Monthly Archives: July 2011

Thaddeus McCotter has told Republicans and tea partiers it’s time for a truce: Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), a Republican presidential candidate, called Saturday morning for Republicans and the Tea Party to stop fighting and work together to help save the … Continue reading →

A few days ago Jack Balkin, a law professor at Yale–remember that he’s at Yale, it will come in handy–offered up a funny but possibly ingenious solution to the debt ceiling problem: Are there other ways for the president to … Continue reading →

Yesterday it was Kuttner. Today’s it’s Greider: The most distressing outcome of the deficit hysteria gripping Washington may be what Barack Obama has revealed about himself. It was disconcerting to watch the president slip-slide so easily into voicing the fallacious … Continue reading →

I agree that most Republicans and Tea Partiers–there’s a lot of overlap, but they’re not entirely synonymous–don’t actively want the economy to tank. But this I don’t think is right: At the same time, an awful lot of them sure … Continue reading →

It’s hard to call a completely arbitrary and self-inflicted legal impediment to rationality a “crisis,” but I think it’s now fair to use the word to describe the debt limit. Because no family prints money, controls interstate commerce or stimulates … Continue reading →

One of the ironies of the GOP pushing up to possible default as a way to deliver a defeat to President Obama is that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, the GOP will be ceding tremendous power to Obama, … Continue reading →

Whenever Americans who pay a modicum of attention to Washington focus in on the machinations in Congress, someone invariably suggests that our government would be less dysfunctional if it were a parliamentary system. But it isn’t, and there’s no reason … Continue reading →

CNN analyst and nihilist Erick Erickson‘s letter to Congressional Republicans, which they are reportedly sending around to one another: Now is a time for choosing. Now is your time for choosing.As I pointed out to John Boehner yesterday, despite what the pundits … Continue reading →

Last December there was much wailing about how Barack Obama had rolled over for the Republicans. The Bush tax rates, which exacerbated the nation’s already horrible inequalities of income and wealth, had been extended, but Obama had gotten significant concessions … Continue reading →

Krugman: What Obama has offered — and Republicans have refused to accept — is a deal in which less than 20 percent of the deficit reduction comes from new revenues. This puts him slightly to the right of the average Republican voter. … Continue reading →