Another year of state budget brinksmanship?

Grappling with declining state revenues makes for some very unpleasant budget choices, as Governor Ritter and the Democrat majorities in the state legislature learned over the past 12 months.

It’s fair to criticize those choices, including the governor last year denying for several months that a problem existed.  Yet anyone who has shouldered the responsibility of balancing a budget during a recession understands that learning from your own mistakes is inevitable.

Learning, however, is essential — both to sound fiscal policy and to political credibility.  That’s why it was astonishing to hear Governor Ritter and leading Democrats dismiss the need for a special session of the legislature on the very day they acknowledged that the state will start the new fiscal year nearly $400 million in the hole. (more…)

Mr. President, first heal Medicare

America’s health care system certainly has its share of problems — of which most emanate from politicians’ tinkering, tempting frustrated consumers with promises of better benefits at someone else’s expense.

So the prospect of President Obama and Congress remaking American health care in their own image should scare the pants off anyone who looks not merely at the existing problems but at government’s abysmal record as a problem-solver. (more…)

Obama’s General Motors

President Obama claims to “have no interest” in running General Motors.  He does so with a straight face — and the same monotonous cadence that he employs whether condemning North Korea for nuclear explosions or joking with Jay Leno.  But his actions, as well as his words, betray him.

The significance of the bankruptcy and restructuring of General Motors isn’t that it happened but the way it happened.

His protestations notwithstanding, this is Barack Obama’s General Motors.  Just read from his statement earlier this month: (more…)