Breaking up partisan budgetary knife-fights can be perilous business, so in its new report on a cluster of expiring tax breaks and scheduled spending cuts, the Congressional Budget Office, home to Capitol Hill’s weary fiscal referees, exercises restraint. While most Washingtonians call it “Taxmageddon,” the CBO bean-counters refer to the event, set to take place January 1 if Congress doesn’t act, as “the Fiscal Restraint That Is Scheduled to Occur in 2013.” Catchy. But the stakes are high and the CBO’s warning is dire, so just for a second, they really let their inhibitions go:
My colleague Fareed Zakaria has a really smart column today about Germany’s role in the Greek debt crisis–and guess what? He’s not bashing the Germans for fiscal austerity. He’s praising them for the compassion they’ve shown, at a stiff cost to German taxpayers, to keep the Greeks afloat. For me, though, the most interesting thing [...]
I have always been skeptical of the conventional Beltway wisdom that Florida Senator Marco Rubio will be the politico who finally builds bridges between Latinos and Republicans. It’s not that Rubio isn’t a capable envoy; his efforts to craft an alternative version of the DREAM Act (legislation to let illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. [...]
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman but that states should decide whether it’s legal for same-sex couples to marry. The Nevada Democrat says he believes that people should marry whomever they want, and that, in his words, “it’s no business of mine [...]
Dick Lugar’s Tuesday primary loss in Indiana has inspired a predictably large amount of introspection about polarization in Congress. It marked a dark trend, but did it augur the death of all moderation? No. There are certain political realities that still exist for Republicans running in Blue states and Democrats in Red territory.
Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar did not go quietly, after losing his primary contest Tuesday in Indiana to a Tea Party-backed challenger, Richard Mourdock. And if there is one thing the American people need to read today, it is his farewell missive, which may prove to be as prescient and long lasting as Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 [...]
Two years ago, in April of 2010, President Obama nominated economist Peter Diamond to the board of the Federal Reserve. Four months later, after Republicans in the Senate blocked his appointment, Obama nominated him again. After almost a full year of waiting, Diamond gave up and withdrew his name from consideration last summer. Republicans’ complaint: [...]
Marco Rubio’s “major foreign policy speech” on Wednesday involved loads of meta-analysis about his vice presidential prospects and political positioning. But it did turn out to be a relatively learned and substantive speech, at least by the admittedly not-high standards of a young U.S. Senator. Rubio outlined a kind of internationalist-hawk vision, spurning both the [...]
Mike Allen’s Playbook features an excerpt from a “major foreign policy speech” Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio is giving today at the Council on Foreign Relations. Rubio may not be Sarah Palin, but he does make more grand pronouncements about foreign policy than you’d expect from a 40-year-old freshman senator and ex-state legislator. I’m also [...]
It can be a little hard to follow the teachings of Washington’s centrist cognoscenti. In arguing that a grand fiscal bargain is feasible even in this heated election year, the New York Times today talked to middle-way thinktankers and Gang-of Senators (your Warners, Grassleys and Wydens)–in other words, the types who always think the Simpson-Bowles deficit proposal is one Super [...]
