Yesterday, both sides drew their battle lines in the coming war over the minimum wage. After Obama called for a minimum wage hike in his State of the Union speech, House Republicans dug in against it, casting their opposition as grounded in concern for the plight of low wage workers. John Boehner asked: “Why would […]
The National Review scoops the Senate GOP’s next move, and note in particular the last paragraph: Frustrated by the months of non-stop budget fights, Senate Republicans are set to mount a fiscal counteroffensive this week with the reintroduction of a balanced-budget amendment. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and minority whip John Cornyn are leading the […]
Speaker John Boehner @SpeakerBoehner House GOP has voted to replace the president’s sequester twice. Here’s why, courtesy @whitehouse: http://j.mp/WzhNgY #obamaquester — Twitter, h/t Politico, Boehner’s office dubs it “Obamaquester,” Feb. 8 Oh, dear. I guess this is going to be a regular thing. A few days earlier, our dignified House Speaker created the twitter hashtag #spendingstheproblem. […]
Construction has been one of the more encouraging sectors, adding jobs each of the last four months. The hiring there was probably because of a combination of rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy, unseasonably warm weather that led to fewer work stoppages, and the nascent housing recovery, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors. Retailing, […]
This is more or less relevant to Beverly’s post from earlier today. How many times have you heard Boehner, McConnell, Ryan or one of the legion of right-wing talking heads say, “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem?” I refuted that lie repeatedly in this AB post and at the included […]
Politico’s Glenn Thrush reports this morning that Republicans believe the GDP report showing the economy is shrinking gives them political “leverage” over Obama, since bad economic news is terrible for the President. But Thrush notes that this shouldn’t be the case, since the contraction was the result of spending cuts, which in theory should undermine […]
The issue here is whether America pays its bills. We are not a deadbeat nation. … This is the United States of America. We can’t manage our affairs in terms of the way we pay our bills? … I don’t think anyone would consider my position unreasonable. — President Obama, today So President Obama does […]
Either that or he means that the public understands what the debt-ceiling statute actually is, and will never support Congress’s authorization of payment of already-incurred expenses earlier authorized by none other than Congress itself. Obama and the congressional Dems should take the ball Walden has handed them and run with it.Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of […]
It’s already clear that Republican congressional leaders now recognize that the Republicans actually have no leverage at all on the debt ceiling matter; they’re not going to pull that trigger, and everyone knows it. But Obama (or other prominent Dems) still really, really need to explain to the public that the debt ceiling concerns authorization […]
“There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Wednesday. “The House majority and their speaker, John Boehner.” But after a closed-door session with the New York and New Jersey congressional delegations, Boehner announced that the House would vote on the measure […]