Ed Morrissey explains:

If you had to pick the poster child for budgetary irresponsibility over the last few years — and certainly for 2010 — it would have to be former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Not only did Democrats under her Speakership raise discretionary spending 18% in three years, not only did she pass a Pay-Go law and then fail to adhere to it even once, Pelosi became the first Speaker since Watergate to fail to pass a budget resolution for a fiscal year.  In 2010, despite having a 77-seat majority in the House, a Senate which her party held by 18 seats, and a Democrat in the White House, Pelosi failed — or refused — to pass a budget for FY2011.  Instead, she pushed continuing resolutions in order to hide spending until after the midterms, and failed even then to pass a budget.

Read the whole thing.  (Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE:  Wonder how often our media remind us that it was the failure of Mrs. Pelosi’s (and Mr. Reid’s) 111th Congress that has forced the 112th to pass continual continuing resolutions.

UP-UPDATE:  Jim Hoft reminds us of some facts:

When Speaker Pelosi took over Congress the national deficit was $162 billion. When she exited in January 2011 it was at $1.29 Trillion dollars. Pelosi and Barack Obama even managed to triple the national deficit in his first year after the stimulus passed.

“House Republicans,” Kara Rowland writes in the Washington Times, writes, “this weekend approved a funding bill that cuts 2011 spending levels by $61 billion compared with 2010, but the measure now goes to the Senate, where majority Democrats oppose it.”  Actually, I quibble with the word to which I added emphasis in that sentence.  While Republicans voted the bill out of the House, it’s won’t be going to the Senate right away.  You see, according to the Senate’s web-page, the Senate will be out of session next week.

So, that doesn’t give the Democratic-controlled chamber much time to consider the funding bill and work out compromise legislation with the House before the continuing resolution funding the federal government expires the following week, on March 4 to be precise.  The reason we need such a resolution is that last year when Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress, they failed to pass a budget for the 2011 Fiscal Year (which began last October 1).

Too busy were Democrats with the big ticket items on their party’s agenda, that they neglected one of the legislature’s fundamental responsibilities, passing a budget.  So, without a budget, both Houses need to agree to a “short-term spending resolution to keep the government running” after March 4.  Without this resolution, the government shuts down.

Now, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as I reported on Friday, is laying the groundwork to blame Republicans for such a shutdown.  But, if it weren’t  for her failure last year when she was House Speaker to pass a budget, Congress wouldn’t this month be considering a continuing resolution.  Her successor John Boehner has had to finish up the work she and her fellow Democrats left undone.  And if Mrs. Pelosi’s Senate counterparts were committed to avoiding a government shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would call his chamber into session.

The shutdown, Rovin writes in Hot Air’s Green Room, “will be the Democrat’s fault plain and simple.” (more…)

The New York Times offers another reason Obamacare is bad for America:

The Obama administration is examining whether the new health care law can be used to require insurance plans to offer contraceptives and other family planning services to women free of charge.

This requirement grow out of an amendment slipped into the legislation “by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, requiring officials to pay special attention to the ‘unique health needs of women.’”  But, the real issue is not the merits (or demerits) of offering contraceptive care, but the requirement that insurance plans offer them.

Shouldn’t private companies be allowed the freedom to decide which benefits they offer while consumers choose the policies which offers the benefits they seek?  But, not under the regime created by Obamacare.  If a company doesn’t want to offer contraception, well, too bad, the government will be taking their freedom away.

Under the plan, the administration is examining, the federal government could thus require Catholics (and others who oppose contraception on religious grounds) to offer plans which pay for services they oppose on moral grounds, causing many to drop health care coverage altogether.

If private insurers (and by extension private employers buying policies from said insurers) want to cover contraception, that should be their choice, but the state should not require them to do so.  And now, the Obama administration is weighing regulations making that choice for them (and depriving others of the choice not to cover contraception).

Another reason to repeal this statist legislation speedily.

The more the public learns about the bill Democrats passed last March, the less we like what’s in it.

