Emily Miller
Articles by Emily Miller
MILLER: Congress agrees: Keep spending
Congressional Democrats and Republicans waged a war of words on Monday over their debt-ceiling plans, but their agendas amount to pretty much the same thing. Washington just can't kick its spending habit. Published July 25, 2011
MILLER: White House video crime?
President Obama is so obsessed with returning to the executive mansion that he may have forgotten to abide by campaign ethics rules. Last month, he made a video in a ground-floor room of the White House asking Democrats to pony up for a chance to win "dinner with Barack and Joe," referring to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Published July 22, 2011
MILLER: Fiscal responsibility’s last stand
Debt-ceiling plans are growing like weeds in the Washington heat wave - and dying off just as fast. In a striking reversal Thursday, Sen. Tom Coburn said the "Gang of Six" plan wouldn't pass before the federal government default that the administration insists is right around the corner. Published July 21, 2011
MILLER: Debt sealing America’s future
A long summer of wrangling over the debt may result in President Obama getting everything he wants. Some senators are terrified of losing political face if additional borrowing authority is denied and a partial government shutdown results. They've been mulling two options - a White House-inspired short-term debt-ceiling extension to postpone tough decisions and the McConnell-Reid backup plan about which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Wednesday, "We have a plan to move forward over here, but until we hear from the House of Representatives, really all our work here would be for naught." Published July 20, 2011
MILLER: Gang of squish
The Senate's "Gang of Six" is back, this time with a surprise plan that would preserve Washington's big-spending ways. Within an hour of the bipartisan group's announcement of a breakthrough framework for hiking the debt ceiling, President Obama walked jauntily to the White House briefing room to embrace it as "broadly consistent with what we've been working on here in the White House." Published July 19, 2011
MILLER: Obama’s default
If the government ends up defaulting on its debt obligations, President Obama will have no one to blame but himself. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives will hold the first vote on legislation that would raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion and avoid all of the dire consequences that would follow if the Treasury decided to skip paying its bills. Published July 18, 2011
MILLER: Atheists unbless Texas
A theists don't want Texas Gov. Rick Perry to have a prayer day this summer. On Wednesday, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asked a federal judge to block "The Response," an event where Christians would gather in Houston to turn to God for direction and unity for an aggrieved nation. The anti-God brigade insists this is a First Amendment violation, and it will also seek a restraining order to bar Mr. Perry's participation. Published July 15, 2011
MILLER: Disarming Democrats on debt
Fear is the weapon of choice for Democrats intent on protecting their ability to spend - no matter the price. Administration officials insist that if they don't get an increase in the debt ceiling within the next two weeks, America will default. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner explained in a press conference Thursday, "We have no way to give Congress more time to solve this problem." Standing next to him, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "Aug. 2 is the deadline. There's no waffling from that. There's no room to squeeze into another area; that's it." In other words, it's my way or the highway. Published July 14, 2011
MILLER: Obama’s default drama
President Obama and congressional Democrats have resorted to scaring seniors and soldiers in order to extract trillions in new borrowing and spending authority from timid Republicans. Some GOP members and even conservative pundits already are raising the white flag now that the debt talks appear beyond repair. It's time for them to show some backbone. Fortunately, there are others in the party willing to fight. Published July 13, 2011
MILLER: Debt-talk endgame
Congressional leaders will continue to attend debt-ceiling negotiations, but it's just for show. The talks are effectively over. President Obama delivered an ultimatum to Republicans: Accept tax hikes and smoke-and-mirror spending cuts or default on America's debt obligations. In Monday's White House meeting, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asked Mr. Obama's budget director, Jack Lew, how much the deal on the table would cut discretionary spending next year. Mr. Lew responded, "$2 billion." That's a mere 0.3 percent cut overall. With the purported Aug. 2 default deadline around the corner, a deal acceptable to conservatives is not going to happen. Published July 12, 2011
MILLER: Debt talk debacle
The debt-ceiling talks are headed for a train wreck. The "grand bargain" that would have raised the borrowing limit by more than $4 trillion blew up over the weekend when Republicans refused to accept new tax hikes. President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner each drew their own lines in the sand on Monday, leaving little reason to hope for a resolution that conservatives could support. Published July 11, 2011
MILLER: Ponzi scheme could get face lift
In a surprise move Thursday, President Obama signaled willingness to shore up the failing Social Security program as part of the debt ceiling talks. Liberals have been loath to fiddle with the New Deal behemoth even though the scheme is already upside-down and on a fast track to insolvency. This is a breakthrough for Republicans, who have demanded serious change in return for their votes to allow more borrowing. Published July 7, 2011
MILLER: Tax for tax
The rough outline of what might turn into a workable debt ceiling bargain appears to be coming together. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor moved the ball forward on Wednesday by identifying a point of agreement with the White House. "If the president wants to talk loopholes, we'll be glad to talk loopholes," he said, but the changes "should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else." The Virginia Republican added that "preferences in the code aren't something that helps economic growth overall." Broader reform that stimulates growth is exactly what we need. Published July 6, 2011
MILLER: Make the debt talks public
The Senate fancies itself the world's greatest deliberative body. Perhaps it was once, but today's most pressing issue - how to resolve the nation's debt crisis - is not the subject of a serious floor discussion. Since May, the task has been relegated to a handful of top leaders meeting privately to nail down the details of a final deal. This leaves the rest of Congress - not to mention the American public - out of the loop. Some of the upper chamber's newest additions succeeded Tuesday in bringing deliberation back into style. Published July 5, 2011
MILLER: Bachmann’s pledge quandary
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is pushing to make Obamacare's repeal a condition for raising the debt ceiling. The Minnesota congressman hasn't signed the grass-roots "cut, cap, balance" pledge because she wants a tougher bargain that leverages President Obama's need for increased federal government borrowing authority to pull the plug on the unpopular health care law. Published July 4, 2011
MILLER: Democrats gaga for taxes
Washington's deficit-reduction talks are deadlocked over taxes. Republicans won't touch them, and Democrats want new levies on everything from horses to airplanes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid explained he is keeping the Senate in town next week to keep fighting against "Republicans' stubborn insistence on protecting taxpayer-funded giveaways to corporations and individuals that don't need the giveaways." Published June 30, 2011
MILLER: Ending deficit sprawl
Republicans responded swiftly to President Obama's suggestion Wednesday that increasing taxes on private planes would pull the nation out of its $14.3 trillion debt. As Mr. Obama spoke, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was firing back with a press conference advocating the Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) as the only real solution to Washington's spending addiction. Published June 29, 2011
MILLER: Bipartisan Medicare breakthrough
The Democratic Party has yet to acknowledge that the clock is ticking for Medicare. If no changes are made, the program's own actuaries say it will be insolvent in 13 years, or as early as 2016 if the worst-case scenario comes to pass. Until Tuesday, Republicans were alone in proposing a solution, as President Obama and congressional Democrats preferred to demagogue and politicize the issue. Published June 28, 2011
MILLER: Permanent spending restraint
As President Obama's erstwhile chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once observed, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." The sentiment captured a White House that saw troubling times as a lever to move big-spending, big-government policies on a scale never before seen. Now it's increasingly important for Republicans to think just as big, not wasting the opportunity to undo permanently the fiscal damage caused by this profligacy. Published June 27, 2011
MILLER: Tax hikes blow up debt talks
In a surprise move Thursday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced to reporters he was pulling out of bipartisan negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. Without consulting the rest of the GOP leadership team, the House Republicans' representative in the group chaired by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. vented his frustration. "The Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases," said Mr. Cantor in a statement. "There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don't believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation." Published June 23, 2011
