The American people don’t subscribe to the conservative position about why our nation has a deficit. Most people blame our deficit not on excessive social spending but instead on low taxes for the rich or the huge military budget, according to this National Journal poll. As important, the survey found Americans unconvinced that safety-net programs [...]

What the American people are most concerned about are jobs and the economy. What the American people are only barely concerned about is the federal budget deficit. From Gallup: An overwhelming 66 percent of the country thinks unemployment or the economy  is the most important problem facing the country right now. That compares to the [...]

Reducing our spending on overseas military commitments is the deficit reduction idea that has the broadest public support across all partisan groups, according to new Pew Research Center poll. Solid majorities of regular Democrats, Republicans and independents all want to see America stop wasting so much money on foreign military commitments. While raising taxes on [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Live on CSPAN2 now Liveblog: 10:13 – Reid: Senate will resume at 12 noon tomorrow.  If cloture is not invoked, debate will continue on the Reid amendment. 10:07: Reid – There are negotiations going on right now at the White House. We want to give everyone as much space as possible to reach an agreement, [...]

I think a big problem with the politics of this debt ceiling fight is that the American people don’t know how incredibly stupid the concept of the debt ceiling really is. This is why the only real highlight from President Obama’s rather bizarre public address yesterday was, for me, that he finally started trying to [...]

I remember an extremely jarring moment during one of President Obama’s press conferences about extending the Bush tax cuts, when Obama said he must give in to hostage-taking tactics. Via Huffington Post: “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that [...]

To maintain his role as head of the Republican caucus Speaker John Boehner can’t cut just any old deal with the Democrats, at least not now that so much rides on this particular fight. Even if Boehner and most of the Republican leadership want to cut a deal, and that isn’t a given, the only [...]