Last night, Senate Democrats continued their developing tradition of emerging from a closed door caucus meeting to announce they had reached a deal to pass a health care bill (their closed door breakthrough from the previous week having fallen apart). This time, the declaration of victory was based on Sen. Harry Reid – at the White House’s insistence – having conceded to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s demand to strip the bill of the ill-conceived Medicare Buy-In clause.

Did we miss something? Last time we checked, there were still several “moderate” Democrats expressing serious reservations over the bill. This so called agreement has thus far been conspicuously absent of any endorsement by some of the bill’s biggest Democratic critics: Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Jim Webb (D-VA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Kent Conrad (D-ND), or Byron Dorgan (D-ND).

Not to mention the fact there is no guarantee Sen. Reid has convinced any of the more liberal members of his caucus to go ... more

In poll after poll, the voice of the American people is clear: They don’t like the government-run health care experiment that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats are ramming through Congress because they think it’ll raise taxes, raise costs, increase the deficit, and reduce quality of care.

Republicans have heard the voice of the American people. We want the Democrats to slow down and will work with them to pass common sense reform. Unfortunately, they’d rather be arrogant and ignore their constituents. As Speaker Pelosi said, the Democrats will do “almost anything” to pass their government-run health care experiment this year. Since that’s the case, we’re launching a new campaign to stop this trillion dollar gamble so we can get the reform people want to have a bottom-up health care system.

To get a pulse on the voice of the American people, check out our Research Briefing, “Will They Listen To You?” And, to see if Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Jim Webb ... more

In an interview which aired Sunday night on CBS’ “60 Minutes”, President Obama chided the nation’s largest banks, saying he did not run for office to be “helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.” The President spent much of the interview laying the blame for the financial collapse at the feet of those on Wall Street.  This harsh language was used just a day before he planned to meet with these very same bankers in order to try to persuade them to increase lending to small businesses. 

What is confusing about Obama comments is that he criticized the reckless lending practices of the major banks on Sunday, only to turn around and urge the CEO’s of those banks to resume the same reckless practices on Monday.

Government forced sub-prime lending, which most notably took place at the end of the Clinton administration was one of the major causes of the financial crisis.  Regulators are advising banks to increase capital and cut back on lending if there is a likelihood ... more

After a year of bailouts and government intervention, President Obama is once again using executive authority to step in and rescue another struggling group: congressional Democrats. The President’s Cap-And-Trade scheme has stalled in the Senate as Democrats have realized that the bill would be a disaster for American business. As the Tax Foundation points out, the legislation being proposed by Democrats could cost the economy close to 1 million jobs per year!

So to prevent members of his party from having to cast a vote on this harmful legislation, President Obama is circumventing Congress with harmful back-door EPA regulations on carbon emissions.  Yet while some Democratic lawmakers are breathing a sigh of relief having dodged the bullet of voting on the unpopular measure, it is the economy that will ultimately take the hit. Allowing the President to side-step Congress by empowering the EPA to impose harmful job-killing regulations will be good for their reelection hopes, ... more

It appears that once again, the Obama administration is hoping that a single speech can make up for months of inaction.  Today, President Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, will finally deliver a speech focused on democracy and human rights. Though, to the world’s struggling dissident movements, the administration’s silence on these issues over the past year has been deafening. Secretary Clinton even went so far as to state in February that addressing human rights “can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis." A troubling pattern has emerged from the Obama White House of not allowing the fundamental causes of democracy and human rights to distract them from their agenda, as former Clinton Administration Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin explains:

Unfortunately, in a number of judgment calls this past year, the principle of democratic values has fallen victim to this bitter legacy. Whether it was ... more