Act Now: Congress and Obama Want Preferential Tax Treatment for Foreign-Owned Energy Producers CFIF has released a Living Social(ist): Bad Deal Alert, a new take on the trendy deal-of-the-day email coupon services exploding in popularity across the country. Instead of offering half-priced chocolate spa baths or $1 admissions to your local petting…

In a speech to the City Club of Cleveland, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called on President Barack Obama to ask for and accept the resignations of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council chief Larry Summers.  With the private sector on life support and the job market continuing to shrivel, the only quibble…

Remember the summer of 2002, when President Bush  conducted the midterm Congressional election campaign by blaming Bill Clinton at every opportunity for the tech bubble recession and 9/11 plot he inherited?  Or the 1982 midterm campaign, when Ronald Reagan degraded the office by blaming Jimmy Carter for the economic and Cold War calamities…

With Congress out of session for its August recess, one innovative fund manager is busy making money for clients who share his view that an inactive government is good for the stock market.  Armed with data and a successful track record, Eric Singer is using his unique strategy to make profits and a point about avoiding the most dangerous element…

Consumer spending fuels two-thirds of the massive American economy.  Meanwhile, the top five percent of income earners account for fully one-third of that consumer spending.  So remind us again, Obama Administration:  Since that critical income segment supports such a disproportionate share of the nation’s vitality, how does…

So the nationwide – nay, suddenly worldwide – debate continues:  Is President Obama being dishonest, or does he really just not get it?  Regrettably, that particular question carries an additional element of irony this week.  In his weekly radio address last Saturday, Obama leveled the curious accusation that opponents of…

If modern liberalism triumphs among the professoriate, it may be because the left shares an instinctive bias with the academy: to lecture is better than to learn.  And who better to embody this ethos than the nation’s professor-in-chief, Barack Obama, for whom obtrusiveness is next to godliness?   Holding court in Toronto last weekend…

The ongoing home mortgage disaster that continues to transfer billions of taxpayer dollars into the black hole coffers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is serving at least one useful purpose: providing a case study on the limits of government’s ability to run any of its functions like a business.  One of the most critical dividing lines in…

Amusing entertainment news this week comes out of Britain, where Deadline London reports an upcoming Barack Obama miniseries based upon journalist Richard Wolffe’s book, The Making of a President.  Here’s an idea for a better title:  Obama’s Big Fat Greek Bailout.  After all, Obama’s enormous and unsustainable…

As with any contested race, there are plenty of differences between Republican Tim Burns and Democrat Mark Critz, the two men vying to replace the late Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), in the May 18th special election.  For all the boilerplate disagreements, though, one issue has the potential to define not just the candidates, but their national parties…

Boy, did we step in it last week.  In our Commentary piece -- “Here Come the VAT” -- we wrote, "No longer is it just those hysterical rumor-mongers like columnist Charles Krauthammer speculating on the next national tax to be imposed by the Obama administration..." Our first intent was to correctly credit the iconic conservative…

The Value Added Tax (VAT) cat is finally creeping out of its bag.  No longer is it just those hysterical rumor-mongers like columnist Charles Krauthammer speculating on the next national tax to be imposed by the Obama administration.  Now it’s none other than Obama economic adviser Paul Volcker telling the New York Historical Society…

With annual federal budget deficits projected to top $1.6 trillion for the foreseeable future, President Barack Obama thinks appointing Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to help create a plan to balance spending with revenue is a good idea.  Consider Stern’s qualifications.  He owns an Ivy League…

The two biggest stories out of Washington last week made for a bizarre bit of political synchronicity.    On Thursday morning, President Obama announced the creation of a new bipartisan commission aimed at reigning in the national debt – a move largely seen as a reaction to growing agitation on the issue from fiscally conservative…

“America continues to move from Keynesian to Ponzian economics.”  So said former chess champion Garry Kasparov in his February 13 Wall Street Journal commentary. Kasparov’s observation was particularly timely, since this week marks the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama’s $787 billion “stimulus” bill. …

