The deal is much better than I expected for Democrats, and much worse for Republicans (preliminary summaries by Dayen and Stein). Of course, the whole thing was destructive and pointless and the deal is bad in the way one would expect – it includes work requirements for some food stamp and TANF recipients. On the […]
This Hill article was up on Naked Capitalism’s Links this morning. More of the Democrats urging extreme caution in pursuing the 14th Amendment as a solution to a debt limit which is an agreement between parties and not a requirement. One could always print more money to resolve the issue also. Meanwhile, citizens having little […]
Way to rally the base Turtle Neck! NY Times: No Social Security Raises Even if Medicare Soars WASHINGTON — The 60 million people on Social Security will not receive any cost-of-living increase in their benefits in 2016, the government said Thursday, but because of a quirk in federal law, nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries could […]
WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Tuesday put forward the outline of a response to a Senate proposal that would end the government shutdown and raise the debt limit into next year, but would also make some changes to the health care law. Under their plan, members of Congress and the cabinet would be compelled to […]
By: Daniel Becker In answer to the generic question regarding President Obama’s actions regarding the debt ceiling, I am re-posting this from 2/25/09. In comments of the original I stated that cutting the deficit by 1/2 seemed to “optimistic” for me. *************************** Ok, here are my basic issues with the substance of President Obama’s speech. […]
by Daniel Becker Being that we’re about to experience austerity because we are convinced we can’t spend money properly such that we actually end up with more after rather than less … which is very depressing to me and defeatist in presentation, I present my new theme song: That’s how it goes. I just find […]
I was taking the day off, but this is the best news the Obama Administration could get right now.* Wonder how they’ll screw it up? I second the (self-)nomination of Dr. Black, on condition he commit to bringing me on as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets, which was held in its Glory […]
Mark Thoma joins Dr. Black, putting him one-up on some Liberal Bloggers Who Should Know Better.* Thoma: 1. You have to make the Republicans pay in terms of eroded public support before they will agree to cooperate at all. The president in particular has not played a long-run strategy, the Republicans have, and the results […]
By: Daniel Becker There is some new information from Adam Hersh of Center for American Progress showing what has happened in the states that have followed the conservative economic approach (yes, talking to you Obama, DLC, Clintonites). Keep cutting at your own risk. Here’s the thing. Like the Wile E Coyote, we seem to have […]
Alea gives the lie to that lie. Italy!!!?