Democrats Need to Bite the Bullet

Well, it looks like we may have avoided economic Armageddon. Earlier today, House and Senate GOP leaders negotiated a deal with President Obama to raise the debt ceiling through 2012 and cut approximately $3 trillion of spending from the federal budget. Predictably, House Democrats are furious that the deal includes no new revenues and many are threatening to vote against it: one of the more colorful descriptions of the deal came from Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, who called it "a sugar-coated Satan sandwich." Some Democratic analysts have predicted that this anger over what they see as capitulation from President Obama will lead to only 50-80 Democratic votes for the plan, which would leave House Speaker John Boehner in the unenviable position of pushing it through his own caucus (something he's had a bit of trouble with of late). Still, as much as it hurts, the deal could still be a win for Democrats, and more importantly it is a desperately-needed win for the country.

Emanuel Cleaver finds your lack of revenues disturbing.

Washington: Where Doing Your Job Might Get You Impeached

In less than a month, the United States of America—the most powerful nation in the history of the world and a leader in global affairs for over a century—will default on its debt, a catastrophe that will likely send the domestic (and possibly global) economy into a full-scale meltdown. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that the country has until August 2nd to strike a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid this fiscal nightmare, and President Obama has gone on record saying that he wants a deal to be cut by July 22nd so that the legislation can safely make its way through Congress. With less than 3 weeks to go until crossing that red line, Congress still seems incapable of solving this problem, even if it wanted to. To make matters worse, if President Obama tries to take the situation into his own hands, he may just get impeached for his troubles.

Any chance TurboTax messed up his calculations with this number, too?

Will Brown's Pen be Mightier than Schwarzenegger's Sword?

The fiscal crisis in California took another treacherous turn this week when Democratic Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a budget plan passed by the Democrat-controlled State Assembly and Senate. With the state's voter-imposed deadline for passing a balanced budget expiring earlier this week, California legislators are now working overtime without pay to try and fix the state's massive budget deficit. Brown's veto, though, was not unwarranted, nor was it radical. Rather, Governor Brown is hoping that by vetoing the plan, he can convince state legislators to finally get serious about balancing the budget and creating a sustainable fiscal future for the state.

Someone should tell Governor Brown that there's a grizzly bear eating his head.

Get Your Government Hands Off My Medicare... Oh, Wait, That's Not What I Meant

Last night's special election in New York's 26^th Congressional District showed the political world two things: first, that Democrats aren't as hopelessly incompetent at messaging as previously thought, and second, that the Republican Party has a serious Medicare problem.

(Congresswoman-elect Kathy Hochul, from NYT)

To Mandate, or Not to Mandate: Newt Gingrich's Eternal Question

It's been a rough couple days for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Between pulling a Romney when talking about health-care reform and undercutting the GOP's main idea man on Medicare, many party faithful are starting to wonder just whose side he's on (for the record, Democrats are still pretty confident that he's a Republican).

Gingrich's most recent mess started this past weekend when he called Congressman Paul Ryan's budget proposal, in which Medicare becomes a voucher-based system “radical... right wing social engineering” (jeez, Newt, you really don't mince words, do you?). In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, May 15, Gingrich criticized the Ryan proposal, specifically the fact that it imposes “radical change” on consumers instead of allowing them to choose, somehow, whether or not they want the old-style Medicare or the new vouchers. Of course, Gingrich did not specify how this choice would work, as one would guess that it would be impossible and inefficient to have both the current Medicare system and a voucher-based system—both of which do the same thing—in existence at the same time. We'll assume he was leaving that for later in the campaign.

(from Politico)