CBSNews.com reports that, at least by some measures, the U.S. has exceeded the legally authorized debt limit, but this doesn’t mean the government is about to shut down or stop spending money — at least not yet. The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at […]
Archive | Government Transparency
Baucus Scandal
By David Bernstein on December 5, 2009 9:02 am in Government Transparency, Legal Profession, Politics
N.Y. Times: A spokesman for Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, said early Saturday that the senator nominated his girlfriend, a lawyer who worked for him at the time, for a United States attorney position last March. The girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, worked for Mr. Baucus as his state office director and as a field director […]
How Many Words Does It Take to Say “Louisiana”?
About 600 or so.
More Stimulative Than You Could Have Imagined
How successful has the stimulus been at creating jobs? So successful that it’s created jobs in Congressional districts that do not even exist! More from Nick Gillespie. (HT: Instapundit)
Is the Honduran Political Crisis Over?
The United States has agreed to recognize the results of this month’s election. Ousted President Zelaya will be allowed to return to Honduras, and the legislature will vote on whether to allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term, albeit without control over the military. Meanwhile, it seems some members of […]
Release the Koh Memorandum on Honduras
James Kirchik, writing in a recent issue of The New Republic, ponders the Administration continued insistence that there was a “coup” in Honduras. He concludes: In the immediate wake of Honduras’s constitutional crisis, it was understandable that the administration, caught by surprise, might jump the gun in its denunciation of the military action as a […]
Scoring a Bill that Does Not Exist
The papers are filled with stories (like this one) about the Congressional Budget Office’s conclusion that the Baucus health care reform bill will cost some $829 billion but not increase the federal deficit over the next ten years due to a combination of taxes, fees, and medicare cuts. Only there’s a catch. As the CBO […]