"The argument between left and right is about what you do beyond infrastructure. It’s about transfer payments and redistributionist taxation, about geometrically expanding entitlements, about tax breaks and subsidies to induce actions pleasing to central planners. It’s about free contraceptives for privileged students and welfare without work — the latest Obama entitlement-by-decree that would fatally undermine the great bipartisan welfare reform of 1996. It’s about endless government handouts that, ironically, are crowding out necessary spending on, yes, infrastructure. ... 

"Beyond infrastructure, the conservative sees the proper role of government as providing not European-style universal entitlements but a firm safety net ... 

"Limited government so conceived has two indispensable advantages. It avoids inexorable European-style national insolvency. And it avoids breeding debilitating individual dependency. It encourages and celebrates character, independence, energy, hard work as the foundations of a free society and a thriving economy — precisely the virtues Obama discounts and devalues in his accounting of the wealth of nations."

"Declining confidence in the nation’s economic prospects appears to be the most powerful force influencing voters as the presidential election gears up, undercutting key areas of support for President Obama and helping give his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, an advantage on the question of who would better handle the nation’s economic challenges, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.  

"Despite months of negative advertising from Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies seeking to further define Mr. Romney as out of touch with the middle class and representative of wealthy interests, the poll shows little evidence of any substantial nationwide shift in attitudes about Mr. Romney."

"Obama is trying to persuade Americans that while he has expanded food stamps to unprecedented levels, extended unemployment insurance to 99 weeks, vastly increased the already overwhelmed Medicaid program, created a new trillion dollar entitlement with Obamacare and expanded the size of the federal government to a percentage of gross domestic product not seen since World War II, that he is not the dependency president. By stepping back into history to embrace the Democrats' nemesis -- unrestricted welfare -- he has clinched the argument for the opposition."

"If Bartlett’s ever puts together a collection of insultingly deflating quotations, it should include President Barack Obama’s take on business success before a crowd in Virginia the other day: 'If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.' ...

"There are few phrases that President Obama likes less than 'on your own.' He considers it a lie when people think they’ve made it on their own, and he thinks that the most damning thing that can be said about the Republican vision is that it will leave people on their own. For him, 'we’re in this together,' and the inspiring institution embodying that togetherness is none other than the Internal Revenue Service."

"By any yardstick, Obama’s on the losing side of almost every major domestic issue. The vast majority of Americans simply don’t want what he’s selling. ...

"In certain circumstances, of course, political leadership can mean bucking popularity. But the privilege comes with a requirement: Defiance of public will must be proved correct. Your policies must, in reasonable time, achieve results the public demands.
 
"When they fail — think 8.2 percent unemployment for more than three years amid rising debt and deficits — a true leader accepts the need to try a different course. Only a zealot, blinded by ideology or indifference, would insist on more of the same."

"Is the Romney campaign depending too much on bad economic news to get their guy elected? The argument gaining traction among conservatives is that the Romneyites aren’t making a strong-enough case for his candidacy. They aren’t embracing a vision of the country and its future; they aren’t elevating the discussion; they aren’t supplying enough specifics. ... 

"True, the Romney campaign isn’t generating reams of documents from its various committees the way previous campaigns have. But campaign substance can come in many forms. Romney took a major leap forward on Wednesday with the best speech he’s ever given, before the NAACP.  

"In graceful and clear language before an audience that was hostile at best, Romney connected the need for education reform and stable family life to the disproportionate negative effect the economic troubles have had on the African-American community. It was powerful, effective and substantive."

"Most Americans don't care about whether Attorney General Eric Holder is hiding Fast and Furious documents because they don't understand the story. 

"Until someone can tell us otherwise, there is only one explanation for why President Obama's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gave thousands of guns to Mexican drug dealers: It put guns in their hands to strengthen liberals' argument for gun control. 

"Precisely because this is such a jaw-dropping accusation -- criminality at the highest level of government to score a political point -- Republicans refuse to make it. 

"But the problem with Republican rectitude in discussing this scandal is that as soon as they start talking about subpoenas and dates and documents, TV channels change across America. They're never going to get answers unless they first explain to the American people why it matters."

"[T]he president wants to increase spending even faster than he wants to increase taxes. President Obama’s proposed tax hike would raise roughly $65 billion in 2013. At the same time, the president proposes to increase spending next year by $202 billion. The tax hike would pay for only 32 percent of the proposed new spending. Or put it another way: Over ten years, the new taxes would cover roughly half of the $1.6 trillion in new subsidies and Medicaid spending under Obamacare. 

"That means that not a penny of Obama’s proposed tax increase would, in fact, go toward reducing the budget deficit, let alone paying down the debt. Rather, every cent of the tax hike would go toward paying for increased federal spending.

"And it is that spending, and the bigger and more intrusive government it represents, that is the real burden on the economy and the American people. President Obama’s tax hike is just a symptom of the big-government disease."

"One would think, given so much practice, that the Obama White House would have been better prepared for last week’s wretched jobs report. 

"Instead, we witnessed the five stages of bad public relations. Delusion: It was a 'step in the right direction.' Dismissiveness: Don’t 'read too much into any one monthly report.' Grudging acceptance: 'It’s still tough out there.' Cliche: 'There are no quick fixes.' Self-pity: 'I suspect that most people ... would acknowledge that I’ve tried real hard.'  

"I suspect that most people ... would prefer an economic strategy that consists of something more than blame shifting and the systematic lowering of expectations."

"The only jobs plan that has any chance of passing the House and Senate before the election is a bill to cancel all tax increases in 2013. With White House support, this would fly through the House and Senate and eliminate one major antigrowth headwind, as even some Keynesian economists and the Congressional Budget Office are telling the President.

"The dilemma for the White House is that calling off next year's tax increase would undercut Mr. Obama's re-election theme of redistributing income. His liberal base has become so obsessed with the politics of envy that it is demanding higher taxes no matter the economic or political costs.

"The question for Senate Democrats is whether they want to jeopardize their personal futures, and their majority, by jumping off the same tax cliff. With the House poised to pass an extension of the tax rates for at least one year, Senate Democrats have to decide if they want to vote before Election Day to wallop an already weak economy with a giant tax increase."