EDITORIAL FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES.
Freddie Mac issued a report
Wednesday claiming the housing market may be emerging from a long slump.
The government-backed mortgage giant happily cited the National
Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index, which is up
for the fifth month in a row. The home builders forecast increased home
sales for the coming year, based on an expectation of higher economic
growth. Unfortunately for Freddie Mac, the real data provide little
reason for such optimism.
Faced with rising gas prices,
President Obama recently outlined what he calls an "all-of-the-above"
energy policy "that develops every available source of American energy -
oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels and more." You may notice
something missing there - coal, America's most abundant and affordable
fuel source. The administration's "all of the above" strategy is
anything but.
In its budget submitted to
Congress Feb. 13, the Obama administration zeroed out funding for NASA's
future Mars exploration missions. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity is en
route to the red planet, and the nearly completed small Maven orbiter,
scheduled for launch in 2013, will be sent, but that's it. No funding
has been provided for the Mars probes planned as joint missions with the
Europeans for 2016 and 2018, and nothing after that is funded, either.
This poses a crisis for the American space program.
If Oscars were awarded for
liberal hysteria, California's Rep. Barbara Lee would be a perennial
contender. On Tuesday, at a congressional forum on the shooting death of
Florida teen Trayvon Martin, Ms. Lee proclaimed that it was the result
of "a toxic and deadly mix."
The United States is now,
officially, the worst place to do business in the developed world. On
Sunday, Japan lowered its corporate tax rate in the hopes of luring
business to its shores, handing the title of highest tax rate to the
Land of the Free. The market reaction on Monday will tell whether money
will begin flowing away from us and toward the more business-friendly
Asian country.
White House Press Secretary Jay
Carney told reporters Thursday that President Obama wasn't going to buy
a lottery ticket. That's a shame. By Friday, the multi-state Mega
Millions jackpot had reached $640 million. The biggest spender in the
history of the world could have had a fair shot at the world's biggest
cash prize by matching the six numbers drawn.
Freddie Mac issued a report
Wednesday claiming the housing market may be emerging from a long slump.
The government-backed mortgage giant happily cited the National
Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index, which is up
for the fifth month in a row. The home builders forecast increased home
sales for the coming year, based on an expectation of higher economic
growth. Unfortunately for Freddie Mac, the real data provide little
reason for such optimism.
Leadership is a word much used
but in short supply in the political world today. Politicians forever
talk about it but seldom seek to solve big problems by advocating real
solutions and then working to find a consensus that can move the country
forward. Fortunately, there are at least two public officials who hail
from Wisconsin, the Badger State, one in Washington and one in Madison,
who are working diligently to turn America away from the fiscal cliff
toward which we are headed.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg likes the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act and other
ingredients of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka
Obamacare. Why, she asked toward the end of three days of hearings,
shouldn't the court keep the good stuff in Obamacare and just dump the
unconstitutional bits?
The temporary payroll-tax
holiday that Americans are enjoying now looks like a full-time component
of the U.S. economy. So it might as well be put to better use. Congress
should let payroll-tax-cut recipients place some or all of this money
in voluntary personal retirement accounts.
"If someone wants to build a
new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because
they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that's being
emitted."
Vice President Joseph R. Biden
has begun attacking former Gov. Mitt Romney's credentials on the economy
- the issue for which President Obama gets his worst marks in his
job-disapproval polls.
This week, the Supreme Court
measured Obamacare to see whether it fits within the confines of the
Constitution. The big picture is whether the Constitution limits the
behavior of the federal government to the plain meaning and historical
context of the Constitution, or whether clever lawyers and politicians
can interpret language in the Constitution so as to justify whatever
Congress wishes to do.
