Until the Republicans figure out a way to make the math work their offer cannot be considered a serous plan, because it is not even a “plan.” A plan requires specific ideas that at least stand a chance of achieving the stated goal.

One of the most annoying things about covering Congress is how completely almost everyone in the media has bought into the myth that it takes 60 votes to do anything in the Senate. Even people who should know better, like Paul Krugman, still spread this myth as if it was fact. From Krugman: What about [...]

President Obama wants to try principal reduction as a way to help home owners and the economy. The problem for Obama is Ed DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which would be responsible for implementing a key part of this policy, doesn’t like principal reduction.  As acting director of FHFA, DeMarco has [...]

Paul Krugman is a Nobel prize winning New York Times columnist who consistently sits at the top of every poll of “most influential liberals.”

What exactly does OFA think they stand to gain by ridiculing Krugman as a “political rookie,” a hysterical “fanatic” and an “idealogue”? Do they think they hold so much sway with liberals that they can discredit Krugman and thus neutralize his criticism?

That smacks more of narcissism and megalomania than any sound political “strategy.”

The oft confused Sen. Lieberman gets taken to the woodshed by Nobel winner Paul Krugman. It turns out that the best way to hold down costs is not to cut Medicare but expand it.

I’m beginning to suspect the Republican’s decision to hold the debt ceiling hostage to demand only big cuts in spending and President Obama’s almost enthusiastic desire to play along was a way to deal with the problem of the nonexistent bond vigilantes by actively creating some. Most of the elites in Washington would love to [...]

There seems to be a broad acknowledgement that the Federal Reserve has made the terrible decision to randomly change their goals by making their new top priority maintaining a one-percent inflation target, instead of the old understanding, two-percent inflation, or trying to achieve full employment, despite 8.8 percent official unemployment. I will let Paul Krugman [...]

It is nice to see both Paul Krugman and Matt Yglesias openly admitting that the Affordable Care Act is about as right-wing any insurance coverage expansion “reform” could be. From Yglesias’s The Sensible Conservative Alternative To The Affordable Care Act Is The Affordable Care Act: If you simply do what Ponnuru and Levin propose, every [...]

It is always nice to see more people come around to my stated belief that health insurance exchanges intended to make people be “smart shoppers” for very complex products is a truly failed idea. Paul Krugman made a very straightforward case against the concept this weekend: That’s the title of a blog post by Nathalie [...]

I’m glad to see that Paul Krugman has attacked the absurd idea that health care patients should be treated as consumers, and Jonathan Cohn has chosen to echo Krugman’s argument.  What I can’t understand is where was powerful denouncing of the absurd idea that we need more “consumer-driven” health care during the debate over the [...]