NB:  Tweaked the post to improve the flow and clarify a point.

Well, fewer Democrats voted for repeal than I had anticipated.    Gotta give the unpopular Minority Leader credit for holding her caucus together.  Still, the Republican leadership did a lot better holding their caucus together for the repeal vote than their Democratic counterparts did with their caucus in the previous Congress:  all 242 Republicans backed repeal:

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the healthcare law on the books would increase spending, raise taxes and eliminate jobs.

“Repeal means paving the way for better solutions that will lower the costs without destroying jobs or bankrupting our government,” Boehner said in remarks on the floor before the vote.

“Let’s stop payment on this check before it can destroy more jobs or put us into a deeper hole.”

The vote to roll back the president’s signature domestic achievement of the 111th Congress just 10 months after its passage underscores the deep divisions that still surround the new law. But whether House action will signal the beginning of a rapid dismantling of the healthcare overhaul or serve merely as a historical footnote remains to be seen.

The House will vote later today on repealing ObamaCare, one of the most unpopular big-ticket bills ever passed by Congress.  Jennifer Rubin contends, it “will pass overwhelmingly, with more Democratic votes in favor of repeal than there were Republican votes to pass it originally.”

For that to happen, Republicans will need just two Democratic votes (if by original passage, she is referring to the bill then-Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La) supported).  I expect at least a dozen Democrats to vote with a unanimous Republican caucus for repeal.  Other Democrats will follow the lead the president took when serving in the Illinois Senate.

There will be about 25 (perhaps as many as 40) more votes to repeal Obamacare than there were votes to pass it (219) last March (219).  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who, when Speaker last year, was masterful as rounding up Democratic votes to get to a bare majority will have trouble wrangling as many votes as there were Republicans in the House at the time (178).  Methinks that, in the end, only about 170 members, all Democrats, will vote against repeal.  (But, as per the above, a good number of Democrats will either vote present or will have trouble making it to Capitol Hill at the time of the vote.) (more…)

Now that Congress has repealed Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT), seems that John McCain has changed his tune a bit, vowing to make repeal work:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday he would work to help implement the repeal of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, despite his opposition to that legislation.

McCain signaled he had made peace with the lame-duck bill to do away with the military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian service members, which he had sharply criticized.

“I think I have to do everything I can to make sure that the impact on the morale, retention, recruitment and battle effectiveness of the military is minimized as much as possible,” McCain said on Fox Business. “It is a law and I have to do whatever I can to help the men and women who are serving, particularly in combat, cope with this new situation. I will do everything I can to make it work.”

Well, maybe he hasn’t changed his tune, but has instead resigned himself to its passage.  And because of his high regard for the military, he realizes that for the sake of our armed forces, it must be made to work.

2010, Bob Cusack reports at the Hill, “was the year of the Tea Party“:

. . . the Tea Party was in many ways a net asset for the GOP as Republicans grabbed control of the House and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate. 

However, there was collateral damage as Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and other Senate GOP hopefuls seen as the party’s best chance of winning general-election races were ousted in primaries. Some blamed Tea Party candidates for costing Republicans a Senate majority to go with their new majority in the House.

Now, the question will be whether 2011 becomes the year where the Republican House, consistent with Tea Party principles, rejects big-government programs and passes legislation repealing the statist initiatives passed in the 111th Congress while scaling back those federal programs which helped create the financial mess of 2008 and the ongoing economic downturn.

Let us hope that the powers that be in Washington, including some who held significant sway over Republicans like Castle, do not hold the influence they once did over elected Republicans.  And that instead Tea Party principles, nearly identical to those of a great man whose centennial we celebrate this year, guide those election officials.

2010 was indeed the year when the Tea Party helped transform the electoral landscape.  Maybe 2011 be the year when it transforms the legislative landscape. (more…)

To many on the left, including a number of leading members of the Democratic Party, whenever Republicans try to block big-government initiatives, they’re engaging in obstruction, as if progress requires ever more state interference in our lives.

