×
- I don't think it's much of a political gamble for the president to observe that government efforts at economic stimulus have been accomplished "without the help of an opposition party," which "presided over the decision-making that led to the crisis" and "decided to hand it over to others to solve." Voters will judge Democrats next year on the strength of the economy, so they might as well preemptively take credit for recovery should it come, and remind people that it's an issue on which Republicans have no credibility.
- If cornered, I'd probably concede that Ben Nelson has no idea what a war bond actually is. But the Nebraska senator's call for "fiscal discipline" while promoting something that is very much deficit spending is laughable. Fortunately, money spent on the military isn't actually on the books, so we can borrow money for war forever and never have to pay it back.
- Howard Dean was quite wrong when he said last week that health-care reform should be defeated if the public option is stripped, but he has been consistently right on another point: Health-care reform passing without immediate benefit to Americans has zero political upside for Democrats. Opening up Medicare to those under 65 and offering the option in the exchanges would be one way to demonstrate the value of pursuing health-care reform and the price of inaction.
- Remainders: The Republican leadership in Congress is adamantly opposed to spending leftover TARP money on jobs; Congress isn't much interested in the implications of "climategate"; Ezra Klein thinks Americans ought to be aware that rising health care costs = lower wages; there's no reason to trust anything Joe Lieberman says, but let's hope this is true; and some more evidence that Republicans just aren't serious about governing.
--Mori Dinauer
