I’m reading President Obama op-ed in USA Today about the deficit. If I’m not mistaken, it contains the strange message that he wants the middle class to pay a significant portion of the cleanup costs for a mess they didn’t create. That’s why people in both parties have suggested that the best way to take [...]

Perhaps the best way to look at the possibility of President Obama using the 14th amendment to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional, is not to wonder if Obama has the will to use it, but question whether he has the resolve it would take not use it.

I truly fear the next financial collapse, which indeed will happen, because over the past three years, both Republican and Democratic administrations haven’t just killed moral hazard for the larger financial sector, they have dragged its corpse down Wall Street in an elaborate funeral procession for all to see. The latest example of comes from [...]

I notice that the Daily Beast decided to do a long PR ad for an interview with Peter Peterson, which tried to make clear just how reasonable the man is. Many of his cheerleaders quickly hailed it as persuasive proof. The problem is that on the issue of the deficit, Peterson is a self-serving hypocrite. [...]

Apparently controlling the Federal Reserve, funding their bonuses with billions in taxpayer dollars and quite nearly bringing down the global economy with their degenerate gambling habits isn’t enough. Wall Street now wants to punish any Democrat who lifts a hand against them, and they’re willing to fund primary challenges to do it. Carolyn Maloney worked [...]

If you are upset that the new financial reform bill is too weak, does not fundamentally change a broken system and will not prevent another meltdown, perhaps you should take a look at this: Wall Street is unhappy that Democrats have been slightly mean to them, so it has closed its huge campaign-donation spigot. From [...]

Recent events give us four powerful examples of why we desperately need to take back our elections from the big-money interests that are buying our politics. The solution is to clean up election funding through voluntary public financing, so that candidates can run without needing to grovel for donations from wealthy individuals and corporate lobbies. [...]

The health insurance industry makes a substantial part of its profits by hanging on to premium dollars as long as possible — premiums which are established after assessing anticipated risk and expected claims. But if all claims are paid, there’s no need for managing risk by reserving premium dollars, and no need to hold reserves for investment. Getting insurers and Wall Street to give up the reserves is going to be a challenge.

If the Democrats want to pass anything in the Senate with 50 votes over the course of the next year, they have to decide now what they want to use reconciliation for and include that in next year’s budget resolution. What kind of progressive changes can you accomplish using reconciliation?  Well, anything done through reconciliation [...]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that health insurance stocks are up dramatically today after Joe Lieberman’s threat to filibuster health care reform. Lieberman has a new-found strong opposition to the Medicare buy-in proposal–a massive flip-flop from his earlier support. Wells Fargo Securities analyst Matthew Perry said Lieberman’s comments are good news for managed-care stocks [...]