Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, a Democrat representing the federal workforce, frets over the impact of sequestration or any alternative on his Fairfax County district: “Undoubtedly, we will take a hit…It’s going to result in a steady retrenchment in government investment in both the civilian and defense sectors. That’s going to affect employment and the robustness of our economic growth in this region.”

In the Washington Post today, Brian Lee Crowley discusses the still little-known story of Canada’s

Politicians from Mike Huckabee to Michael Bloomberg to Michelle Obama have been hectoring Americans about their eating habits. (What is it about the name “Michael,” anyway, that seems to encourage paternalism and nanny-state politics? Well, it turns out that “Michael” comes from a Hebrew name meaning “Who is like God?” Maybe Michaels just get the idea that they are.)

NPR notes on Sunday that Rep. Paul Ryan’s voting record in Congress calls into question his image as a deficit hawk. But they emphasize Alice Rivlin’s explanation:

In his speech last night, President Obama listed a lot of groups of people whom we shouldn’t blame for “all our problems”:

Jennifer Rubin, seeking to dispel “myths about conservatives,” takes on the idea that “the GOP doesn’t believe in community:

A front-page story in Saturday’s Washington Post carries the headline, “Ryan’s funding requests blur image as deficit hawk” (different online). That is, Rep. Paul Ryan has sought federal funding for projects in his district, even when he has voted against the relevant spending program, such as President Obama’s $787 billion “stimulus” bill. But I don’t think that’s the best way to judge a congressman’s fiscal conservatism. The question is, did he vote against excessive spending? Did he work in committee, with his colleagues, and in the national debate to end programs and cut spending?

The Washington Examiner ran this Heritage Foundation chart on January 10 under the title (not online) “Defense spending at lowest levels in 60 years”:

Good reporting shouldn’t go unnoticed just because it appeared during the week after Christmas, so let me draw your attention to a comprehensive article on the front page of the December 26 Washington Post by Joe Stephens and Carol Leonnig:

In 1960 Sen. Barry Goldwater called the policies of the Eisenhower administration “a dime store New Deal”—a promise to deliver to the voters everything the Democrats promised, but at a discount. And that has been a fundamental dividing line in the Republican party ever since: Should the GOP challenge the Democrats’ fundamental commitment to an ever-bigger federal government, or only promise to deliver services more efficiently and at lower cost to taxpayers?