They never seem to grasp that we believe the best way forward is with the least amount of government necessary to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility.  Progress comes not from the machinations of legislators and bureaucrats but through the actions of individuals and the private institutions we form in order to improve our lot and enjoy the benefits of mutual association

When conservatives try to legislate according to such progressive ideas, even if they know they are unlikely to see such legislation enacted given the conditions of the 112th Congress, Democrats are quick to describe their motivations as duplicitous or otherwise underhanded.  Just listen to what my Congressman (who himself has not worked in the private sector since the president was in grade school) has to say about the incoming House majority:

“I think what [Republicans are] going to do is try to keep on dramatizing the issues that they think are helpful to them,” [Henry] Waxman said. “The next two years I expect all their actions to be campaign oriented…. They’re all about messaging, they’re all about power, they’re all about politics. What they don’t seem to be concerned about is governing.”

So, you mean, trying to push the issues that matter to conservatives does not manifest a concern about governing?  Wonder why ol’ Henry just can’t accept that maybe, just maybe, they seek convey the message that they have heard those voters’ concerns as they use their power to act in accordance with the popular will and to advance the national interest.  I think that’s what called trying to govern. (more…)

Remember that “net spending cut” the president kept talking about a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away when he was a mere presidential candidate (i.e., the 2008 presidential campaign)?  Take note of how Tea Party critics fault us for not more aggressively challenging the spending excessed of the Bush Era?

Well, seems like such folks have some explaining to do.  Via Instapundit, we learn that the “111th Congress Created More National Debt Than First 100 Combined“:

I keep hearing over and over again this claim from the left and their apologists in the media that the 111th Congress was the “most productive” Congress since the Depression era. Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t, but since when is doing stuff on its own a positive? Shouldn’t what they’re doing matter more?

Because what Congress did was add $10,492 in debt for every man, woman and child living in the United States.

Funny how they equate productivity with spending money.  By their standards, I guess a teenager who runs up her parents’ credit card at the mall, can just say she was being productive.

In the wake of Senate passage of DADT, the folks at AOL asked me to write a piece on what’s next for gays.  In my piece, I looked at the process of repeal and the prospects for gay influence in the 112th Congress:

Despite all the hullabaloo over Senate passage of legislation repealing the Clinton-era “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring gays from serving openly in the U.S. armed forces, gay men and lesbians will still have to wait a bit before being able to serve openly, to say nothing of making progress on other legislative fronts.

“After President Obama signs the legislation,” reports AP national security writer Robert Burns, “the Pentagon must still certify to Congress that the change won’t damage combat readiness.” That provision likely secured the support of the two most junior Republicans in the Senate, Massachusetts’ Scott Brown and Illinois’ Mark Kirk, both men with a record of military service.

But this has many wondering how the armed forces will proceed with implementing the policy.

You can read the rest here.

Today truly is an historic day for the military. As Dan posted earlier this morning, cloture was reached on a bill sponsored by hawk Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) (<--notice no "D" in there) and minutes ago the full Senate voted 65-31 to enact the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010".

I'm very pleased for a few reasons:

First of all, this happened fairly. While there's an argument that this was thrust into the waning (and flailing) moments of a lame-duck session of the legislature, given the way the vote came down, it would likely have passed in the next Congress anyway, save for the leadership's likely reluctance to bring it to a vote in the first place. In that sense, there's a bit more democracy going on here in that the majority who would vote for it actually did get a chance to have the vote today that they probably wouldn’t have gotten in the 112th Congress next year.

