When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. That is the problem with Keynesians. Every problem requires more government borrowing and spending. Not only that, but a Keynesian seems to believe that it is all a step function. If you borrow and spend a little, you don't get a little better economy. Oh no. You have to borrow and spend some large magic amount before you get any benefit. But the Keynesian never tell you what that magic amount is. They only tell you after your plan did not work that it was because you did not borrow and spend "enough".

Holder is a fraud. We knew that from the Clinton pardons. At the same time Holder usually pleads ignorance when he is on the verge of getting caught. There is no doubt there is both conspiracy and fraud at the highest levels of the government to protect MF Global and Corzine.

What a "sell side" analysis. It is completely wrong. China is still on a steep glide path to a hard landing. The Chinese banks, like ours, hold negative equity and are hiding that with "mark to fantasy" accounting (if they are even accounting). Europe is not stable. It is coming apart at the seams. Spain now has about 25% unemployment. Greece is a mess. Portugal and Italy are not far behind. The French elections will put French support of the Euro in jeopardy while the German citizens are tired of being taxed to support profligate countries. Liquidity is going into commodities and staples while squeezing profit margins. Higher inflation is killing savers and owners of capital and reducing their ability to spend. This is a mess.

Exactly. The politician who "does something" is starting down a long road of extremely unintended consequences. If it were known in 1967 that Medicare would grow to the size and reach it has today, it would never have passed. But, while no one knew just how big it would get, it is well known that politicians low ball their favored programs and kick the can down the road for future politicians, who will also try to kick the can down the road until, at the end of the rad, there is this huge pile of cans. We can say the same things about Social Security and Fannie Mae. The have grown into multi headed hydra that canot be sustained, but there is no one to slay them.

Our government has spent decades catering to the lowest common denominator in whatever area of life it can find. The problem with that is you end up with the lcd being the norm. What is the point of working hard and escaping the ghetto if the government brings the ghetto to you? What is the point of building a neighborhood if the government tears it down. Charles (below) is right. We always self segregate. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is legally enforced segregation and legally enforced desegregation.

The power brokers don't want to jeopardize their power and positions by talking about actual issues and problems, so they create wedge issues and try to turn the conversation there. So, we have Obama talking about the "Buffett rule" (as if Buffett had rules for anything outside of investing), but not addressing the tremendous shortfall between revenues and expenses. Most people in government do not want to talk about why we have revenues of $2.2 trillion and spending of of $3.6 trillion. That is hard to discuss, but the "Buffett rule" and the "War on Women" provide distractions from the difficult discussions.

I suggest we implement this first in Southern California. We can prominently display a picture of Barbara Boxer at the border crossing so all her constituents who are denied crossing will know who to thank. Perhaps she could make frequent visits to the border crossing so they could thank her in person.

You do not seem to understand the concept of "property". Our rivers and lakes are not the individuals "property". Nor is the court the "instrument player's property", so he cannot make up rules for what is or what is not allowed. The issue Williams raises is that a restaurant owner's property rights are being infringed by the banning of smoking on his premises if he wishes to allow it. The police powers of the state do not enter into this discussion. However, we can add that there are business owners who wish to prohibit smoking but do not want to risk the loss of business to those who would allow it, so their solution is to use police powers to force everyone to adhere to their wishes and prohibit smoking.

Government, particularly liberals, always hide their true objectives under the cover of "incrementalism". They start with some relatively small request that hardly anyone could object to and then continuously "enhance" that request until they get full control. Dr, Williams example of tobacco legislation is a perfect example. ObamaCare is another one. Virtually no one expected ObamaCare would cover contraception nor did they expect it would force religious organizations to violate their beliefs, but that is where we are today. Weh Barney Frank was asked why ObamaCare was not a single payer system, he said that the current bill was the best they could get now and was the fastest way to a single payer system.

Besides that, the Clinton budget was in balance because of the soon to implode dot com bubble and by counting the Social Security surplus as revenue to be spent. Second, the major reason Clinton did as ell was becuase Gingrich would not let him get away with additional spending. lest "mythmaker' forgets, all spending bills start in the house. Who was Speaker then?