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Congressional Christian Hangout Should Not Be Tax-Exempt
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2010 Comment (8)Let's hear it for a group of mainline Protestant Ohio ministers who are reporting religious groups they think are bogus to the Internal Revenue Service for abuse of churches' tax-exempt status. It takes a lot of guts to do what, according to today's New York Times, this group did:
A group of ministers has sent a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service saying that a town house on Capitol Hill that provides inexpensive lodging and meals for conservative Christian members of Congress is not a church and should no longer be granted the tax-exempt status afforded a house of worship. The C Street Center, valued at $1.8 million, offers inexpensive lodging and meals for conservative Christian members of Congress. The town house, known as the C Street Center, received a jolt of notoriety last year after Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina said he had sought spiritual counseling there in connection with his affair with an Argentine woman.
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Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels for President?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2010 Comment (32)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
You probably don't know this about me, but I'm a closet fan of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. I know there are others out there like me, but I haven't found them yet. Here are three interesting things he's done lately:
1. Along with several other governors, he cosigned a letter to the Congressional committees investigating Toyota which he paraphrased to the local Fox affiliate as saying: "Let's have the recall, fines if necessary, but they're ganging up, it seems highly suspicious given the government went into the car business and here they are beating up one of their direct competitors." He's got a point, that the government now owns GM, one of Toyota's competitors, and it appears they have a conflict of interest when it comes to shutting down Toyota's sales. I'm a former Camry owner, and of course I'm concerned about safety--that of Toyota drivers and the rest of us on the road with them--but we wouldn't be talking about a conflict of interest if the government hadn't taken over GM. One more reason the government should stay out of the market.
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GOP Holding Unusually Firm on Health Reform Could Flip House
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2010 Comment (90)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Contrary to what many analysts are saying, it is still too early to determine whether or not comprehensive healthcare reform has died on the table. What is clear is that the latest comprehensive package which President Barack Obama’s unveiled Monday has flopped, both as a vehicle that could be the basis for a bipartisan compromise and as a lever to force the GOP to give in to what the Democrats want.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that he still hoped that the “all” part of the “all or nothing” strategy the Democrats have pursued since the start of the healthcare debate would prevail but he also, in a break with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House, telegraphed that compromise was possible.
“We may not be able to do all. I hope we can do all, a comprehensive piece of legislation that will provide affordable, accessible, quality healthcare to all Americans,” Hoyer said at his weekly media briefing. “But having said that, if we can’t, then you know me--if you can’t do a whole, doing part is also good. I mean there are a number of things I think we can agree on.”
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Obama’s Health Reform Proposal: Too Late, Too Partisan
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2010 Comment (3574)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Yesterday, the White House put out its healthcare reform proposal, and not much of it includes provisions Republicans might like. With the healthcare summit coming on Thursday, the question is, do Republicans have an obligation to put out their own bill? I asked former Senate Republican Whip Alan Simpson yesterday--the whole interview will be the subject of my column this weekend, so stay tuned--and he says that although Republicans do need to propose their own ideas, to expect a GOP healthcare bill is "hypocritical" of Democrats.
Back in the day when Simpson was in the Senate, no matter what party the president was, when it came time for major legislation, the White House would send some sort of legislative proposal on paper to the Congress--sometimes a bill, sometimes a framework--but the White House usually started the process. Most members of Congress won't compose a bill without White House political cover first, and you have to have a White House bill to "chew on," he says, before starting the negotiations. Most Americans believe the president just signs the bills into law at the end of the process, but that's not the case anymore. The executive branch is involved from the start. But with healthcare reform, President Obama didn't do that. He sat on the sidelines and asked House and Senate Democrats to write the bill, which turned into a year-long fiasco. "So to ask Republicans to cough up a bill when the White House never coughed up a bill is a little bit of a strain. I don't believe that's been done at all here," Simpson says.
