Canaries and coal mines

So the French have no stomach for austerity measures. Do we? This would seem a good gauge: if we aren’t capable of cutting the truly unnecessary, then those who feel robbed of their free goodies will rise up a la Cloward-Piven to ensure future reward. Via Hot Air, a test of intestinal fortitude for the [...]

Saturday funnies

Heh. H/t: International Liberty (where  you’ll find another good one).

Change!

From the WSJ, this is surreal: The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It  said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014. 70% increase. How about a 70% increase [...]

“The days I stay home with my kids without going out, I start to get ill.”

Ah, she gets a headache, too. So quipped the First Lady in an interview in 2007. The full Monty: Every year, Michelle Obama considers quitting her job and staying home full-time to take care of her children. “It was a gift having my mother home every day. I want my kids to feel that way,” [...]

“Not everyone in the conference agrees with cutting that fast and giving that much responsibility back to the state”

So argues U. S. Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla. to justify the failure of passage of a bill which would have capped federal discretionary spending next year to less than a trillion dollars. Of that failed plan: That budget plan, authored by the conservative Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called for replacing federal support [...]

Change I can believe in

Heh. Obama’s budget scares Democrats into rare moment of bipartisanship. I’ll take what I can get these days: In a rare show of unanimous bipartisanship, House Democrats and Republicans united in their opposition to President Obama’s 2013 budget, which failed tonight with 414 votes against and zero in favor of the budget. Such opposites as [...]

CBS risks backlash: “National Debt has increased more under Obama than Bush”

Ouch. Truth hurts, doesn’t it. Reminder to inflame liberals further: Obama’s only had 3 years in office compared to Bush’s 8. Mark Knoller writes: The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office. The latest posting from the Bureau [...]

Panetta ready to decapitate military; NYT approves because “we can’t afford it.”

Is no one capable of the same discussion of entitlement reform? Apparently not. From Pentagon to Present Vision of Reduced Military, emphasis my own: Nowhere is balancing budget and strategy more challenging than in deciding how large a ground combat force the nation needs and can afford. The Army chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, [...]

Put that fire out!

Metaphorical fire, that is. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein sees the forest for the trees in the housing debacle. In the NYT he states: I cannot agree with those who say we should just let house prices continue to fall until they stop by themselves. Although some forest fires are allowed to burn out naturally, no one [...]

Army to cut 50,000 troops in the next 5 years, media ignores

This should be much bigger news. Via the Army Times: The Army is preparing to launch in March a five-year, nearly 50,000-soldier drawdown, using a combination of accession cuts and voluntary and involuntary separations, similar to the post-Cold War drawdown of the 1990s, according to Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, service personnel chief. Bostick, the [...]