In the ArenaEconomy
The President gave a terrific economic speech today, proposing some new jobs-creating initiatives, one of which–a 0% capital gains tax rate for small businesses–seems a Republican dream, but was hilariously opposed on deficit cutting grounds by Senator Mitch McConnell…whose votes on a range of budget items during the Bush presidency …
Today, in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai gave his own assessment to the length of time U.S. forces will need to stay in his country. It did not overlap too exactly with President Obama’s plan to begin drawing down forces in July of 2011, less than two years from now. The Associated Press reports:
After meeting Tuesday with U.S. Defense
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First, let me take us back, to a dark time just over a year ago, when the financial markets were collapsing, and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson went hat in hand to Congress, begging $700 billion for a program called TARP. On September 24, 2008, Paulson described the program this way:
The $700 billion program we have proposed is not a
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Lately, there has been no shortage of criticism that the Democratic health care bill doesn’t do enough to cut health care spending. My colleague Karen Tumulty had a great story in the magazine recently about how cost-containment provisions in health reform legislation have been whittled down. Right now, on the Senate floor, a group of …
In the ArenaUncategorized
This is one of the happier economic weeks the President has had this year. The unemployment numbers weren’t as bad as expected. The big banks are paying back their TARP loans ahead of schedule and with interest. But Obama has wisely decided to keep pushing jobs creation in a speech today (and may also start pushing deficit reduction by …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Lots of delusional nonsense from the right about climate change these days–especially the hyping of hacked emails from the East Anglia laboratory, which demonstrate that climate scientists can be every bit as unfortunately over-exuberant as other obsessive advocates. But the essential truth about climate change remains the same, as this …
What is it about those Nebraska governors-turned-senators? Did they not get enough attention as children? Do they chafe at being told they hail from a “flyover” state? Does that unicameral legislature leave too few adoring supporters? Bob Kerrey was infamous for waiting until the verrrrrry last moment to make up his mind on important …
In the ArenaUncategorized
This is important. For the Obama surge to work in Afghanistan, the Taliban/Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan have to be cleaned out. The Pakistanis have been reluctant to do that–given that they invented the Taliban (to counter a feared Indian takeover of Afghanistan). But the Obamistas seem to have delivered an ultimatum: you move …
Tomorrow, Massachusetts voters will go to the polls for primaries to fill Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat. Bet on whomever can survive on the lowest turnout. No, seriously, having lived in Massachusetts for six bitter winters, I can attest: ain’t nobody gonna be lining up outside in the cold for any of these virtually unheard of …
The scuttle around Capitol Hill today is that public option devotees in the Senate are considering giving up the fight – in exchange for some rather hefty parting gifts. But before we get too far, let’s clear one thing up – again. The public option “alternative” – which would replace the opt-out public plan currently in the …
A few weeks back, the White House was jubilant when 23 prominent economists sent a letter to President Obama endorsing key elements of the Senate health care bill. Today, nearly all of those same economists and a few others–among this group, Nobel prize winners, former presidents of the American Economic Association and former directors …
Ruth Marcus has a good suggestion here.
If the weekend is any guide, the Senate health reform bill is not likely to undergo much tweaking. Between Friday and Sunday, despite hours of debate on the Senate floor, the only amendments that passed were those from Democrats simply reiterating things the bill already calls for. One sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was a “sense …
