Op-Ed

At a time when competing government priorities face the chopping block, advocates of effective foreign aid have a responsibility to make the case that aid directly serves our country’s long-term national-security and economic interests, and in a cost-effective way.

With the media reporting various offers and counteroffers regarding the so-called “fiscal cliff,” one question that no one seems to be asking is what will happen to overall federal spending during the president’s second term. During President Obama’s first term, federal spending increased an extraordinary 20 percent, rising from just under $3 trillion during President Bush’s last year to $3.6 trillion this year. In the budget that President Obama submitted to Congress last February, he proposed to further increase spending for 2013 to $3.8 trillion. The House promptly rejected the president’s proposal by 414-0. Even the Democrat-controlled Senate then rejected that by 99-0 last May. With President Obama now reelected and demanding large tax increases, it is time to ask whether the president is prepared to roll back any of the spending hikes of his first term, to a level below $3.6 trillion.

Reacting to the shooting last week in Newtown, Conn., some Americans are calling for more gun control, including a ban on assault weapons. 

As the president and Speaker Boehner seek agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff, avoiding damaging across-the-board slashes in funding for defense is vital. The administration has already reduced defense expenditures by $500 billion over the next decade, cuts balanced in their application. The sequester would require additional and unbalanced cuts of an equal size. Even if applied selectively, that would severely damage national security. 

As I begin to sort through my emotional response to the horrific killing of 27 people 

In November, we joined the Coalition for Fiscal and National Security

The immense tragedy that struck Newtown is unthinkable. On a normal school morning, in the midst of the holiday season, a place where children should be safe to learn and grow suddenly became a site of senseless violence. Within minutes, the incomprehensible actions of a young man had devastated a small-town community and murdered in cold blood six adults and 20 innocent children, all of them between 6 and 7 years old.

We’re more than a month past the election, but it seems we’re still no closer to averting the “fiscal cliff.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and gasoline retailers should suspend the sale of E15 gasoline until more is done to protect consumers from the potential for costly auto damage and voided warranties.

The politics of the “fiscal cliff” debate in Washington are now completely one-sided.