Bob Woodward: Thin Skin, Thinner Argument
What the newspaper scribe doesn't understand about the sequester
Gene Sperling once intimidated me. READ MORE >>
David Brooks Has a Health Care Idea!
The conservative reform that wouldn't screw the poor
David Brooks is nothing if not gracious. On Friday, the bespectacled and occasionally besieged New York Times columnist had a tantrum, or what qualifies for a tantrum by his mild-mannered standards. He did so by criticizing President Obama for failing to provide leadership in the debate over the sequester and fiscal priorities. READ MORE >>
The Sequester Is Inevitable. Prepare to Suffer.
Historically low discretionary spending will drop even further
The question is no longer whether the automatic spending cuts of budget "sequestration" will start to take effect on Friday. The question is how long lawmakers are willing to let those cuts stay in place. That, in turn, will depend on how quickly—and how severely—the cuts affect people's lives. READ MORE >>
Obama's Not-So-Secret Medicare Plan
Republicans could learn a lot by visiting the White House website
I have a big scoop, straight from an extremely reliable White House source: The Obama Administration has endorsed means-testing of Medicare. READ MORE >>
The GOP's Budget Denialism
The federal budget is going to increase, whether Republicans like it or not.
President Obama on Tuesday appeared alongside police officers and firefighters, warning that the automatic spending cuts set to take place on March 1 would cause local and state governments to lay off first responders. Get used to this sort of thing. As the cuts of “budget sequestration” approach, both sides of the debate will be talking about the dire consequences that worry them most. READ MORE >>
President Obama's preschool proposal has provoked predictable grousing from some predictable sources. House Speaker John Boehner said last week that getting the federal government involved in early childhood was "a good way to screw it up." But the idea is also picking up some support on the right. "President Obama has taken on a big challenge in a realistic and ambitious way," New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote on Friday. READ MORE >>
President Barack Obama visited Georgia on Thursday to tout his ambitious new proposal for universal preschool. READ MORE >>
The most important proposal in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address may be one that gets the least attention and, quite possibly, has the least chance of becoming law in the near future: his proposal to create a universal pre-kindergarten program. The idea is pretty simple. American children are guaranteed an education when they turn five and enter kindergarten. Before that, they may or may not have access to what we now call "pre-school," which typically depends on the resources (and sometimes the resourcefulness) of their parents. READ MORE >>
The Spending Problem We Don't Have—and the One We Do
Joe Scarborough is right about the deficit, but wrong about the solution
Spoiler alert: Tonight President Barack Obama will call for a "balanced" approach to deficit reduction. Republicans, their allies, and quite a few pundits will respond by saying the real problem is government spending—and that the president is ignoring it. It's what they always say. READ MORE >>
Is the Fever Breaking?
On issues like Medicaid and military spending, signs of a Republican rift
In Columbus, Lansing, and Phoenix, Republican governors are making headlines by embracing part of Obamacare. In Washington, Republican lawmakers are making headlines by seeking a new fiscal deal that avoids Pentagon cuts. What do these developments have to do with one another? Everything. They are products of the same, emerging divide in the Republican Party—one that pits conservative ideologues who preach anti-government extremism against some similarly conservative officials who actually have to govern. READ MORE >>
