"President Obama's message could not be clearer: Life as we know it in America will change dramatically on March 1, when automatic cuts are imposed to achieve $85 billion in government-spending reductions. ... 

"Scare tactics such as these are similar to the ones that were made when I co-authored the first sequester legislation in 1985, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act. The 1986 sequester was triggered anyway, but the predicted disaster never came. ... 

"Even after the sequester, the federal government will spend $15 billion more than it did last year, and 30% more than it spent in 2007. Government spending on nondefense discretionary programs will be 19.2% higher and spending on defense will be 13.8% higher than it was in 2007."

"The sole purpose of [Organizing for America] will be to advance Obama's policy agenda, and to that end, Obama will meet personally with OFA's national advisory board in the White House at least four times a year. And, here is the money part: You too can become a member of the national advisory board for the bargain basement price of just $500,000. OFA hopes to become 'a powerhouse national advocacy network' by selling such slots to wealthy donors and raising $50,000,000 this year. 

"If that isn't selling access, then we don't know what is. ... 

"If Obama wants to know one of the key reasons why American trust in the federal government is near an all-time low, he need only look in the mirror."

"Don’t kid yourself: President Obama understands the math. He knows federal finances are on an unsustainable long-term trajectory. His Office of Management and Budget produces the same scary debt charts as Paul Ryan’s House Budget Committee (though it doesn’t publicize them with quite the same zeal). But unlike Ryan and House GOPers, Team Obama has never publicly put forward a long-term plan to prevent a future debtmageddon; he has only sketched a path for (more or less) stabilizing debt levels over the coming decade. After that, it’s 'Here Be Dragons.'
 
"But we can offer some speculation on what Obamacrats plan to do eventually. The current sequester fight with Republicans hints at his plan: Cut (defense), Tax (the middle class), and Pray (health-care inflation keeps slowing)."

"It is always cliffs, ceilings and looming catastrophes with Barack Obama. It is always government by freakout. ... 

"Mr. Obama thrives in chaos. He flourishes in unsettled circumstances and grooves on his own calm. He spins an air of calamity, points fingers and garners support. His only opponent is a hapless, hydra-headed House. America has a weakness for winners, and Republicans just now do not look like winners. They have many voices but no real voice, and no one saying anything that makes you stop and think. ... 

"The president looks strong now, but governing by freakout has too many costs. Again, he is overplaying his hand."

"Lost in the president’s hyperventilation is the fact that under sequestration the federal government will spend just 1.5 percent less this year than it would like to, and still slightly more than it spent in 2012. Indeed, it will spend more than it has in any year in history save one (2011). And even discretionary spending, which takes the brunt of the cuts, will be set at — shock, horror — 2009 levels. Austerity, this is not. ...  

"In the face of poor alternatives, it is best to accept the new spending levels for 2013, including decreased defense spending, and to focus on ensuring that the slightly smaller pool of money is managed slightly more intelligently — by, for instance, giving agency managers discretion about where the cuts come from in the near term and using the appropriations process to allocate future cuts in the out-years. This assumes, of course, that slightly more intelligence is possible in Washington."

"If radical gun-grabbers have their way, your daughters, mothers, and grandmothers will have nothing but whistles, pens, and bodily fluids with which to defend themselves against violent attackers and sexual predators. Women of all ages, races, and political backgrounds should be up in arms over the coordinated attack on their right to bear arms. ... 

"Where are the War on Women warriors of the Left when you need them? ... The idea that women can’t be trusted to know when they are at risk takes direct aim at their very sovereignty and security.  

"It’s anti-self-determination. It’s anti-freedom. It’s anti-choice."

"The White House has been on the offensive recently outlining how devastating [the Sequester] cuts will be, but has failed to provide offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget.
 
"And how much would they have to find to offset the sequester for this year? About $85 billion. Based on spending last year of $3.6 trillion, that means cutting roughly three cents out of every dollar the federal government spends.
 
"Because the White House refuses to cut three cents out of every dollar the government spends, they are proposing another round of tax increases."

"WASHINGTON — Less than a year before Americans will be required to have insurance under President Obama's healthcare law, many of its backers are growing increasingly anxious that premiums could jump, driven up by the legislation itself. ... 

"Exactly how high the premiums may go won't be known until later this year. But already, officials in states that support the law have sounded warnings that some people — mostly those who are
young and do not receive coverage through their work — may see considerably higher prices than expected."

"Democrats face twin struggles as they seek to retake the House majority they lost in 2010. First, the chamber has largely sorted itself out. With 96 percent of Democratic House members representing districts carried by President Obama and 94 percent of Republican House lawmakers representing districts won by Mitt Romney, each party pretty much has the seats God intended. The House simply doesn’t have much elasticity right now. Substantial gains would either require Democrats winning a bunch of Romney districts or Republicans capturing a lot of Obama districts. Given this sorting out and the almost parliamentary-style voting we’re seeing these days, either party would require one heck of a head of steam to pick up a lot of seats from the other side.

"But there is a second reason why there is less elasticity in the House. As House Editor David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report points out, notwithstanding all the Democrats in Obama districts and Republicans in Romney districts, the chamber has fewer swing districts altogether. ... 

"What this all means is that, to a certain extent, the 2014 and 2016 elections — but primarily the 2018 and 2020 gubernatorial and state legislative elections — will be enormously consequential, in that the winning side in those elections will be drawing the next decade’s electoral maps. Those maps are what will determine whether this decade’s Republican hegemony in the House will continue into the next."

"Gun control 'deserves a vote,' President Obama said time and again in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. Sadly, the measure Congress is most likely to pass — beefed-up background checks — may cause more harm than good. 

"First, checks obviously won’t do anything about gun crime in cities like Chicago or New York, which revolves almost exclusively around illegal guns.  

"But they also wouldn’t stop the mass killings Obama mentioned. The Newtown, Conn., shooter stole his mother’s guns, while the Tucson, Ariz., and other killers didn’t have records that a check would’ve spotted."