Op-Eds and Blogs

From President Obama's State of the Union address, one might have come away with the impression that the nation's finances are hunky-dory. Obama suggested that most of the heavy lifting on deficit reduction is already done, and that the rest can be accomplished by making minor adjustments to spending and closing tax loopholes on wealthier Americans. Obama said he's already signed $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the last several years and argued that's more than halfway to the $4 trillion needed to address the deficit problem. A Congressional Budget Office report released last week assumes that the automatic spending cuts under sequestration provide an additional $1.2 trillion in 10-year deficit reduction. In other words, the CBO already assumes deficit reduction roughly in line with what Obama claimed was the goal.

<b>Originally printed in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, February 12th, 2013 </b> Throughout its history, the federal government has properly used debt to help overcome threats to the nation and to build necessary and longstanding infrastructure. Much of the American Revolution was financed with borrowed money, as were World War II and the Cold War against the now defunct Soviet Union. The interstate highway system, coastal ports, and the locks and dams that make our inland waterways navigable are examples of valuable debt financed infrastructure. Failure to incur debt to finance these worthy, constitutionally allowed activities would have made the establishment of our prosperous nation more difficult, or maybe even brought our history to a premature end.

A bipartisan push intensified Thursday for answers from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about a flawed storefront sting in Milwaukee. A Journal Sentinel investigation this week exposed a 10-month federal operation marred by a series of mistakes and failures, including an agent's machine gun being stolen and burglars ripping off $35,000 in merchandise from the agency's phony store. Milwaukee police and ATF are still looking for that stolen machine gun, officials said Thursday. "Suffice to say, ATF and the police department both have a keen interest in trying to get that firearm back," said Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn.