Philip Klein is senior editorial writer for The Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, he served as Washington correspondent for The American Spectator, and before that, worked for over three years as a financial reporter at Reuters in New York.
You can read his columns and blog posts in your RSS Reader or Follow Him @Philipaklein
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said today that he wasn't yet ready to discuss the possibilities of a modified version of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's proposal being adopted as part of a deal to raise the debt limit.
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Lately, the most abused word in Washington, D.C., has been “impasse.”
Prospects for a deal between President Barack Obama and Republicans on raising the debt ceiling are appearing increasingly grim as Aug. 2 nears, the date of the promised debt-pocalypse.
Republicans want real spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, and Democrats say they will only accept spending cuts if coupled with tax increases on wealthier Americans. There are multiple measures that could help foster a deal.
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With debt limitt talks ongoing and no deal in sight, President Obama has called another press conference for 11 am tomorrow morning, according to Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director.
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Continuing to ratchet up his rhetoric, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid falsely claimed on Thursday that a failure to raise the debt limit could mean "no schools for our children." But in reality, federal funding only pays for 8.5 percent of the cost of the nation's elementary and secondary schools, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education (for 2006 to 2007). Federal and local funding comprised the remaining 91 percent and change.
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There's been a lot of debate about whether a so-called "grand bargain" was possible in the debt limit talks, but there's a very obvious reason why it likely wasn't. The bottom line is, both parties have reason to hope that their negotiating positions will be improved as a result of the 2012 elections.
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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called on President Obama to apologize for scaring seniors into thinking that the government would have to stop sending Social Security checks if a deal isn't reached to raise the debt limit by August 2.
“I frankly think the President should apologize," Paul said at a press conference in which Republican freshman Senators released a letter they sent to Obama demanding he show more leadership on the debt issue instead of resorting to scare tactics.
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House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, just told reporters that he thought Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's so-called "last resort" option for resolving the debt ceiling stalemate should be left on the table.
"Mitch described it as a 'last ditch,'" Boehner said, adding that whatever people think of it at the moment, if no deal is reached, "it might look pretty good a few weeks from now."
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Elizabeth Warren, President Obama's unconfirmed pick to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, defended the new agency's power to ban certain financial products.
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee raised concerns that the power to ban products would hurt consumer choice. Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., argued that there are plenty of products that may not be good for people, but that they are allowed to have, mentioning "adult beverages" as an example.
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House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Thursday grilled Elizabeth Warren over the "inadequate" response to requests for documents concerning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she'd been tapped to head.
Issa noted that Judicial Watch is appealing the lack of a real response to its Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents relating to the CFPB. The board was created by the financial regulatory legislation passed last year that was given sweeping powers to regulate consumer financial products.
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Having blasted the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's "last resort" proposal, I thought I'd offer an alternative contingency plan. The way I see it, members of Congress have an obligation to raise the debt ceiling to accommodate future deficit spending that they already voted for, but nothing beyond that.
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I've already detailed my objections to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's "last resort" proposal to resolve the debt limit fight, but I wanted to follow up on one point.
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President Obama has persistently tried to have it both ways when it comes to the Medicare cuts in his signature health care law. He and others in his administration have repeatedly claimed that the law extends the solvency of Medicare and is fully paid for. Both claims can’t be true.
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Richard Foster, the chief actuary of Medicare, testified before the House Budget Committee said that the cuts to medical providers set by President Obama's national health care law were unrealistic.
"It's pretty hard to imagine they could be sustainable,” Foster said, under questioning from Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
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Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning that if a Medicare beneficiary doesn't like a decision of the new Independent Payment Advisory Board, they can challenge it in court. Yet the health care law explicitly rules that out:
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Over the weekend, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, backed away from negotiating a larger, long-term budget deal in exchange for raising the debt limit because President Barack Obama was insisting on massive tax increases as part of the package.
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