The Congressional Budget Office is out with a new report about the projected long term solvency of Social Security. The report reaffirms the basic fact that it will be roughly 27 years until the Social Security Trust Fund is exhausted. CBO projects that the trust funds will be exhausted in 2038. In the following year, [...]

The Obama administration has a strange habit of inappropriately blaming the unpopularity of their actions on the fact that a few progressive writers didn’t do enough to sell the public on the good aspects of their deal. It would seem the White House is basically taking the perspective of a Scooby Doo villain in concluding [...]

If so many people are saying you got beaten that you actually feel the need to start publicly declaring you didn’t cave, that means you caved. From the White House’s absurd attempt to defend the debt ceiling deal with lies: Myth: President Obama caved. Fact: President Obama laid out key priorities that had to be [...]

The White House has put out a truly disgraceful “myth and facts” post at it’s blog, about the debt ceiling deal, which flatly lies to the American people. From the White House website post: Myth: The joint committee — the so-called “super committee” — makes it easier for Congress to cut the programs we care about. [...]

Quinnipiac released their Florida poll numbers on the President and the debt ceiling bill, and it does not bode well for his 2012 chances in the swing state. His approval among Independents went from 42% last Wednesday through Sunday to 33% from Monday through Tuesday, while disapproval shot up 52% to 61%. When asked to describe how they feel about the deal, more Independents said they were “angry” (23%) than either Republicans or Democrats.

In order to contextualize the bind that this puts Obama in, it’s worth recounting what I’ve been told about how the deal went down.

There should be no doubt that one of the most dangerous aspects of this current debt ceiling deal, is that it set a precedent for Republicans turning every future debt ceiling increase in the future into another hostage situation to force spending cuts. As Republican Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell put it: “What we have [...]

With the debt ceiling deal now law, the next stage of using artificial crisis to force austerity onto the American people begins. This next time instead of members of Congress saying they must vote for big cuts to avoid default, they will be able to point to the newly created triggers in this deal as [...]

[caption id="attachment_19759" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Signing the Budget Control Act of 2011 on Aug. 2, 2011"][/caption]

Where are all the proud sponsors usually in the background at the signing of a major piece of legislation?

Having basic functioning government in the United States is becoming harder and harder. Our 223 year old Constitutional system seems ever less able to handle the rise of strong political parties, nor the desecration of the traditional norms in the Senate with its absurd rules on debate. To run the massive apparatus which is the [...]

Thomas Friedman appeared on The Real News Network today. He says deflationary impact starts relatively soon, what appears to be $300 billion starting in October. And as for those defense cuts being meaningful….well, know we know.

If you haven’t read Tom’s Right Turn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics or Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems I highly recommend them.  Tom saw it all coming a long time ago, perhaps more clearly than anyone.