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Zazi Case Reignites Terrorist Trials Debate
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2010 Comment (2)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Score another one for the side of law and order in the fight against terrorists. The U.S. justice system worked properly in the case of Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi, who pled guilty Monday to terrorism charges in a plot to bomb New York City subways. Not surprisingly, the decision has gotten a lot of attention among liberals who point to it as more evidence that having a military component to the battle against terrorists doesn't obviate the other facets of the struggle, including the criminal justice side of it. Zazi isn't a soldier, captured behind enemy lines, in other words, he's a would be mass murderer.
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Stop Blabbing and Get Tiger Woods Back on the Golf Course
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2010 Comment (19)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Was Tiger Woods the upright family man, well-mannered Stanford gentleman, and tender-hearted philanthropist that we so wanted to see when he was dominating the PGA tour?
No.
Is Tiger Woods the hideously selfish and drug-taking satyr described to our delight over the last nine weeks by various Las Vegas waitresses, party girls, and porn actresses who claim to be his intimate companions?
Maybe a little.
Is Tiger Woods the contrite and chastened sinner who apologized to the public on Friday?
Time will tell.
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Ron Paul Wins Over the Tea Party Movement: Why Incumbents Should Worry
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2010 Comment (60)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Over the weekend, Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll for president. Many pundits immediately dismissed the win, for a lot of reasons. (The Atlantic did a roundup of all the "he's irrelevant" comments.) My take on Ron Paul is this: He says a lot of off-the-wall stuff, but his bottom line is that he's a limited-government libertarian. And he's not Mitt Romney, the establishment GOP choice. I think that's why he won.
Joe Scarborough likes to say that if you look at where Ross Perot did well in 1992, those are the same places that tea party candidates are doing well. That may be, but I think there's some overlap between Ron Paul supporters and the tea partiers, at least some of the younger ones. Ross Perot has a website, PerotCharts, that illustrates the government's fiscal responsibility; but Ron Paul supporters have an interactive site for those who want to meet up at campaign rallies (with over 100,000 people either already members or interested), and according to the timeline posted, it looks like many of them have joined in the last two years.
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Obama’s Pre-Summit Proposal Is Healthcare We Could Use
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2010 Comment (98)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Now here's the kind of healthcare reform we could use! Oh, I know it increases the government bureaucracy, but finally President Obama is proposing a version of healthcare reform that everyone, save insurance company executives, will appreciate. CNN reports:
The Obama administration will propose legislation that would allow the government to block excessive rate hikes by health insurance companies.
This is part of the administration's attempt to smooth out differences between the two versions of healthcare reform passed by the House and the Senate. Parts of his proposal are good and parts are bad. But he's trying to find middle ground in legislation filled with more land mines than DMZs, and this particular piece of reform is a good place to start.
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Karl Rove: Democrats Are Facing a 1994 Rerun
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2010 Comment (28)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If there is any one conclusion that can be reached based on the conservatives at the 2010 CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, it is that the political environment in the United States is dramatically different that it was just one year ago.
Back then, riding high atop an almost unprecedented series of electoral victories, President Barack Obama and the Democrats mounted a campaign that was significantly more radical than what they had talked about in either 2006 or 2008. As a result they overreached--losing the backing of the American people they gained thanks to a series of Republican missteps over the last half of the Bush administration.
Then, the nation’s political writers were writing the GOP’s obituary. Now, most political forecasters at least concede the possibility that the 2010 elections could produce Republican majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate.
In politics, if nothing succeeds like success, then nothing fails quite as dramatically as hubris.
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Boehner’s CPAC Speech Demonstrates Energy on the Right
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2010 Comment (25)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I haven't been able to attend the CPAC convention in person this week--too much going on with kids and work--but I've been following it on TV and the blogosphere. Some of the speakers are very angry, which is mystifying to me since things seem to be going well lately for conservatives from New Jersey to Virginia to Massachusetts. But there have also been a few unexpected surprises.
One of those is John Boehner's speech. I've never been that big a fan of his, but I think he's really growing into his job. He's much better now than he was even a year ago. I listened to him on the radio yesterday giving his speech, and here's the link to it on CSPAN if you'd like to watch it; he starts at 2:55.30 and the best part is at the end at 3:14.50. Here are the highlights:
