An article in Politico about President Obama’s deficit speech, by Carrie Budoff Brown and Ben Smith, starts with the line, “President Barack Obama finally gave his liberal critics exactly what they wanted.” I want to make it clear that in no way was this deficit speech what I wanted. With unemployment over 9 percent and [...]

President Obama’s deficit speech may be viewed as the moment the Obama administration fully pivots away from trying to reach bipartisan compromise, to instead focusing on winning 2012 by bashing the Republican Party. The first half of President Obama’s first term was marked by an obsession with reaching bipartisan compromise. Obama wasted an absurd amount [...]

I was pleasantly surprised that President Obama in his deficit speech today didn’t publicly endorse cuts to Social Security benefits or call for any specific major cuts to Medicare benefits. This is a significant improvement compared to the trial balloons we have been seeing for the past months, which indicated raising the Medicare eligibility age [...]

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 [...]

At a town hall meeting in Illinois, President Obama reaffirmed that he will personally push for Congress to make Medicare and Social Security cuts part of any talk about deficit reduction or job creation. From the White House Transcripts: When folks tell you that we’ve got a choice between jobs now or dealing with our [...]

I know a lot of people have already discussed this New York Times article but this one passage truly scared me. From the NYT: The issue is being framed by the 2012 election. Administration officials, frustrated by the intransigence of House Republicans, have increasingly concluded that the best thing Mr. Obama can do for the [...]

James Clyburn has just been appointed to the Super Congress Catfood II Commission,  and will now have powers above those or an ordinary member of Congress when it comes to determining the future of Social Security and Medicare.  So I thought it would be a good time to re-run Mike Stark’s interview with Clyburn from May of 2010 regarding Clyburn’s support for cutting Social Security benefits.

The Republican congressional leadership have made their six selections for who will serve on the new Super Committee, according the National Journal. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) chose Senators Jon Kyl (AZ), Pat Toomey (PA) and Rob Portman (OH). From the House side Speaker John Boehner (OH) selected Jeb Hensarling (TX), Dave Camp (MI) [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]