President Obama once famously noted that “elections have consequences.” Legislators in Washington, D.C. and Madison, Wisconsin can certainly attest to the truth of that statement. Republican gains have translated into major budget battles involving issues and programs that Democrats have held dear for years.
Wisconsin and Libya. Angry protesters are in the streets. Here at home they’re exercising their democratic rights in a budget battle; over there, they’re being shot down for seeking democratic rights in real battles.
Money, money, money. The conservative backlash witnessed in last November’s elections is now hitting the bottom line.
Let the budget battle begin.
The drama on the streets of Cairo has many Americans thinking about national security and the role our country plays in the world these days.
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Things appear to be looking up a bit for President Obama who on Friday posted his highest job approval numbers in nearly a year in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
It’s back to business for the new Congress this coming week following the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six others in Arizona. First up in the House is a vote to repeal the national health care bill passed last year by Democrats in the previous Congress.
The Washington landscape for the next two years began to take shape this past week, with Republicans taking charge of the House and President Obama shaking up his White House staff to meet the challenge of his new, energized opposition.
Congress didn’t take much time off for the holidays, but what a difference a couple of weeks could make. Or will they?
Time out! Christmas is an appropriate time to take a break from the political and social battles that dominate the landscape the rest of the year. After all, it's still the nation’s most important holiday as far as Americans are concerned, edging the Fourth of July.
President Obama and senior congressional Republicans eked out a victory this week on the bill extending the Bush tax cuts for two years, cutting the federal payroll tax for a year, and extending emergency unemployment benefits for 13 months.
President Obama threw a couple curve balls in the last few days when it comes to the economy - closing a deal with congressional Republicans that would continue the Bush tax cuts for all Americans and extending a ban on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Eastern seaboard.
Out with the old, in with the new. That’s what many shoppers are likely to be thinking this time of year, and what many voters may have in mind as well.
Out with the old, in with the new. That’s what many shoppers are likely to be thinking this time of year, and what many voters may have in mind as well.
The holiday season is upon us, and Americans are off to races when it comes to shopping. But even as many will be watching their own spending, another opportunity to say something about how the government spends our money is on the horizon.
Talk about low expectations.
Rasmussen Reports gave voters nationwide a short list of issues that Congress will consider in the next couple of years, including immigration, government spending and taxes, and asked whether they were optimistic or pessimistic about what the legislators will accomplish in these areas.
Now that the elections are behind us, 76% of voters think it’s at least somewhat likely that the outgoing Congress will try to pass major legislation during a lame-duck session before the newly elected Members of Congress take office. While most expect them to try, just 36% believe they should.
So what’s a president to do?
Showtime!
On Tuesday, America will elect a whole bunch of governors, a sizable part of the U.S. Senate and the entire House of Representatives. They do so at a time when most voters think it would be better to dump the entire Congress rather than to keep the crew that’s in there now. That’s not likely to happen, but there will probably be a change in control of the House even as the vast majority of incumbents get re-elected. But talk’s cheap in campaign seasons. This is what we know from our final week of surveys before Election Day.
