A large plurality of Americans, 39 percent, say unemployment is the most important problem facing the country today. “Unemployment” recently managed to take the top spot away from the issue of “the economy in general” in Gallup’s polling. While I think it is noteworthy unemployment as an issue has gone up steadily, I personally find [...]

Powerful political and lobbying forces continue to line up behind the terrible idea to raise the age for Medicare eligibility. The latest to join the ongoing push is the Healthcare Leadership Council. From the Healthcare Leadership Council’s recommendations to the Super Committee: Gradually increase the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. This transition would [...]

President Obama has spent a lot of time and political capital on the issue of long term deficit reduction. He made deficit reduction a top focus of the health care reform law. He create his own deficit reduction commission when Congress failed to create their own. When that failed he spend months talking about the [...]

Official unemployment has been stuck around 9 percent for 16 months, and recent signs indicate our economic growth has stalled. And for over two years now, the American people  have called jobs/economy the top problem in this country. In this environment, many people on the left are happy that a Democratic president asked Congress to [...]

The threat to Medicare is very real and pressing. Last night the President suggested he still wants to change Medicare in a way “some in his party” won’t like. We are seeing a convergence of deficit hysteria, a Democratic president who wants to have a “Nixon goes to China moment” with Medicare and powerful corporate lobbyists in pursuit of bigger profits.

I don’t want to be entirely cynical about President Obama’s jobs speech yesterday. Some of the ideas in his proposal, like the money to fix up old schools, are great. He is finally putting his rhetorical focus on the issue the American people actually wanted him to be talking all along. If the package Obama [...]

When writers like Jonathan Chait claim President Obama shouldn’t be blamed for not passing enough stimulus at the begin of his term, their standard go-to defense is that there is no way Obama could have gotten the Senate to pass a version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with a price tag [...]

On his blog, former Vice President Al Gore harshly criticized President Obama’s recent decision to shelve the EPA’s new ozone regulations. Gore says Obama is ignoring science, and instead, bowing to the pressure from polluters. From Al Gore: On Friday afternoon, as brave and committed activists continued their non-violent civil disobedience outside the White House [...]

Republican Super Congress member Sen. Jon Kyl (AZ) has come out against the committee trying to reach a “grand bargain” that includes new taxes and entitlement reform. From National Journal: A top Republican on the super committee charged with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts over 10 years said on Tuesday he will ask fellow [...]

Tomorrow will be President Obama’s big jobs speech before the joint session of Congress. This is Obama’s pivot to unemployment, which is the biggest crisis in American right now and predicted to drag on for years. Unfortunately, reports are that this pivot to jobs probably won’t even last a full week before Obama puts his [...]