"Millions of Americans are jobless, underemployed or have given up all hope of finding work. The government is led by a president who hasn’t a clue about how to unlock the power of our once-mighty economy to achieve its fullest growth potential. Republicans need to start talking again about how job-creating tax cuts, energy expansion, trade exports and other pro-growth ideas can put America back to work. 

"It’s a hopeful, optimistic message that Americans are hungry to hear again, and this is the year to do it. It’s time to give Mr. Obama and his party another shellacking."

"President Obama’s hero Abraham Lincoln had a famously worshipful view of the rule of law. 'Let reverence for the laws,' he said in his Lyceum Address, 'be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap — let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.' 

"President Obama’s implicit rejoinder: 'Whatever.'"

"It is a painful moment for all those who believed, and still seem to believe, in the world-changing and epoch-making properties of the Affordable Care Act. To them I extend the world-weary sympathies of a man in middle age who knows the meaning of disappointment and loss . . . 

"Naaaaah. 

"Nanny nanny boo boo."

"Seen in totality, it appears that ObamaCare is unraveling like a cheap sweater. But though the administration is trying to limit the number of those who are inconvenienced or hurt by the law, this latest decision is one more shred of evidence that proves the assumptions about the law’s popularity were completely unfounded. Democrats assumed that once the law began to be implemented the benefits it distributed would quickly make it as beloved as Social Security or Medicare. But it is now abundantly clear that the numbers of ObamaCare losers may well equal or exceed the total of those who will benefit from it. No amount of lawlessness on the part of a president who lacks the constitutional power to enforce only the laws or the parts of laws that he likes can conceal the enormity of the ObamaCare fiasco. 

"Unfortunately for the president and Democratic incumbents, the sheer number of ObamaCare exemptions and delays has grown to the point where it is no longer possible to pretend that the only problem with the law was a glitch-ridden website or Republican obstructionism. No matter how many of its ill-conceived moving parts the presidential orders say need not be implemented before November, the accumulated weight of its failure may prove too heavy a burden for Democrats who must answer to the electorate for their votes to shove this monstrosity down the collective throat of the American people."

"What the CBO report makes plain is that under Obamacare a huge cohort of Americans will realize they’d be better off financially if they cut back on their hours or quit working altogether so as to not jeopardize their (taxpayer-financed) health care subsidies. 

"Here’s the rub: Who will be paying for their health care costs? There are two possible answers; one: Americans who remain in the workforce, most of whom are middle class, with economic worries of their own; two: future generations of Americans — as we are borrowing prodigiously to pay for current spending. ...

"To some, the Democrats’ glee over offering people health care so they’ll quit working reprised memories of a hilarious old headline in the satiric online magazine The Onion: 'IBM Emancipates 8,000 Wage Slaves.'

"There’s a serious side to this, a seriously disquieting side: For years, it seemed that although Democrats profess to love jobs, they couldn’t stand employers. Now they’ve gone a step further: They don’t even favor work."

"In 2024, spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Obamacare health insurance exchange subsidies will absorb two-thirds of the $4.9 trillion in revenue the CBO expects the federal government to collect. Add in the rest of mandatory spending and interest payments on the debt, and 96 percent of tax revenues will already be spoken for before Congress allocates money to pay for defense, veteran's benefits, education, transportation, the court system, international affairs and other budget items.

"After 2024, the CBO warned, 'the fiscal outlook is even more worrisome.'"

"The Democrats once styled themselves the party of workers. Now, they are the party of people who would have been workers, if it hadn’t been for Obamacare.  
 
"The Congressional Budget Office released a new analysis of the economic effects of the health care law on Tuesday that estimates that it will reduce the number of workers, in effect, by 2.5 million in 2024. 

"This unleashed a torrent of arguments from the Democrats implicitly denigrating the value of work. Perhaps not since Southern fire-eaters attacked Northern 'wage slavery' in the mid-19th century has a good honest day’s work been talked about so dismissively. It turns out that discouraging work is just another one of the wonders of Obamacare."

"States are learning the cost of Common Core is uncommonly high.

"The federally-backed standards initiative, first proposed by the nation's governors and an educators' association, seeks to impose a national standard for achievement among K-12 students. So far, 45 states plus the District of Columbia have signed on, with some implementing curriculum designed for the Common Core Standards Initiative during the current school year and the rest set to take part in the next school year. But several states are reconsidering their participation, and one big reason is the cost.

"States will spend up to an estimated $10 billion up front, then as much as $800 million per year for the first seven years that the controversial program is up and running. Much of the cost is on new, Common Core-aligned textbooks and curriculum, but the added expenses also include teacher training, technology upgrades, testing and assessment. The figures are taking states by surprise."

"Listening to discussions of immigration laws and proposals to reform them is like listening to something out of 'Alice in Wonderland.' 

"Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them. One of the big problems that those who are pushing 'comprehensive immigration reform' want solved is how to help people who came here illegally and are now 'living in the shadows' as a result.

"What about embezzlers or burglars who are 'living in the shadows' in fear that someone will discover their crimes? Why not 'reform' the laws against embezzlement or burglary, so that such people can also come out of the shadows?"

"John Koskinen, the new IRS commissioner, is on the hot seat and would do well to follow the example of Johnnie Mac Walters, who held the same post when President Nixon occupied the Oval Office. After Nixon aide John Dean handed Walters an envelope with a list of some 200 individuals the president considered political enemies, Walters refused to go along with the request for audits. He locked the list in his safe without ever opening the envelope. He subsequently gave the envelope to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. ...

"Koskinen should start the IRS cleanup by withdrawing new regulations designed to bring 'clarity' to the agency's tax exemption enforcement. In fact, these rules are a transparently political attempt to legitimize the president's suppression of conservative, evangelical and Tea Party critics. ... 

"Under the IRS proposal, nonprofits would risk their tax-exempt status if they sponsored voter registration, get-out-the-vote efforts or candidate forums. Such activities are intrinsic to the democratic process, contribute positively to public understanding of the issues and candidates when done in a nonpartisan fashion, and have been sponsored routinely for decades by nonprofits across the ideological spectrum. These also happen to be the same sort of activities that would be conducted by the more than 200 conservative, Tea Party and evangelical nonprofit applicants that were targeted for harassment by Obama's IRS."