Get ready for a little deja vu from Washington. The federal government is about to hit the debt ceiling, now set at a whopping $16.8 trillion. Yes, again. It’s like the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day” — only this time, unfortunately, no one is laughing. Time and again, Congress bumps up against the debt ceiling amid talk of finally getting spending under control. Time…

Do you do at least some of your shopping online? If you’re like most Americans, the answer is “yes.” This leads to my next question: Would you like to pay more for the items you buy? I’m guessing the answer is “no.” But if Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act, you can expect to see your totals rise when you go to checkout with your online shopping cart. The rule…

It’s not amnesty, we’re told. Oh, no. Yet the immigration bill that was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would give legal residency to the estimated 11 million people who are here illegally. News flash: That’s amnesty. The bill’s supporters may be motivated by a desire to create a clean slate. Just accept those who have already made their way here, they’re saying…

These days, freedom is under fire in many ways. It’s nice to be able to report that in one area, at least, freedom is marching in the right direction: education. “Indiana’s highest court ruled unanimously in Meredith v. Pence that the Choice Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers to low-income and middle-income families in the Hoosier State, is constitutional,” the…

Almost everyone knows the acronym “EMT.” We know that emergency medical technicians will arrive in a hurry if someone calls for an ambulance. Less familiar is the acronym “EMP.” But if an electromagnetic pulse were to hit the United States, we would need a lot more than an ambulance to fix the problems that would result. That’s because an EMP is a high-intensity burst of…

In a very real way, the 20th century is now over. The passing of Lady Margaret Thatcher brings the curtain down on an amazing era. In his book “The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister,” journalist John O’Sullivan told the story of how Lady Thatcher teamed up with then-President Reagan and Pope John Paul II to confront the Soviet empire when it was at its peak and…

OK, Obamacare. Up on the table. It’s time for your annual physical. Three years old, eh? Well, with any luck, you’ll leave here with a clean bill of uh-oh. I can see one problem already. Have you seen these tax hikes? Let’s see — five, 10, 15, 18 tax hikes in all. That hardly seems wise, considering the fragile health of the economy, but there they are. There’s the tax…

Say you’re running a business, and you find yourself awash in red ink. You realize it’s time to retool your approach, and fast. So you ask two different employees each to come up with a budget. You’ll go with whoever writes the best plan. What are the chances that one of them will submit a budget that never puts you in the black? One that suggests you raise prices and…

“I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic-missile attack.” That was White House spokesman Jay Carney reacting to the third nuclear test this year by the self-styled Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as well as a brash threat from Pyongyang to, well, nuke the United States. Mr. Carney’s words are…

Dire predictions about the fate of certain government programs hardly have been in short supply as sequestration-related budget cuts loomed. It was hardly a surprise, then, when Education Secretary Arne Duncan got in on the act. “It just means a lot more children will not get the kinds of services and opportunities they need, and as many as 40,000 teachers could lose…

“Sequester.” It’s a word that used to come up rarely. It nearly always referred to a jury being locked away to deliberate a verdict. Now it’s all over the news, a stand-in for the automatic spending cuts scheduled to hit the federal budget Friday. The only jury is an American public that has grown all too accustomed to seeing politicians dodge the tough choices necessary…

Say you were a politician and there was a clean and abundant domestic energy source — one that has the potential to create jobs and revitalize local economies. Would you do more to encourage it? Silly question, you may be thinking. Why wouldn’t you do more to encourage it? Well, this scenario is more than hypothetical. I’m talking about natural gas, which is proving in…

Is America in decline? An honest review of the state of the union would show spiraling budget deficits, uncontrolled growth in government spending and persistently high unemployment levels. The impression of a once-great nation in eclipse is all too plain. It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not that these problems aren’t real or don’t pose serious challenges. They do.…

A bipartisan effort is under way to overhaul the nation's immigration system, improve border security and provide a path to citizenship for those here illegally. Stop me if you've heard this one before. Those of us who have been in Washington for a while certainly have. The plan announced recently by a group of senators dubbed the "Gang of Eight" may be touted as a new…

More than 200 organizations across the country are staging some 3,600 events to mark School Choice Week. Many grateful parents, however, have reason to celebrate every week. Just ask Joseph Kelley. A single father living in Washington, D.C., Mr. Kelley was shocked when his son Rashawn failed the first grade. Worse, his teachers didn’t even realize that he knew how to…