After everyone has had a chance to bluster, posture, and pontificate, we are left with one basic question: under any foreseeable circumstance, would it be in our national interest to default on our debt? The answer is unequivocally no.

Households and businesses cut expenses every day. Passing a financial down payment alongside the debt limit sends the right message to the public, and gives members of Congress greater comfort, or cover, depending on your perspective.

The campaigns of Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and John McCain all outperformed expectations on their support from independent voters. They made no effort to shy away from ideology, but conveyed to voters that their policies were driven by principle, not party talking points.

The American formula for creating business is not to have the government create business.

The principal role of the President of the United States is the security of the country and participating in trying to stabilize the world.

I'm an old man of 73, and I've been around a long time. If I don't know something by now, I probably never will.

As a boy, when I was bad, my mother would chew me out in Spanish. And since I was bad a lot, I learned a lot of Spanish!