A total of 15 different U.S. food and nutrition programs (FANPs) serve about one in four Americans at a current annual cost of almost $100 billion. Can the government actually improve our personal eating habits? Are these billions of dollars well-spent?

The primary drivers of our growing debt burden are the “Big 3” entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Yet as part of the debt ceiling deal that created sequestration when the Super Committee failed, politicians effectively fenced off nearly two-thirds of the federal budget and the main source of our over-spending. 

On April 13, 2012, the US Department of the Treasury released new cost estimates for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Looking principally at actual and projected contractual cash flows, the document concludes that: "Overall, the government is now expected to at least break even on its financial stability programs and may realize a positive return." 

The American economy is experiencing a crisis in long-term unemployment that has enormous human and economic costs.

Here is another good news/bad news column about the 112th Congress.

Just when it looked like the job market was going to rebound, recent unemployment numbers revealed a disappointing reality.

Barack Obama’s presidency has had profoundly negative consequences for our national security. From debilitating cuts in defense budgets, to gutting national missile defense efforts, to his unwillingness to acknowledge a continuing war against terrorism, to his inability to stem the nuclear proliferation threats posed by North Korea and Iran....the picture is bleak.

American assistance programs aimed at helping Yemen build and maintain counterterrorism forces will not suffice in the face of a real and growing al Qaeda-affiliated insurgency.