Washington Examiner Wednesday headlines

Michael Barone - When politicians 'bicker,' they're really negotiating

The Constitution establishes not a single united government but an arena for conflict. The Founders expected the House, the Senate, the president and the courts to disagree, and they hoped the net result of those conflicts would be good governance.

Susan Ferrechio - GOP hoping to have votes to pass budget

Republican House leaders, eager to demonstrate that the party is united after a fractious debate over the 2011 federal budget, are working to secure enough GOP votes to pass a compromise deal when it comes up for a vote Thursday.

Brian Hughes – White House mum on Obama's deficit plan

How does President Obama plan to reduce the deficit? A simple enough question — but don't ask White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who rebuffed more than a dozen attempts to preview Obama's remarks at George Washington University Wednesday. Carney dismissed as speculation reports that Obama would essentially adopt the recommendations of his own deficit commission. However, he made clear that Obama's blueprint would provide a striking contrast to the plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who proposed a dramatic overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid. Read More

Mark Tapscott - If they can be shot at for their country, why won't their country let them drink?

Examiner Sunday Reflection contributor and Instapundit founder Glenn Harlan Reynolds has a great piece up tonight on The Wall Street Journal's web site making the case for allowing 18-year-olds to drink legally. The argument is simple and familiar: Read More

Michael Barone - Gangster government is always a danger, whoever is in power
We have just seen an episode,” I wrote in a May 5, 2009, column in the Washington Examiner, “of Gangster Government.” The subject of the column was the Chrysler bankruptcy package that was being hammered out by White House advisers Steven Rattner and Ron Bloom. Read More
Mark Tapscott - Boehner's top 16 things to love about the new budget deal

House Speaker John Boehner's office has released the following list of elements in the new budget deal that make it an important milestone on the road to restoring the nation's economic strength: Read More
Philip Klein - The top five failed defenses of RomneyCare

Mitt Romney announced on Monday that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for president, which raised eyebrows because the news closely coincided with today’s fifth anniversary of the passage of his signature legislation as governor of Massachusetts, the state’s health care law. Read More

Susan Ferrechio - Boehner tells Obama tax increase is unacceptable

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent a warning to President Obama about his Wednesday speech on reducing the deficit that the GOP will not consider a tax hike. Read More

Conn Carroll - Obamacare’s $200 million propaganda campaign revealed

Judicial Watch has just posted the bounty from their latest Freedom of Information request, this time targeting the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “education” campaign for Obamacare. The documents include a Acquisition Plan entitled, “Independent Government Cost Estimate,” that sets a $200 million spending limit for televisions, radio, print and online communications. Read More
Philip Klein - Liberals put Obama on notice to lay off entitlements

With President Obama set to give a speech tomorrow afternoon laying out his strategy for reducing the long-term debt, liberal groups spent Tuesday warning him to back off Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- the biggest drivers of long-term debt. Read More

David Freddoso - Yglesias: Use debt crisis to 'punish our enemies'
In the heat of the 2010 campaign, President Obama famously uttered the line, "We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends." It looked so bad that he had to apologize later, but this isn't unfamiliar territory for a Chicago politician. Read More

Philip Klein - Will Obama, Democrats get behind the Fiscal Commission they previously ignored?

Last year, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of President Obama's Fiscal Commission, released (PDF) a deficit reduction proposal that received a lot of publicity, but ultimately little support from either party. Now that House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has released his own plan, will Obama and Democrats respond by embracing Bowles-Simpson? Read More

Timothy P. Carney - The Germans are beating us on solar, and the North Koreans are beating us on really tall hotels

Germany and Spain are beating us in solar panels. China is beating us on clean coal. We need to catch up! This is the refrain of many Democrats and enviro-writers. In a piece published by Reuters, Zachary Shahan writes "the U.S. is missing out on some serious global investment in cleantech as our completely dysfunctional Congress is taken hostage by Tea Party extremists." Read More