Today in the Washington Examiner January 6, 2011

Michael Barone - Wily old Dems take on whippersnapper Republicans


Democrats like to think of themselves as the young party, the party of new ideas. And in 2010 they remained the choice of the youngest voters, though by only half the margin in 2008.


But when you look at the top Democrats in the House, you don't see young faces. The ages of the ranking Democrats on the Appropriations, Ways and Means, Education, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, and Judiciary committees are 70, 79, 65, 71, 70, 69 and 81. The three party leaders are 70, 71 and 70.


Julie Mason - Obama tapping personal charm, political capital to combat GOP


Just as fresh blood is reinvigorating the House GOP rank and file, there will be new energy in the leadership, too.


President Obama is sounding optimistic about prospects for the parties to work together, but two key battles await to test the limits of his personal and political capital. "I think that there's going to be politics, that's what happens in Washington," Obama told reporters as he headed back to Washington after 11 days in Hawaii.


Susan Ferrechio - GOP readies budget knives for House takeover


Republicans are sharpening their budget knives, ready to take over the House when Congress convenes at noon Wednesday. At his first news conference with reporters on Tuesday, the incoming House majority leader, Eric Cantor, R-Va., previewed the coming year with a promise to make a cut a week to the budget to pare the $1.3 trillion deficit.


Julie Mason - Obama ready to deploy executive powers against GOP Hill


President Obama challenged congressional Republicans to embrace the "shared responsibility" of governance even as the White House appears ready to use unilateral executive powers to battle Capitol Hill. With Republicans taking over the House and increasing their number in the Senate, Obama faces the possibility of having his agenda stalled with limited room to maneuver -- making for tough sledding in the two years leading up to his 2012 re-election bid.


Sara Carter - Assassination in Pakistan deepens crisis for government


The assassination of a powerful Pakistani governor who was a close friend of President Asif Ali Zardari deepens a growing crisis in that country and could thwart America's ambition to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan, military officials said. The death of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer "is a major setback for those promoting progress and stability in Pakistan and will discourage other Pakistani leaders from speaking out against extremism," said Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst who is now at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.


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David Freddoso - Why Americans like big cars


Americans continue to prefer larger cars. Having gotten married and become a father within the last two years, I have finally begun to appreciate this as a matter of necessity, and not some misplaced desire for excess. For the first thirty years of my life, I did not own a car at all, and I was rather proud of it. I expected that if I ever did own a car, it would be a used 1990's Honda Civic, or something similarly tiny and fuel efficient, with a standard transmission.


But when you have kids, you suddenly realize that just isn't going to cut it. Car seats are big, and often mandated by law until children are quite old. Babies especially require lots of baggage and toys. And larger children require space. I shudder at the thought of a future in which I have to cram three non-infant children into the back of a Ford Focus.




Mark Hemingway - Pelosi: Even if everyone in America had great health care, we'd still have passed Obamacare


Since it's her last day as Speaker, Nancy Pelosi is busy trying to emphasize to the country that no, she really has been detached from reality these last four years. Here she mounts a vigorous defense of Obamacare, actually going so far as to say that they would have had to pass the bill to save money -- even if everyone in the country was perfectly happy with their health insurance. Why? Because it saves so much money!




Byron York - IRS dithers while prisoners file phony tax returns, collect millions in refunds


The number of prisoners who file false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service has more than doubled in the last five years, according to a new Treasury Department report, and the amount of money the IRS has mistakenly refunded to those prisoners has nearly tripled. Meanwhile, the report, from the Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration, accuses the IRS of failing to enforce a law passed by Congress in 2008 to crack down on false returns coming from the nation's prisons.