The New Republic

Jackie Calmes has a good story in today's New York Times describing the near-consensus among economists that we should be increasing short-term deficits in order to stimulate (or at least not deflate) consumer demand, while reducing long-term deficits. This prescription runs directly against the grain of the policies advanced by House Republicans: READ MORE >>

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Last night at the Republican debate when every candidate declared they would oppose a deficit reduction deal consisting of over 90% spending cuts captured the party's anti-tax monomania. (It also left plenty of room for future dorm-room hypothetical scenarios: What about a 99-1 ratio? What if space aliens threatened to destroy Earth unless we raised taxes on Bill Gates by a dollar and it had to be done through a legislated tax hike rather than a voluntary donation?) READ MORE >>

Tom Jensen shouts for people to pay attention to the growing chance that Democrats take back the House: READ MORE >>

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Any time you go on a live program, especially one with multiple guests, there are things we want to respond to but never get a chance to say. Two spring to mind from my appearance on Charlie Rose: 1. Drew Westen said that I painted him as a person who had never been to Washington. I never said that. Read my item responding to Westen. READ MORE >>

How Doug Holtz-Eakin’s argument against the stimulus became an argument for it. Michael Lewis goes to Germany, writes an article. A great read ensues. Meeting with the most important economic policymaker in the world is something Obama probably should do. READ MORE >>

I didn't wake up intending to let Mitt Romney take over my blog today, but after a long period of inaccessibility, he's made himself available to questions in a way that reveals a lot about him. One thing that comes across is that Romney seems like a kind of character that, in recent years, has been associated with Democratic politicians, not Republican politicians. He's very smart, and he can use his intelligence to answer questions in ways that are literally true but feel somewhat evasive. READ MORE >>

The controversy du jour seems to be Mitt Romney's claim, in response to hecklers, that corporations are people: ROMNEY: We have to make sure that the promises we make — and Social Security, Medicaid, adn Medicare — are promises we can keep. And there are various ways of doing that. One is, we could raise taxes on people. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Corporations! READ MORE >>

Brink Lindsey, via an approving Will Wilkinson, makes a seemingly obvious point that is in fact half wrong: "the looming choice between our relatively lavish welfare state and our relatively modest tax bill cannot be delayed much longer." We do have a relatively modest tax bill. READ MORE >>