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- The Congressional Budget Office released its latest projections and concluded that the federal government could run a $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009. It's hard to say exactly how this will affect the political process in Congress but at least you can count on conservative Democrats confusing deficits with spending and conservative Republicans calling Obama's budget a "threat to the nation." You can also count on David Brooks going back to his default "Obama is trying to do too much" position, even after he was earlier so convinced by the White House of the interconnectedness of all these problems that he wrote a column about it.
- While the deficit is certainly a political problem, there is a silver lining for the Obama administration: it draws attention away from the mindless hyping of ultimately inconsequential presidential gaffes. After all, were it not for the CBO's projections, we might need to spend all day picking apart the wisdom of presidents appearing on late night television, or making sure we know about apologies the instant they're issued.
- It sometimes feels like health care reform, cap-and-trade, and EFCA will never pass in this Congress, regardless of how many Democrats are in the majority. So it comes as a relief that freshman Democrats are not letting anti-EFCA intimidation deter them (even The Wall St. Journal is abandoning the fear-mongering), and Republicans are seeing the that the writing's on the wall for health care and climate change, whether it's of their own accord or the result of an ultimatum.
- It's true that the issue of executive bonuses is substantively silly considering that they amount to one tenth of one percent of the total money issued to bail out AIG, but politically it's incredibly indicative of Timothy Geithner's (and the Obama administration's) reluctance to send these "indispensible" executives packing and get to the business of temporary nationalization and restructuring. Naturally, the clowns at CNBC think a salary of at least $250,000 is a prerequisite for fielding top Wall St. talent, which unintentionally boosts Brad DeLong's argument that we ought to be paying these execs like Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
- If we lived in a world where books like Liberal Fascism would never even be considered by a respectable publishing house, Alan Wolfe's patient essay explaining how liberals differ from socialists wouldn't be necessary. But since we live in a world where conservatives believe liberals = socialists = fascists = terrorists and such a view is taken seriously by our ever-vigilant mainstream media, necessity dictates its existence.
- Remainders: Public support for Obama's handling of the economy might be slipping; Americans for Tax Reform is truly a principled organization; like Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin has noting but contempt for the people of her state; Arlen Specter is looking forward to losing in the GOP primary next year; I love the headline, "Conservative Anti-Illegal Immigration Group Makes Strong Case for Legalization"; a washed-up pol makes overtures to a political movement whose best days are behind it; Michael Steele, conservatives, Constitutionally illiterate; Howard Dean can't get no respect; and it's never too early (well, ok, it is) to play 2012 Republican primary brackets!
--Mori Dinauer