Three years after George W. Bush left office, it will still apparently be all his fault in 2011.  This week, Barack Obama unveiled his proposed 2011 budget and was forced to acknowledge a record $1.6 trillion deficit for 2010.  Naturally, the increasingly-petulant Obama couldn’t resist his urge to scapegoat Bush in his official announcement…

It appears that the worst of our recent economic downturn may be behind us.  Unfortunately, the latest economic data continue to suggest that our recovery is weaker than it otherwise should be, due to malignant federal policies.  We and other conservative commentators have noted that all American recessions eventually come to an end, and…

For most people, “deficit spending” and the “national debt” are nothing more than fancy terms of art thrown around by Ivy League economists and Washington elites, incomprehensibly large numbers with which only certified smart people concern themselves.  Who really cares that the House of Representatives this week voted…

If you are like most Americans, you probably did not hear about the Obama Administration’s “jobs summit” last Thursday until you got home that night, if at all.  That’s what happens when the government schedules a meeting about how to create jobs during normal business hours.  The only folks able to attend are those…

It has been said that taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society.  If that’s true, with the federal government collecting over $2 trillion in taxes this year, civility must be at an all-time high. Unsatisfied, however, the House of Representatives took another swing at the tree of liberty this week when it increased the Death…

The recession that began almost two years ago appears to be finally petering out, as American recessions eventually always do.  Sure enough, as predictably as the sun rising over the eastern horizon, Barack Obama hustled before his teleprompter this week to inform us that “the steps we’ve taken have made a difference.” …

Quick:  Think of the last American economic recession, or even depression, from which we didn’t recover.  Obviously, no such example exists.  Our capitalist, free-market economic system has created more prosperity and human innovation than any other economic system ever conceived or implemented by humanity.  The tradeoff…

In a speech setting new lows in hypocrisy this week, a sanctimonious Barack Obama admonished an audience of business leaders in New York that he will not tolerate “reckless behavior” or “unchecked excess.”  It was all a bit like Timothy Geithner or Congressman Charlie Rangel telling an audience that they won’t tolerate…

The embarrassing saga of federal regulators’ failure to stop Bernard Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme despite multiple inquiries and tips provides a very timely lesson.   This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a 477-page report admitting that it overlooked repeated tips and red flags on Mr.…

President Obama has now nominated Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term as the head of what some call the most powerful unelected body in the world. Bernanke has received praise for his efforts to ease the recession and to loosen credit markets in the wake of the recent financial crisis. However, a vocal minority of critics have begun…

During a press conference at April’s G-20 Summit in London, President Obama said, “I'm the President of the United States … so I have a direct responsibility to my constituents to make their lives better. That's why they put me in there. … And I will be judged by my effectiveness in meeting their needs and concerns.”…

Is Barack Obama capable of saying anything that Americans can trust? That question accrued even greater prominence this week after the White House recalibrated its ten-year budget deficit projection from $7 trillion to $9 trillion. Just three months ago, when Obama completed the official release of his proposed 2010 budget, he forecast…

This month, the United States Department of Commerce reported that America’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted at a 1% rate during the second quarter, the slowest level of contraction in one year, following a 6.4% contraction in the first quarter and a 5.4% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2008. It’s still an economic decline,…

Potomac Fever:  some would define it as a determination to share in the power and prestige of the federal government.  Others might characterize it with words like obstinance, incorrigibility and simple pig-headedness.  Undoubtedly, Washington loves power.  But when it comes to admitting the error of its ways, ignorance is bliss…

It is one of the most iconic broken promises in politics: “Read my lips, no new taxes.” After breaking that campaign promise, President George H.W. Bush effectively destroyed any political capital he had with conservatives and everyone else who was slapped with Bush’s higher tax rates. Yet despite that political lesson, little has…