More Columns From This Author

Three years later, did the stimulus work?
March 7, 2012

It was early 2009. The economy was in decline and the world was watching Washington to see what it would do. We need to jump start the economy, leaders in Washington said. We have to take strong measures in order to keep unemployment from rising, we heard.

The politics of later
February 15, 2012

One of the most intolerable, if not irritating, words parents can hear from their children is “later.”

For endless posterity
January 18, 2012

The “preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.” Those words written by James Madison in the Federalist Papers laid the groundwork for one of the cornerstones of our structure of government.

In God we still trust
November 9, 2011

Sometimes what needs to be done is obvious. Today in America, one of those priorities is addressing jobs. We must empower businesses to create jobs. We must increase competitiveness for U.S. manufacturing. We must pay down America’s unsustainable debt burden.

Giving his all
August 24, 2011

Cody Childers had a childhood dream of serving in the United States Marine Corps and as a young high school senior, he courageously took the first steps towards making his dream a reality; he joined the delayed entry program at Grassfield High School in Chesapeake, which allows young men and women to make an early commitment to becoming Marines.

Selling peugeot
July 27, 2011

“What’s a Peugeot?” A staffer in his mid-twenties was looking at me inquisitively. “Exactly,” I said. “That’s my point.”

Operation fast and furious
July 6, 2011

In the heat of the Arizona sun, armed with commands from senior government officials, special agents set out to instruct gun store owners to sell thousands of semi-automatic weapons to illegal straw purchasers. The weapons, once in the hands of criminals, would be run across the border in a scheme by the U.S. government to bring down Mexican arms smuggling networks.

The decline of small business optimism
June 29, 2011

Ants – they are the unwelcome summer guests; the plight of the summer picnic. One tiny mistake, one lemonade left unfinished, one cookie crumb fallen on a checked blanket is the surest way to put a damper on any summer afternoon. They appear slowly, one carefully making its way across the blanket to the fated leftovers, another following close behind.

Full Faith and Credit
June 1, 2011

In the weeks since Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s warning that the U.S. would hit its debt limit of $14.3 trillion by May 16, debate about whether to increase the debt ceiling has exploded.

In God we trust
March 23, 2011

Fifty-five years ago, the House Judiciary Committee considered a bill that would affirm one of the cornerstones upon which our nation was built. Although opposed by a small minority of the American public at the time, the bill received overwhelming support by Americans and members of Congress.