Weekly Columns

Now that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill appears to be contained, the next great challenge is recovery. Although experts have concluded that the oil is disappearing from the water more quickly than anticipated, the spill will remain a significant threat to the environment long after the well is permanently capped. The Gulf Coast economy faces a long road to recovery, as well. Unfortunately, congressional Democrats recently passed a bill that will make rebounding even more difficult.

The American people are communicating loudly and clearly to Congress that out-of-control spending is unacceptable. Recent polls rank government debt as the top threat to the future well-being of our country. With a public more vigilant than ever about monitoring the national deficit, big-spending liberals are taking action -- but not by reducing spending. Instead, Speaker Pelosi and company are looking for creative ways to hide their deficit-growing policies.

The Obama administration has devoted an extraordinary amount of time and effort to convincing the American people that the president's big spending agenda is working. According to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama and White House officials have visited 172 cities in the past year and a half to argue -- incorrectly -- that the 2009 "stimulus" plan has helped our struggling economy. But no number of speeches can disguise the fact that the president's flawed economic policies have failed to reverse the persistently high unemployment rate.

With the popular Bush tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, House and Senate Democrats scheduled a meeting last week to begin discussing tax policy. Given that the majority party never met a tax hike it didn't like, it's always cause for anxiety when they talk taxes. Predictably, early indications are that congressional Democrats support tax increases totaling over $200 billion next year and $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years.

President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will have enormous influence over the future of health care in America. With a budget larger than the Department of Defense, CMS is one of the key government agencies tasked with implementing many significant aspects of the unpopular government health care takeover. Yet the person appointed to this crucial position will now take office without undergoing a single hearing.

Headlines may be proclaiming the passage of "financial reform" legislation, but the policies approved in the House of Representatives on June 30 are far too inadequate to deserve the label "reform." Instead of true reform, congressional Democrats did what they always do: expand government bureaucracy, increase tax burdens and then make the media rounds to declare success.

Every year since 1974, the House of Representatives has passed a budget resolution. No matter which party was in power or whether the economy was booming or struggling, the House has never failed to pass a budget blueprint setting spending limits for the year. Until now. For the first time in decades, Democratic leaders announced, House members will not get to vote on a budget plan.

The White House budget director inadvertently made a very revealing statement recently when he admitted that it would be "fruitless" for the Obama administration to push for immediate spending cuts because such a request would "go nowhere" in the Democratic-controlled Congress. In a speech to a left-wing think tank, Peter Orszag stated "we have very low probability of success" in cutting spending. Of course, the idea of the Obama White House actually proposing budget cuts is pure fairytale, considering President Obama continues to press for more and more government spending.