Mark this day. For the first time in history, a Democratic president has officially proposed to cut the Democratic Party’s signature New Deal program, Social Security. God help us if the Republicans wise up and take this deal. After all, it’s a more conservative budget than even their hero Ronald Reagan ever submitted.

Watch this video, Movin’ in, kids! Then click through and give it a rating because the video with the most view and best rating wins! This video comes to you from Just Scrap The Cap. The Story The Peter G. Peterson Foundation — the people who are funding this huge effort to cut Social Security, [...]

It’s somewhat fitting that a 30-foot geyser erupted from a broken water main practically around the corner from my home the night before the the American Society of Civil Engineers gave America a D+ on its 2013 infrastructure report card, and on the eve of a congressional vote on the only budget that includes the [...]

As early as today, the members of the House of Representatives will choose.  At a time of mass unemployment and slow growth, they will vote for more austerity or for more jobs.  At a time of Gilded Age inequality, they will decide whether the rich bear too large a burden or too little, whether working [...]

After listening to National Economic Advisor to the President Gene Sperling this morning, I think I have a better understanding of at least one reason why we ended up in this sequestration mess, and why no one in Washington can seem to figure way out of it. The White House didn’t know who it was [...]

How did the sequester happen? How is it possible that what supposedly was the worst possible way to cut the deficit somehow became what actually happened?

Over the weekend Ezra Klein, in a much retweeted blog post that was the talk of large parts of the political blogosphere, said that the GOP was never going to make a deal to avoid the sequester if it included a tax increase. Nothing…not the prospect of reductions in military spending, not the projected reduction in GDP, not the estimated increase in unemployment, not the lost possibility of a bigger deal to reduce the deficit and not the overwhelming likelihood that Republicans would get blamed for all of this…made any difference.

The GOP’s position seems to defy all economic and political commonsense until you realize how much GOP politics have changed in recent years.

The Speaker of the House last week said that taxing people to pay for government is theft. Let’s look at just where actual theft is occurring. Michael McAuliff and Sabrina Siddiqui covered the story at the Huffington Post, in John Boehner Compares Tax Proposals Of White House To Stealing, We don’t have a revenue problem. [...]

I was on Huffington Post Live today, talking about the story behind the recent news that the Postal Service is going to end Saturday deliver in August. I wrote about this recently in my post, The Postal Service Outrage.* This post outlines what is really going on with the Postal Service, and how it is [...]

With tonight’s State of the Union address, President Obama attempted to refocus his new second term with a focus on jobs and supporting the middle class.  He clearly wants to stop talking about deficits and debt and start talking about reviving the economy for people.  His best line was a clear attempt to pivot in [...]

Koch-funded Florida Tea-Party Sen. Marco Rubio gave the “Republican Response” to the President’s State of the Union speech. Then Koch-funded Kentucky Tea-Party Sen. Rand Paul gave the “Koch-funded Tea-Party” Republican response. (Did the networks ever air a Progressive Caucus response to Bush’s SOTUs?) They scared people with wild stories of deficits, taxes, job losses and [...]