Another aspect of fairness is that it passed on a stand-alone basis, not tucked into the Defense Authorization Bill as Harry Reid had tried to do earlier. By tying such a monumental act to an authorization bill that must be passed every year, Sen. Reid displayed his typical underhandedness and craven lack of integrity that in the end turned out to not even be necessary. That this vote was on its own bill shows the type of transparent and out-in-the-open nature of government that the Tea Parties were trying to achieve. It’s a shame that it came only after Sen. Reid’s back-room bargaining failed. In the end, though, baby-steps…

Third, I cannot express how grateful I am that this didn’t happen at the rap of a judge’s gavel. Nothing could have been more destructive than had our military been forced to make this change not because our commanders had been directed to do so by our elected civilian leaders, but by judicial fiat. Simply put, the judicial branch is not (despite this Administration’s obsession with trying our enemies in civilian courts) charged with, nor does it have the temperament for, taking on the responsibility of national security. While all would agree that the policy is discriminatory, that in and of itself is a very very poor reason to make such a huge change to policy. For example, the ADA doesn’t quite apply to the military, now, does it? On the other hand, give me a truly national-defense reason for considering applying it so, and I (and all military commanders) will be all ears.

Also, while the actual voting seemed to come up quickly, this action was actually very soberly taken and with great deliberation and thought. When the DoD commissioned a survey and the Secretary of Defense implored Congress to wait until that survey’s results and the larger study’s recommendations could be made on how to implement repeal, many looked at the calendar (after the election in which everybody knew the Democrats would lose much power) and sighed. However, patience has paid off and many minds (including those of some Senators’) were changed as a result of the study. Serious thought and concern for our military and the impacts of this action led many of our civilian leaders to support this repeal. Had the activists at HRC (and, yes, LCR also) had their way, this would have been rammed through this summer or fall before the study was made public. The result would have been certain defeat as the effort would have been seen as what it would have been: Another attempt to once again rush through legislation before we’ve had a chance to come up for air and think (and talk) it over.

Finally, and most consequentially, I’m pleased for our Nation. As I’ve stated many times in the past, DADT is a policy that puts our national security at risk. Forget all the whining and pleas about how “unfair” and “bigoted” the policy is. Set aside the childish theatrics of chaining oneself to the White House gate in order to stand up for your “rights” (which, apparently to some, include service in the military for some reason). And let go of the false premise that the policy either drummed out an inordinate number of troops or otherwise dissuaded so many from enlistment in the first place (both are extremely broad generalizations that don’t stand up to statistical rigor). After this repeal is implemented and gay men and women are allowed to openly serve, as I’ve mentioned before, those with security clearances will no longer be blackmailable (for being homosexual, that is) and therefore no longer pose that threat to national security.

As I’ve maintained from the beginning of this debate, the real reason for repeal of this policy should be rooted in national security. While I regret that, even up to the end (as I watched speeches on C-SPAN2), that argument was rarely raised, and when so, was poorly made, the end result will be that national security is strengthened. In these days of Wikileaks and our lowest-ranking members having access to our highest-priority information, removing this security risk is vital.

I’ve got some more thoughts on this, and I’ll be writing a lot this weekend and over the next few weeks as the policy is hashed out in practical terms. But for now, let’s enjoy the knowledge that our nation will be that much more safe as this security threat will soon be removed.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Before we all get jubilent over the impending repeal of DADT (oh, and we will), let’s also take a moment to celebrate this morning’s defeat of the preposterous DREAM Act.

With our Nation’s borders breached so frequently these days by criminals entering our Country illegally and the current Administration having the cajones to actually sue a border state for doing its job, can we pause and agree that rewarding criminals by guaranteeing their progeny legal citizenship status is a bad idea?

Just a thought before we throw our caps in the air over DADT’s repeal later this afternoon, that there are other reasons to celebrate today also.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Seems Harry Reid finally got his act together:

In a landmark vote for gay rights, the Senate on Saturday voted to advance legislation that would overturn the military ban on openly gay troops known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The 63-33 test vote all but guarantees the legislation will pass the Senate, possibly by day’s end, and reach the president’s desk before the new year.

Interesting that the AP bills this as a vote for gay rights.  This issue shouldn’t be about gay rights, but instead about military effectiveness.  If gay people can serve without harming unit cohesion, then the ban should be lifted.  Fortunately the legislation under consideration returns the decision-making authority over this issue to those who should the final decision, our military leaders:

Even after the measure were to become law, the policy change wouldn’t go into effect right away. Obama and his military advisers would have certify that the change wouldn’t hurt the ability of troops to fight, and there would also be a 60-day waiting period.

