The New Republic

One of the most interesting features of President Obama’s second-term policy agenda is that he doesn’t seem to think he needs one.OK, he got some of his increase in the top tax rate for high earners even before his second term started. He campaigned on it; it’s policy; that counts. And immigration policy reform seems to be a possibility not too far down the line. And of course there’s gun control, even if it looks doubtful that anything of substance will come of it. READ MORE >>

Last night, Barack Obama bowed to establishment convention and had what must have been a torturous dinner with twelve Republican senators. READ MORE >>

Tom Hagen: The Roman Empire … when a plot against the Emperor failed, the plotters were always given a chance to let their families keep their fortunes.Frankie Pentangeli: Yeah, but only the rich guys. The little guys got knocked off. If they got arrested and executed, all their estate went to the Emperor. If they just went home and killed themselves, up front, nothing happened.Hagen: Yeah, that was a good break. A nice deal. READ MORE >>

I have a confession to 
make: I'm a big fan of John Boehner. One of his very few, it turns out. The White House complains that Boehner's near-total ignorance of policy makes him impossible to negotiate with, and that it's pointless to deal with him anyway, since he exerts zero control over his members. Pundits deride him as strategically inept, constantly backing himself into corners from which there's no obvious escape. READ MORE >>

Jonathan Chait has a good post up about how Republicans don't really care about tax reform. I'd go further and say they aren't all that interested in deficit reduction, either. Let's review the contours of the current dispute between President Obama and House Republicans over ending the sequester. Here is what the president has put on the table: READ MORE >>

Whoever could have imagined that Republicans could be such wussies? After all, the GOP is the Party of Testosterone. Democrats are the ones who are supposed to be wimpy and weepy. But lately the Republicans have been a bunch of crybabies: Hey mama, President Obama is picking on us. He’s so strong, so ruthless. Some of the biggest bullies in the schoolyard, it seems, can dish it out, but they can’t take it. READ MORE >>

Washington's preferred legislative tool, the manufactured crisis, is based on the idea that when Democrats and Republicans are forced to choose between catastrophe and compromise, they'll choose the latter. READ MORE >>

On March 1 (i.e., this Friday) $85 billion will be sliced, more or less indiscriminately, from the discretionary portion of the federal budget. Everybody agrees this is a bad idea, which it is. But whose bad idea is it? READ MORE >>

Congressional Republicans have done a pretty good job pretending not to care that the planned March 1 sequestration will cut $43 billion out of this year’s defense budget. Sure, it’s an “ugly and dangerous way” to cut spending, says House Speaker John Boehner. READ MORE >>

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 >>