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 [...]

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 [...]

Over at Politico Byron Tau and Ben Smith are raising the red flag about the possibility of Republicans using the expiration of the 18.4 cent per gallon gas tax on September 30th as their new hostage in the next stage of disaster legislating. The anti-tax Republicans are already making noises about not extending this tax. [...]

One of the many absurd aspects about this whole debt ceiling deal is that part of the solution to this artificial crisis is to create another artificial crisis in the near future. The debt ceiling itself is a creation of Congress. There is no need to have periodic debt ceiling limit votes that create dangerous [...]

The official Congressional Budget Office report on the debt ceiling deal has been release. From the CBO Summary: Establish caps on discretionary spending through 2021; Allow for certain amounts of additional spending for “program integrity” initiatives aimed at reducing the amount of improper benefit payments; Make changes to the Pell Grant and student loan programs; [...]

This recent debt ceiling deal proves the best way for the Republican Party to get what they want from the Democrats and President Obama is to take metaphorical hostages. At this point for the GOP to try negotiating for new laws through the traditional legislative process would be beyond stupid given how effective the tactic [...]