By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Ever since Barack Obama was nominated in 2008 as the Democratic candidate for the president of the United States, his staunchest critics have implied that he had the makings of a dictator.

The Vietnam War and the "war on poverty" are probably the best-remembered elements of President Lyndon B. Johnson's legacy, but that's only part of it.

Critics of Internet sales tax say that rising resistance from newer GOP lawmakers could sink a bill now before the Republican-controlled House to require online retailers such as eBay to start collecting sales taxes for the states.

The Senate's immigration bill will raise national security risks and the Obama administration will do little more than "rubber-stamp" illegal immigrants into the program, endangering Americans, says the labor union representing the 12,000 employees who will have to approve the applications.

The Senate "Gang of Eight" immigration bill, S. 744, now wending its way through the Judiciary Committee, has been sold as a "pathway to citizenship" for the estimated 11 million illegal aliens. It does a lot more damage than that, and the public needs to understand what's in it.

There's a new dish that's been crafted in several Hill offices: the Congressional Omelet. It's a fairly simple recipe — scramble a bunch of eggs and mix them with a hefty helping of bureaucratic molasses.

Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, says the ongoing scandal surrounding the IRS certainly doesn't help his chances of winning expanded gun-purchase background checks.

Barack Obama's second term may be remembered more for his scandals than for anything else he's done thus far in his troubled presidency.

Two of President Obama's second-term personnel picks that have attracted conservative and business opposition moved a step closer to confirmation Thursday.
Despite all the promises of frugality in Washington, the newest version of the farm bill passed by the House boasts a pricetag near $1 trillion and manages to send plenty of subsidies back to influential special interests in lawmakers' home states.
President Obama once famously told his supporters about political opponents, "If they bring a knife to the fight, you bring a gun." The gun turned out to be the Internal Revenue Service ("Outraged GOP: It's time to audit the IRS; targeting of conservative groups called 'chilling,'" Web, May 12).

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that President Obama violated the Constitution when he made a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board, marking the second panel to rebuke the administration and making the issue even more likely to draw Supreme Court scrutiny.

Democrats rallied behind President Barack Obama in the long-running, bitter dispute over the administration's handling of the Benghazi attack, arguing that the White House's latest email disclosure undermines Republican claims of a cover-up.

Gun control advocates in Maryland were bracing for an inevitable challenge to a law giving the state some of the strictest weapons prohibitions in the nation, even as they gathered Thursday to applaud Gov. Martin O'Malley for signing the bill he shepherded through the General Assembly.

Two key senators said Thursday that Homeland Security officials should face discipline for their role earlier this year in releasing 622 criminal immigrants, including 32 with multiple felony convictions, in a move the Obama administration initially blamed on the budget sequester cuts.