Quote of the Day

From Kevin Drum:

So explain to me: what's courageous about a Republican congressman proposing spending cuts for the poor, entitlement cuts only in the far future, tax cuts for the rich today, and hands off the Pentagon forever? Nothing I can think of.

Dishonest

From Paul Krugman:

Except briefly during the Korean War, the United States has never achieved unemployment as low as Ryan and co. are claiming. The Fed believes that the lowest unemployment rate compatible with price stability is between 5 and 6 percent — that is, twice what Ryan is claiming he will achieve.

The Deficit's such a BIG problem,...

That we need to increase it over the next 10 years before we can start bringing it down by eliminating Medicare. And this is called a Serious and Courageous plan? UPDATE: From Matthew Yglesias: "All the various cuts that take place before the Great Medicare Phaseout don’t compensate for the tax cuts that Ryan proposes, so relative to current law debt goes up. Then further out in the future if we implement the Medicare elimination plan, debt starts to decline."

Folx - it's not Medicare reform, it's eliminating Medicare entirely

(If you don't believe me, just look how plainly it's stated in the first line of this piece from the Economist's DIA blog: "PAUL RYAN'S plan to replace Medicare with a system of vouchers for seniors to buy health care on the private market." Hey, if that's what you're for, then this is the program for you. But, as usual, the conservatives are trying to pretty up (and hide) what they're really after. Josh Marshall sets it out pretty clearly (while also getting on the Dems for falling for the trick)

What the Republicans are proposing are not cuts. Some level of cuts and/or cost containment in Medicare are necessary because medical inflation is growing so quickly. But these aren't cuts. They're using a temporary budget crisis and the need to slow the rate of Medicare costs over long run simply to abolish the program. That's a bait and switch. It's the medical side equivalent of the "private accounts" bamboozle that President Bush used in 2005 to try to phase out Social Security.

Money in Politics

Kevin Drum highlights the McComish case which was argued before the Supreme Court today. He cites Paul Waldman, highlighting the main issue for me:

What is the "right" at issue here? It's not the right to free speech, since the self-financed candidate still can speak as much as he likes. It's the "right" to have the loudest voice if you have the most money, to drown out every other voice.

Which isn't a right at all. It's a privilege: the privilege of those with money to bend the political system to their will, to have the biggest megaphone, to make sure that their money gives them the ability to put a thumb on the electoral scale.

Conservatives favor those with money, so expect this one to be a 5-4 decision one way or the other with the 4 conservatives on the Court voting as a bloc.

That about sums up Newt

From The Economist's DIA blog:

"Now Mr Gingrich has added to this string of embarrassments with an acrobatic flip-flop on America’s involvement in Libya. Barely three weeks ago he told Fox News that Mr Obama should suppress the Libyan air force and establish a no-fly zone over the country right away. Yesterday he announced that a military intervention was a terrible idea to which he would never have resorted as president. Then he issued a convoluted explanation claiming these two stances were consistent, before criticising the president for his confusion and lack of resolve."

Who to believe?

The guy who's future political career depends on bringing President Obama down a couple of notches...

"This is about as badly run as any foreign operation in our lifetime... This is as badly executed, I think, as any policy we've seen since WWII, and it will become a case study for how not to engage in this type of activity."

Or a random commenter at Tom Ricks' blog...?

"The air campaign has been about as perfect as can be..."

I'm going with the random commenter.