Not sure I’ll have much opportunity today  to blog on the matter, but will try to update as time allows.

Over at his blog, Sonicfrog has a great piece on the legislative game-playing one of the two most unpopular incumbent Senators reelected last month, Majority Leader Harry Reid.  Sonic faults ol’ Harry for delaying a vote on the budget for political reasons — “to deny the Republican yet another example to show just how out of control spending is with the Democrats in charge“, and takes him to the woodshed for his procedural shenanigans with Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell repeal:

Reid has been playing procedural games with the repeal of DADT, for which he has been rightly criticized. Well, it looks like we’re about to see at least one more act of gamesmanship from Reid before he’s through. There are two vote scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Saturday. One one vote, the repeal of DADT, it certainly looks like there are enough Republican crossover votes for that outdated and useless military ordinance to finally get throw into the dustbin of history where it belongs. We are just learning another vote is schedule to occur tomorrow – a vote on the Dream Act. There is no Republican support for that at all. Twenty to one Reid will tie the vote for the two together, which will all but guarantee that repeal of DADT fails and that onerous policy stays in place. Why would Reid do this? Simply to be able to exclaim that it’s the Republicans fault that DADT was not repealed. Yes, he’s just that partisan.

I hope I’m wrong on this one, but given the pattern of manipulation by Reid in the past, i would be surprised if he didn’t take this route.

Personally, I think he secretly wants to keep this policy is place because its repeal will give gay voters one less reason to want to keep Democrats in power.  I too hope Sonic is wrong on this.

It’s not just those of us to the right of center faulting the Nevada Democrat for the way he’s handled DADT repeal.

With deficits almost more than twice the total amount of the annual federal budget the year the president graduated from high school, you’d think Congress would get the message that it needs to hold the line on federal spending.

Not just that, voters across the country voted out big-spending Democrats and voted in Republicans who promised to cut the size and cost of the federal government.  (Well, some Democrats won election sounding like Republicans.)  Maybe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Mount Crumpit) thinks this sentiment doesn’t apply to him because he survived an electoral challenge this year (guess he’s discounting the millions he and his union allies paid to demonize and discredit his opponent).  The other day, he “dropped on his colleagues a 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2011 that no one but a few Appropriators have read, if even they have“:

The last-minute omnibus should also offend Senators who claim to have heard the voters on November 2. This jam-job is a substitute for the 12 individual spending bills that Congress was supposed to have passed during the summer. But for the first time in modern memory, Democrats never got around to passing a budget outline, much less specific spending bills. So now they want to rush one giant bill into law when no one is paying attention.

Larded up with pork, the bill reads more like a Leslie Nielsen movie* than a serious plan to fund the government.  As the editors of the National Review put it:

Rather than pass a simple “continuing resolution” to fund government operations through early 2011, Harry Reid & Co. decided to ignore the backlash against fiscal profligacy and let their pork barons run wild. The result is an orgy of earmarks, rolled out two weeks after most Senate Republicans and seven Senate Democrats voted for a temporary earmark moratorium. (more…)

On matters political, I don’t often agree with my rabbi.  But, she offers a similar take (to my own) on the failure of the Senate to repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.  And she’s no conservative:

Incompetence. There I said it.  The Democratic Senate leadership under Harry Reid is simply incompetent. And I am afraid President Obama’s staff and his inexperience continue to show.  The fiasco surrounding the squashing of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy is embarrassing.

Read the whole thing.

And let me ask again the question that really gets at the Nevada Democrat’s mismanagement of the issue:  why didn’t he reach out to Republicans, like Maine’s Susan Collins, who favor repeal, when time was on his side?

