"After bashing oil and gas companies for a couple of years and instituting a virtual drilling moratorium, President Obama now says yes to offshore oil and makes a big pitch for natural gas. There may even be incentives for faster leasing and smaller royalty payments to the government. 

"Is it credible? Well, when you get to the fine print, it may not be. 

"In the fact sheet that accompanied the speech, there's a lot of talk about 'responsible development' for natural gas fracking chemicals, state regulators, tapping experts, the environmental community, and protecting public health and the environment. In other words, the standards for new drilling could be so high that there won't be that much new drilling."

"I will vote to defeat an increase in the debt limit unless it is the last one we ever authorize and is accompanied by a plan for fundamental tax reform, an overhaul of our regulatory structure, a cut to discretionary spending, a balanced-budget amendment, and reforms to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. ... 

"Some say we will go into default if we don't increase the debt limit. But if we simply raise it once again, without a real plan to bring spending under control and get our economy growing, America faces the very real danger of a catastrophic economic crisis."

"President Obama just gave a weird speech. Part George W. Bush, part trademark Obama — filled with his characteristic split-the-difference, straw-man ('some say, others say'), false-choice tropes. 

"His support for those 'yearning for freedom all around the world' was the sort of interventionist foreign policy that a Senator Obama — if his past reaction to the removal of Saddam Hussein is any indication — would have objected to, especially in the case of sending bombers over an Arab Muslim oil-exporting country. Since Saddam was a far greater monster (gassing thousands is far worse than turning off the water to neighborhoods) than the monsters that Obama now wishes to slay, I think he has confused rather than enlightened his audience."

"... While we intervene in Libya, what is our Egypt policy? Our Yemen policy? Our Syria policy? With the entire Middle East in turmoil, does it make sense that Washington is focused so intently on who controls the highway between Ajdabiya and Surt? 

"It’s clear that not everyone in this White House thinks so. Defending the intervention on 'Meet the Press' on Sunday, Robert Gates let slip that he believes that Libya is not a 'vital interest' of the United States.   

"President Obama’s most pressing task tonight will be to explain why his secretary of defense is wrong — and why, appearances to the contrary, the potential payoff from our Libyan war more than justifies the risks."

"Last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office scored President Obama’s ten-year budget plan. Their findings underscore a painful truth: The president is failing to engage in the kind of honest dialogue necessary to rally the country behind needed action. 

"His budget — widely criticized for growing our gross debt by $13 trillion, swelling our bloated bureaucracy, and ignoring our surging entitlements — is so filled with gimmicks and manipulations that the CBO found an additional $2.3 trillion in deficits beyond what the White House projected. 

"It is the most irresponsible spending plan put forward by a president in our time. It not only fails to change, but actually accelerates us along, our dangerous fiscal trajectory."

"During the debate over his health care law, President Obama repeatedly promised that 'if you like your plan, you can keep it,' but for millions of Americans that promise has already been broken. 

"In a shocking admission, Obama’s administration has granted more than 1,000 waivers to the health law to prevent 2.6 million workers from losing their coverage. Millions more weren’t lucky enough to get a waiver, and have already been forced to switch plans."

"A year ago this week, Congress passed nearly 2,700 pages of health legislation virtually no one had read in their entirety. Despite opposition from members of their own party and the majority of Americans, congressional Democrats passed a bill fattened with sweetheart deals that further distorted one sixth of our economy.  

"Now, a year later, Americans are still reeling from the consequences of that congressional action. Despite a multi-million-dollar effort to boost the popularity of the law, including ads paid for by taxpayers, a majority of the American people still reject the law, and for good reason. A mountain of nonpartisan evidence shows the overhaul continues to wreak havoc on the pocketbooks and health of millions of Americans. ...

"The sum of evidence is clear. The controversial law takes health-care reform in the completely wrong direction toward higher costs, higher taxes, higher spending, and higher deficits. Real reform begins with repealing this monstrosity and putting federal spending on health care on a sustainable path. For the health of American patients and our economy, Congress must repeal this law and replace it with commonsense reforms that empower consumers with more choices, increased transparency, and lower costs."

"When the Federal Reserve cites statistics to claim that there is not much evidence of inflation, we need to keep in mind that the statistics they rely on exclude food and energy prices. The cost of living is no sweat if you can do without electricity and food."

"Democrats and labor leaders chortling over their supposed popularity in the Wisconsin rift between GOP Gov. Scott Walker and public unions might want to consider a Florida recall vote last week.

"Miami-Dade voters turned out in huge numbers to oust Mayor Carlos Alvarez in a vote that saw a staggering 88 percent of ballots cast against him.

"The issues: soaring property taxes and increased public-sector union benefits.

"Alvarez is a Republican -- but didn't govern like one: He raised property taxes for two-thirds of county homeowners by a whopping 13 percent. He rewarded his political base -- public-employee unions, who pushed for tax hikes rather than spending cuts -- by raising their members' pay and unfreezing some benefits."

"There's too much money chasing too few goods. That's why global prices for key consumer and industrial goods, from oil to wheat, are now at or nearing record highs.

"But at some point the charade must stop. When it does, it won't be pretty. The reason interest rates are so low today — the 10-year Treasury remains below 3.5% — is the Fed's debt-buying binge. When it stops, as it likely will in June, interest rates will surge.

"There's no easy way out. It starts with spending cuts and ends with the Fed turning off its money presses. If it doesn't, and inflation takes hold, welcome back the '70s."