given Jonathan Gruber’s strong support for an individual mandate and his prominent role in both “Romneycare” and “Obamacare” that he is working hard to defend the idea with a new paper for the Center for American Progress attacking “alternatives” to his preferred policy. Overall, I find his case weak and extremely [...]

In 2000, Congress approved a program called the New Market Tax Credits with the intent to provide subsidies for development in low income areas–but by gaming the system and using very out-of-date demographic data, huge corporations are getting millions in government money to build high-end hotels and condos. Bloomberg has the story, and I strongly [...]

Sometimes the irony of two news events that happen on the same day is almost surreal. Today, we have news that the Obama administration is pushing the Mubarak government to immediately end the Egypt’s “Emergency Law,” which gives the President sweeping powers to violate the rights of the country’s citizens. From Jack Tapper’s “White House [...]

Having finally, belatedly, realized just how extraordinarily unpopular the individual mandate is and will likely remain for years to come, some Senate Democrats are now searching for an alternative. From Politico: A handful of moderate Senate Democrats are looking for ways to roll back the highly contentious individual mandate — the pillar of President Barack [...]

In the end, if Obama truly wants to install Suleiman, he probably can. He’ll engineer one of those “make me do it” moments, where he just has to accept that the thing his administration has been working tirelessly to achieve is the best thing for Egypt. But the minute that happens, and the stories start leaking out about young demonstrators being “disappeared” by Suleiman’s thugs, he’ll have to explain to the social media generation how it was all worth it for “stability in the region.”

And this time, he won’t be able to blame it on the need for “60 votes.”

Even though it has been almost a year since health care reform was passed, the concerned industry groups are still donating millions to members of Congress. From the Washington Post: While it is well-known that health-care and health-insurance providers and companies donated heavily while the bill was being drafted, a new study of campaign spending [...]

I, along with much of FDL, am often painted by both the media and the Obama administration as on the outer-left-wing of political thought—a group of progressive extremists well outside the mainstream. The reality is both far more boring and sad. Recent polling has caused me to go issue by issue to examine public support [...]