Author: Norman Leahy

With the June 1 (give or take a few days) deadline to do something about the debt ceiling, official Washington has turned its attention to how it all ends. Will there be a deal that pleases no one? A temporary fix that puts the tough decisions off for a few weeks or months? A straight-up default? Those are the conventional options, the ones that come to mind first, are the most likely to occur and will grab most of the attention in the days ahead. There are a couple of unconventional options, too. As The Washington Post’s Amber Phillips writes,…

Add Florida to the growing list of states where lawmakers are intent on making it harder – if not impossible for citizens to use the initiative process to amend the state constitution. The proposal – itself a constitutional amendment that 60 percent of voters would have to approve for it to take effect – seeks to raise the 60 percent approval threshold to 67 percent – a supermajority. The amendment’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Rick Roth, told a committee back in February that he hoped his colleagues would get behind the measure because voters are getting too big for their…

Let’s be clear: The Republican plan to reduce spending in return for an increase in the federal government’s debt limit is, at best, a modest effort. It leaves untouched the main drivers of increased federal spending, Social Security and Medicare, and, even by the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, would reduce federal outlays by roughly $4.8 trillion over 10 years. And yet to listen to some in official Washington, it represents a type of radicalism that threatens the Republic. As an example, consider the hyperventilating of long-time government apologist Norm Ornstein: How cynical is the Republican proposal? It was not passed…

Presidential elections are as often about the state of the American people and how we view the future as they are about candidates and their assorted policy prescriptions. The candidates for 2024 are talking a lot about “freedom,” a bedrock American ideal and aspiration. But what they mean by “freedom” is somewhat odd. In President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign video, freedom is portrayed as “under attack by an extreme movement that seeks to overturn elections, ban books and eliminate a woman’s right to choose. The ad’s narrator tells us that defending freedom has been the “cause of his presidency.” Okay,…

Few things focus the mind of a politician more than a deadline. It’s been a fuzzy idea in the current beltway discussion over the debt ceiling. But now, it looks like the best guess is Uncle Sam will run out of money on or near June 1. In a letter to House Speaker Kevin  McCarthy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said: After reviewing recent federal tax receipts, our best estimate is that we will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1, if Congress does not raise or…

And now, for some positive developments on the privacy issue, courtesy of the Montana Legislature. As the Tenth Amendment Center’s Mike Maharrey reports, lawmakers have approved a bill that would restrict when and how law enforcement uses facial recognition technology. And yes, it also requires police to get a warrant if they want to use this sort of surveillance tool: …[the bill] would ban warrantless facial recognition surveillance in Montana in most situations, and would place general limits on the use of facial recognition technology by government agencies. SB397 includes an outright ban on “continuous facial surveillance” defined as “the…

While the national pols go through their elaborate dance over the debt ceiling, let’s check in on a group of local politicians who, just like their congressional cousins, can’t help themselves when it comes to putting taxpayers on the hook for corporate welfare. In this case, it’s that oldest and among the costliest of local money pits, NFL stadiums. Until very recently, the dubious distinction for “biggest taxpayer subsidy to an NFL team” was the $850 million being gifted to help build a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills. While it’s tempting to sit back and laugh as New York…

One of the great mysteries in official Washington is when the dreaded, feared and not very good “X date” arrives. What is the ‘X Date?” That’s the day when the U.S. Treasury runs out of tricks, and money, to pay Uncle Sam’s bills. The result: an old-fashioned, third-world default on the national debt. The consequences of such a default are enormous, and naturally, most members of the political class want to avoid it at all costs. But these same pols also enjoy their version of a game of chicken and so will drag out the discussions over raising the debt…

Two reports on the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank cast a harsh light on the banks’ practices and on regulators’ laxness. The Federal Reserve Report, which focused on Silicon Valley Bank, identified four key issues: 1.Silicon Valley Bank’s board of directors and management failed to manage their risks. 2. [Federal Reserve] Supervisors did not fully appreciate the extent of the vulnerabilities as Silicon Valley Bank grew in size and complexity. 3. When supervisors did identify vulnerabilities, they did not take sufficient steps to ensure that Silicon Valley Bank fixed those problems quickly enough. 4. The Board’s tailoring…

Law enforcement loves technology — particularly the type that allows them to surveil, track, monitor and otherwise spy on broad swathes of the public…all without having to get a warrant to do so. The justification is that such surveillance helps catch the “bad guy of the month,” whether it’s terrorists, drug lords, human traffickers, kidnappers, terrorist drug kidnappers and so on. (RELATED: Why Criminals And Law Enforcement Love Your Ring Video Doorbell) And most lawmakers, who are eager to tout their anti-criminal bona fides in election campaigns, have traditionally been happy to give law enforcement whatever it wanted, never mind…