There are essentially two ways the federal government spends our money  — Mandatory spending and Discretionary spending. Think in terms of a business.  In every business there are fixed expenses (e.g. building lease) and variable expenses (e.g. cost of goods).  Consider the government’s fixed expenses “mandatory” and the variable expenses “discretionary.” Mandatory programs are payments [...]

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin recently submitted an eight-year budget plan for America. Much has been written in the last few weeks about the similarity between Ryan’s budget and Obama’s budget. While it would be easy to go through both budgets line by line and point out the differences, the simple [...]

In 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), known for his domineering personality and coercion of powerful politicians, took over as president after JFK’s assassination.  The event left the nation in mourning and shock, and was permanently burned into the memories of all who were alive at the time.  This tragedy set the stage for LBJ to [...]