Yesterday, the German Parliament relented and agreed to let the Greek debt restructuring go forward, but only the price of crushing austerity for the Greek economy. This is a widespread attitude in Germany, where aid to the Greeks is unpopular.

The other day, Jörg Krämer, chief economist for Commerzbank in Frankfurt, said of the Greeks, “If you live beyond your means, then you can repair your balance sheet only if your consumption goes down.”

But the Germans might take a moment and reflect on their own history.

The latest jobs report was a welcome surprise. Jobs increased in January by 243,000, cutting the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent.

The question remains: Is this a blip, or has the economy turned a corner?

Earlier in the week, the Congressional Budget Report put out a more pessimistic report, showing unemployment rising to 8.9 percent by the final quarter of this year (which happens to include Election Day), and peaking at 9.2 percent in early 2013.

According to the CBO, we won’t return to pre-recession employment levels until 2019.

Why the grim picture? CBO assumes more budget cutting, as the Bush tax cuts sunset, the deficit keeps declining, and there is no further offsetting stimulus.

Mitt Romney’s newly released tax returns, showing that he paid taxes in 2010 at a rate of just 13.9 percent on income of $21.6 million, should provide ammunition for President Barack Obama’s newly rediscovered populism. Obama is on record supporting a “Buffett Rule,” that the boss should pay at least the same tax rate as the help.

In the watered down economic dialogue of 2012, a flat tax rate rather pitifully passes for the progressive position. Not so long ago, progressives were of the view that the more money you made, the higher your rate should be. The tax schedule should be, well, progressive. The original presidential sponsor of this concept was that Bolshevik, Theodore Roosevelt.

The December jobs numbers are good news—sort of—for the economy and the Obama re-election campaign. The economy added 200,000 new jobs, and the duration of unemployment is down slightly. Wages and hours worked are up, too. We can anticipate continuing progress between now and November.

Thank God for elections and election years. An election gives our president, who must face the voters in November, permission to think and act like a partisan. It’s long overdue.

President Obama has boldly made key recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The Republican strategy has been to destroy these agencies by failing to confirm appointees. In the case of the new CFPB, that meant nobody in charge to make key decisions to make the new bureau operational. In the case of the NLRB, it meant the lack of a quorum would paralyze the agency altogether.

The cave-in by the House Republicans on the payroll tax is on terms that keeps this conflict going well into the election year--and on terms very favorable to Barack Obama and the Democrats. For the GOP, the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut is the worst possible politics.

First, they look weak (because they are weak); and second, the same drama will be replayed next year with the same outcome. Raising taxes on millionaires rather than cutting Social Security or Medicare, or hiking payroll taxes, wins every time.

Karl Rove’s latest ad has to set an all-time record for hypocrisy and factual inversion. The ad actually manages to blame Elizabeth Warren for the bank bailouts.

As anyone who hasn’t spent the past three years in a cave must know, Warren has been the nation’s single most effective, relentless, and brave critic of the bailouts. It was that service as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel that made her one of America’s most admired public leaders.