Back to (budget) business

After a short break, I am glad to be back to work commenting on the latest political news of the day. Last week was a busy news week, as our governor and state legislators continued to debate the budget. Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed 16 percent tax increase is a nonstarter and I applaud our Republican leaders in the state Senate and House for rejecting his proposal and standing up for Pennsylvania taxpayers. Watch for the…

July 6, 2009 at 12:33 pm | Comments (1)

OUCH! Sen. Orrin Hatch tosses Toomey under the bus

Well, so much for Pat Toomey getting support for his candidacy from well-placed Senate Republicans! On Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), said that Toomey wasn’t up to the task.

“I don’t think there is anybody in the world who believes he can get elected senator there,” Hatch said.

full story

April 30, 2009 at 11:22 am | Comments (0)

And now that we’ve resolved that . . .

Stu Rothenberg has reported at Real Clear Politics that the chance of Republicans taking back the House in 2010 are “zero.” “Not ‘close to zero.’ Not ‘slight’ or ‘small’,” he adds helpfully. “Zero.” Changes of this magnitude require a wave, says Rothenberg, and no such wave is on the horizon.

Rothenberg is one of the best practitioners of political soothsaying, which is essentially the art of taking current trends and assuming that they will continue…

April 28, 2009 at 12:37 pm | Comments (0)

Lessons from the Flyers

The kids and I attended the Flyers’ funeral, I mean, hockey game Saturday afternoon, at which the Orange Crush were eliminated 5-3 by the cross-state Pittsburgh Penguins. Not a happy occasion, to be sure, but one that provided several lessons for Keystone politics in the next cycle. Here are a few:

1. Never give up. The Penguins were down 3-0 but came back. The Flyers, for their part, won Game 5 in Pittsburgh, which no…

April 27, 2009 at 9:06 am | Comments (0)

Tea for Two . . . or 2010

I drink espresso, which was as good an excuse as any to miss the Tea Parties held in Philadelphia and countless other locations last week. (Herbal tea doesn’t count.) But perhaps some mixed feelings kept me away, also.

The Tea Parties, in case you were under a rock last week, were promoted as a way to protest President Obama’s spending and tax policies which—on the tax side, anyway—reminded people of the levies that provoked a…

April 23, 2009 at 7:00 am | Comments (0)