He did it last year and seems set to do it again:

The big buzz in Washington this afternoon is over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s warning to colleagues that they’ll be working right up until Christmas — and perhaps beyond. Word is that he’ll try to keep the Senate in session until the very last seconds before the new Congress opens on January 5, 2011.

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had been serious about repealing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT), he would have put the matter on the Senate calendar back in June, shortly after the House voted to overturn the ban.  Instead, he waited until last September just as the Senate was preparing to adjourn before the fall elections and again pushed the matter back until this month, the final weeks of the current Congress.

While left-of-center  bloggers may fault Republicans for blocking repeal (yes, they do have a point), the bulk of the blame lies with Harry.  He’s had the votes to break a filibuster.  There have always been least three Republicans who would have voted for repeal — and break a filibuster.  The question is why didn’t he reach out to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and work with her on the proper manner to bring the matter to the Senate floor.

But, it appears the Nevada Democrat once again antagonized the Maine Republican.

While many on the left are busy badmouthing Republicans, they also need to ask why didn’t Harry Reid move this matter when time was on his side.  And why he failed to reach out to Republicans who favor repeal.

With all the goings-on in the lame-duck session of Congress, there is much to write about, but, I, alas, have had less time than I would like to keep up with the news and to follow the blogs.

In what little attention I have paid to the news, I have noticed how the president has blundered badly this week.  He neglected to consult his allies before he negotiated with his partisan adversaries on extending the Bush tax cuts and acted as if blind-sided by the criticism which ensued.  Surely, a politician has to be prepared for attacks from all sides.

Jennifer Rubin called his press conference earlier this week this “worst press conference  – ever“:

I don’t mean just for Obama. I mean any president. Or head of state. When I wrote this morning that he doesn’t do well in defeat, you didn’t know how right I was, huh? Let’s count the ways.

Calling Republicans “hostage takers.” Not helpful. Saying Republicans opposed middle class tax cuts. Not true — they wanted no tax increases for anyone. Accusing Republicans of holding out tax cuts for the rich as the “Holy grail.”

Others had similar reactions.  Asking us to “Remember all that nonsense from the David Brookses and Chris Buckleys of the world in 2008 about” Obama’s “first-class temperament”, Rand Simberg, for example, quipped, “It’s hard to take anything they tell us seriously, at this point.”  (Via Instapundit.)

In another post commenting how “glum” he was in his presser, Rubin found it yet another example of his difficulty in facing defeat. In “his post-election “shellacking” press conference,” Rubin observed, “he became peevish.”

Rubin’s former Commentary Contentions colleague Peter Wehner notes the contradictions in Obama’s campaign image and his record in office: (more…)

I have several ideas for posts, some related to the Prop 8 hearing, others related the animosity of certain segments of the left (in stark contrast to the broad-mindedness* in other progressive precincts).  But, alas, the last-minute revisions of my dissertation have both deprived me of time to blog and of the energy to craft original content.

So, I’ll just leave you with Charles Krauthammer’s commentary on the president’s statement on the deal extending the Bush tax cuts:

Well, I was struck by the tone and by the audience. This is ostensibly a speech to the American people. It was actually a speech addressed at Daily Kos, the New York Times, and MoveOn. This was a speech that was rather partisan. Interestingly, it’s about the first agreement and supposedly the first step in a new era of comity in Washington, but it was quite partisan. He attacked the Republican ideas. He said he disagrees with them strongly, but he had to compromise. This was a speech aimed at appeasing the Left which is extremely angry over this, and it laid out the details of the agreement. We came in a few seconds left, a few seconds after it started, but generally when you get a deal like this, he mentions the opposition and the leaders and he thanks them, and he says how wonderful it was entering in these negotiations and reaching the agreement. I didn’t hear any of that, which is odd for the first step on a new, a new kind of a tone in Washington.

Jennifer Rubin reports that after leaving the White House, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid “looked like someone shot his dog.” He may have won a fifth term in the Senate and held onto his job as majority leader, but it seems his Republican colleagues may yield more power than he.   (more…)