Because apparently math is hard. The White House has informed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that it will miss the legal deadline for sending a budget to Congress. Acting Budget Director Jeff Zients told Ryan (R-Wis.) late Friday that the budget will not be delivered by Feb. 4, as required by law, a House aide said.

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson embodies the ineffectiveness of the Republicans Party in promoting limited government.  He represents one of the most conservative states, yet he uses his position as one of the 12 appropriations “Cardinals” to block any effort to cut spending. Simpson is an ardent supporter of earmarks. He is also a big supporter of government-run healthcare, and refuses to cut even small programs | Read More »

A recent study from the Tax Foundation and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy looking at cigarette taxes and cigarette smuggling reminds us, yet again, of how big government always ends up legislating the Law of Unintended Consequences. Tax That Smoker Behind The Tree You have to tax something to fund government, and if you’re taxing sales, cigarettes are as good a target as any: | Read More »

Two years ago, several newly elected conservative Governors were planning their legislative agendas.  When Gov. Scott Walker proposed his public sector collective bargaining reforms, the Left seemed giddy that a Governor in a purple state would make such a conservative proposal, thinking it would be easy to defeat him in his next election.  However, the voters in the June 5, 2012 Recall election, rewarded his | Read More »

The Republican Party lost the presidential election of 2012. Here in California, my own state doubled down on big government by adding a novel surcharge to its already high 11.3 percent income tax rate and ignored spending cuts and entitlement reforms needed to modify a deficit-driven state budget. The California state Legislature now is firmly in the hands of a Democratic supermajority. Thus, Republicans are | Read More »

As the gun control debate rages in America following the abominable events in Newtown, eventually, perhaps inevitably, the media will ask itself, “What would Jesus do?” They’ve done it for years as it relates to wealth redistribution and Obamacare. Obama gave an entire speech about taxes in which he used Jesus for his justification. I’d wager that the tactic is designed to hit God fearing | Read More »

During the fight over the FY 2011 budget in 2011, conservatives were told to stand down and wait for the debt ceiling.  At that point, “we would begin to cut trillions,” promised GOP leaders.  They wound up caving on the debt ceiling in return for nothing.  Then they said we would fight for the FY 2012 budget.  Well, once we agreed to lock in the | Read More »

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the market’s unease with the stagnation in Washington, agent based modeling, and why this all leads to problems predicting crises.

There is, and has been since 2010, a concerted effort by union bosses to get their union-bought cronies in the U.S. Senate to end the filibuster. Why?