Author: David Harsanyi

President Barack Obama has compiled a handy to-do list for Congress that, “if acted upon quickly, will create jobs and help restore middle class security,” according to the White House’s blog. And it’s about time. This is most certainly not, as cynics might suggest, another transparent political scheme. After all, these initiatives, the White House […]

Plenty of Americans believe that the president’s rhetoric runs counter to facts, but actually, it’s the president’s own counterfactual arguments that matter most. Which is to say, nearly the entire case for President Barack Obama’s second term is based on not what has happened but what could, would or might under different circumstances. Things, as […]

If the Obama administration expended as much creative energy saving taxpayers money as it does obscuring the costs of Obamacare, we’d probably have a program worth saving. But from day one, the health care law has been larded with double-counting gimmickry to conceal its $1 trillion price tag. It started by measuring eight years of […]

So many imaginary villains and so little time. This week, President Barack Obama is taking the fight to “oil speculators” and “market manipulation” (nee “free enterprise”), demanding that traders put up more money for transactions and government ratchet up enforcement and monitoring. “None of these will bring gas prices down overnight,” Obama helpfully explained in […]

President Barack Obama kicked off his re-election campaign in earnest this week with a stirring message of hope and unity for the American people: Eat the rich! According to media reports, “fairness” will be one of the central messages of the entire Obama campaign. So fittingly, the Senate will pretend to vote on the Paying […]

Anyone who’s had a casual conversation with his neighbors or is cognizant of reality TV should already be petrified of democracy. But if the Supreme Court — or, as Barack Obama likes to refer to them, an “unelected group of people” — overturns Obamacare’s individual mandate, the president says that the court would be taking […]

As you may have heard, Senate Democrats haven’t bothered to present a budget in more than 1,000 days and counting — which, unlike many pundits, I don’t find particularly upsetting, considering we’ve been free of a new Democratic budget for 1,000-plus days and counting. This week, though, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offered up the House’s […]

False choices. Populist bromides. A lecture on values. President Barack Obama treated us to some of his greatest hits this week. Speaking before the United Auto Workers union in Washington, Obama, champion of the working man, challenged auto bailout “naysayers” to “come around” and admit that “standing by American workers was the right thing to […]

Gas prices are spiking. That’s great news, right? We have to wean ourselves off the stuff. At least that’s what we’ve been hearing for years. Oil is dirty. We import it from nations that hate our guts (like Canada!). And moreover, we’re running out. Oil is “finite.” Finite much in the way water is finite. […]

It’s always curious to watch the champions of “choice” decide what choices to champion and what choices to dismiss for the common good. If you believe that the Obama administration’s decision to force Catholic institutions to pay for and offer (directly or indirectly) products the church finds morally objectionable is an assault on religious freedom […]

On Super Bowl Sunday, America was treated to the most expensive political commercial in history — brought to you by Chrysler — called “It’s Halftime in America.” In a series of vapid non sequiturs, Clint Eastwood’s gravelly voice pinned the promise of a city — no, a nation — to government dependency, claiming that “the […]

Once the presidential nomination process is settled — and Lord knows that day can’t come fast enough — Republicans will get back to doing what they do best, getting on Barack Obama’s case. Incredibly, though, they’ll have to do it without one of their most potent arguments. The Republican candidate, after all, can’t effectively attack […]

Have you heard about these terrifying super PACs? According to cable news anchors — and other trustworthy sources — they’re like political super-bugs, resistant to free will. Needless to say, the principled and high-minded political debates we’ve grown accustomed to are now over. Our unsullied national conversation is about to be defiled by a carpet-bombing […]

Yes, it’s true that unlike: some: Republicans, Democrats don’t “enjoy firing people.” They enjoy “investing” your money in exploding electric vehicles, bullet trains and other highly unprofitable but morally satisfying economic misadventures. Venture socialism is certainly empathetic. Venture capitalism, on the other hand, happens to be useful. And until the presidential aspirations of Newt Gingrich were dashed […]

Rick Santorum, like most Republican candidates, fashions himself the one true conservative running in 2012. If the thought of big, intrusive liberal government offends you, he might just be your man. And if you favor a big, intrusive Republican government, he’s unquestionably your candidate. People are taking a look at Santorum. Important people. People in […]

This week, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney called on newly minted front-runner and noted historian Newt Gingrich to return the estimated $1.6 million he made providing “strategic advice” to Freddie Mac, the quasi-governmental agency that has done the hard work of making “toxic home mortgages” a forever feature of our national portfolio. To this, Newt, […]

In Teddy Roosevelt’s era, President Barack Obama explained to the nation this week, “some people thought massive inequality and exploitation was just the price of progress. … But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can.” And he’s right. Even today […]

Our government has the time to worry about school lunch menus in Boise, Idaho, but the Senate hasn’t found the time to pass a budget in Washington, D.C., in nearly three years. H.L. Mencken famously wrote that every decent man is ashamed of his government. This one gives you little choice. Gridlock is ordinarily the […]

Is not: doing something the same as doing it, and should government be allowed to force you not to do the thing you’re already not doing by making you do it so you don’t not do it anymore? That is just one of the perplexing legal questions the Supreme Court will likely find a way to […]

A person can’t go but a few clicks on the Internet these days without tripping over some shocking item about the “explosion” of income inequality that has, like the dark smog of capitalistic excess, been choking the life out of this unjust nation. And when it comes to inequality, there is certainly only one vital […]

Have you noticed that any person who exhibits any skepticism about global warming alarmism will, sooner or later, be called a Luddite? “Are you a Luddite, a troglodyte? Are you a part of ‘The Planet of the Apes’ that doesn’t want science? Where would you place yourself in this argument?” newscaster and anti-simian Chris Matthews […]

“David Axelrod, President Barack Obama’s senior campaign strategist, pushed back against negative media accounts surrounding the president’s approval rating and said recent polling shows the majority of Americans agree with Obama’s plan to create jobs.” — CNN Question: President Barack Obama is proposing a new affordable jobs plan that is supported by economists* and is […]