Washington is plagued by a steady stream of scandal. Not just little scandals. Big, consequential scandals. Glenn Reynolds discusses in his USA Today Column the high cost of these scandals as they erode trust in government institutions.
About 25% of Egypt’s defense spending comes in the form of U.S. Aid. That’s right – American taxpayers foot the bill for a quarter of Egypt’s defense budget. Why does the Obama administration act like we have no leverage to force Egypt to put an end to religious persecution of Christians? It’s time to spend some of the influence we’ve supposedly been buying with all that military aid.
On this day in 1855, five full years before being elected president, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to a former congressman named George Robertson. The letter is both a foreshadowing of Lincoln’s later “House Divided” speech and the bloody Civil War. Lincoln proved especially prescient in writing to Robertson when he said “there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us.” Lincoln closed the letter saying “Our political problem now is ‘Can we, as a nation, continue together permanently—forever—half slave, and half free?’ The problem is too mighty for me. May God, in his mercy, superintend the solution.”
It was a question he would wrestle with, and ultimately answer, in the years ahead.
The federal government has manufactured an artificial student loan interest rate crisis and then proceeded to solve the crisis. The problems with this are many. First, the federal government has asserted a near monopoly on student loans. This is absurd on its face. They then proceeded to place a temporary 3.4% interest rate cap on federal student loans, making the cost of the loans artificially low. The manufactured crisis comes in to play when the temporary artificially low rate is supposed to bump back up to the normal rate. Then the death screams from Washington about increased interest rates echo across the nation. But don’t worry, they’re from the government and they’re here to help! Poof….they’ve come up with a compromise and saved the day…or so they like to tell us.
The reality is, the cost of higher education will continue to rise and just about anything the federal government has done, will do, might do, or might consider doing will keep pushing those costs up. It’s the federal way!
Some are expressing concern that home prices in Texas may be rising too fast. Perhaps. Or perhaps the market is adjusting to basic laws of supply and demand. Texas is experiencing a population boom that is increased by domestic immigration from other states. These new Texans need housing so it makes sense that increased demand pushes prices up, particularly in the major urban hubs of Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston. It makes complete sense that prices are rising. If they are rising too fast, the market will sort it out.
Another prosecutor in Travis County has been charged with a DWI. Four months ago it was District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg who was arrested for driving while (heavily) intoxicated. Video from the traffic stop and the police station revealed that Lehmberg went to great lengths to embarrass herself, the office she holds, and the people of Travis County. Despite all of this, she refused to step down.
Today news has broken that Assistant DA Brandon Grunewald has been charged with his own DWI. This leads to a series of obvious questions. Is there a systemic problem with alcohol abuse in the Travis County prosecutor’s office? How can our top county law enforcement officials be trusted to prosecute the law if they have no respect for the laws they are supposed to enforce?
When the consequences for misbehavior at the top are insignificant it sends a signal that the consequences for those down the chain of command will also be insignificant. This creates a poisonous and potentially lawless environment in a place where laws are supposed to be enforced, not broken. Lehmberg and Grunewald should both resign immediately and someone needs ...
It turns out that even the U.S. Treasury can’t correctly print the new $100 bill. Many are calling this a disaster but perhaps it’s a good thing. If even the folks who are supposed to print the bills can’t get it right, it sure isn’t going to be easily counterfeited!
Defending the haphazard implementation of Obamacare, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says “This is not a bait and switch.” When you have to go on a media offensive letting people know something is not a bait and switch, odds are it’s a bait and switch.
If so, demand a TownHall!
The sea change that was the 2010 midterm elections which wrested control of the United States House of Representatives from Nancy Pelosi’s grip had very little to do with election day in November 2010. Election Day was a mere formality. The wave that crashed ashore in November began as a ground swell in August as tens of thousands of concerned citizens confronted, questioned, and conversed with their Representatives in TownHall meetings across the country. What they found was a deeply dissatisfying lack of actual representation. As a result scores of incumbents were defeated.
Four years later many of the replacement representatives who benefited from the August 2010 energy and dissatisfaction are retreating from view, unwilling to hold the same TownHall style meetings from which they so greatly benefitted.
The best way for the electorate to hold public officials accountable is to be informed and engaged. The best way to be engaged is to meet officials in their districts and remind them how folks think outside the Beltway. If members of Congress are not quick to set up TownHall meetings during this August ...
