The Commentariat -- April 14

See the next post -- "President Obama's Fiscal Plan" -- for commentary regarding the President's speech yesterday.

Dana Milbank reports on the rollout of "The People's Budget," an alternate budget proposal put forward by the Congressional Progressive Congress. "Among the highlights: A $4 trillion tax increase over 10 years. An increase in the top tax rate to 49 percent. A $2.3 trillion cut in defense spending – and an increase in domestic spending. Oh, and they would revive the “public option” to offer government-run health care." CW: the CPC may not be ready for primetime, if Milbank's description of their rollout event is accurate, but their budget plan sounds mighty sensible to me. ...

     ... Update: here's a pdf of an overview of the CPC "People's Budget." AND here's a pdf of a working paper on the budget by policy analyst Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute.

"Plutocracy Now." Mother Jones posts eleven charts & graphs that explain what's wrong with the U.S. Here's one of them, but take a look at the rest:

News Flash!! the Federal Government Finds that Financial Institutions Screwed Mortgagors. And regulators did nothing about it. And they're still doing nothing about it. ...

... Gretchen Morgenson & Louise Story of the New York Times: "A voluminous report on the financial crisis by the United States Senate — citing internal documents and private communications of bank executives, regulators, credit ratings agencies and investors — describes business practices that were rife with conflicts during the mortgage mania and reckless activities that were ignored inside the banks and among their federal regulators.... The report adds significant new evidence to previously disclosed material showing that a wide swath of the financial industry chose profits over propriety during the mortgage lending spree. It also casts a harsh light on what the report calls regulatory failures, which helped deepen the crisis. Singled out for criticism is the Office of Thrift Supervision...." The 650-page report is here. ...

In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress. -- Sen. Carl Levin

     ... Well, at least Carl Levin says the government should do something about it. Bloomberg Update: "Senator Carl Levin, releasing the findings of a two-year inquiry yesterday, said he wants the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine whether Goldman Sachs violated the law by misleading clients who bought the complex securities known as collateralized debt obligations without knowing the firm would benefit if they fell in value. The Michigan Democrat also said federal prosecutors should review whether to bring perjury charges against Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and other current and former employees who testified in Congress last year. Levin said they denied under oath that Goldman Sachs took a financial position against the mortgage market solely for its own profit, statements the senator said were untrue." ...

... Daniel Indiviglio of The Atlantic: "Big banks and mortgage servicers have reportedly botched loan documentation, falsified foreclosure paperwork, and aggressively avoided modifying mortgages. Today, federal regulators, via the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, told them they really shouldn't have been such crooks. "There were no fines issued.... While regulators have gone pretty easy on the banks and servicers, this isn't the end of foreclosuregate. Lawsuits are still pending from the state attorneys general. A settlement or more serious punishment may come from that. Some investors are also suing banks over their poor documentation and procedures. So we'll have to wait to see if the courts treat the big banks as kindly as regulators." The Fed's gutsy press release boasts about the government's tough enforcement actions.

Steven Dennis of Roll Call: "Speaker John Boehner is playing defense ahead of Thursday’s House vote on a compromise fiscal 2011 spending bill after a new report showed the deal would have almost no impact on this year’s deficit, despite making $38 billion in spending cuts." ...

... Here's the report, by David Rogers of Politico: the budget settled on among the leaders "will have only a minimal impact on outlays or direct spending before the 2011 fiscal year ends Sept. 30. And once contingency funds related to Afghanistan and Pakistan are counted, the news gets worse: The CBO now says that total appropriations outlays for 2011 are higher — not lower — by about $3.3 billion than it had estimated in December."

Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: "... playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States is a very dangerous game. And yet there is a report today that one of the adults on Capitol Hill — yeah, I’m talking about you, Speaker Boehner — is seeking a way out of the rules of the game." Capehart cites a report by Ben Smith in Politico, but he's actually referring to this report by Politico's Ben White, which we linked in yesterday's Ledes.

"Spillionaires." Kim Barker of the Washington Post: "The oil spill that was once expected to bring economic ruin to the Gulf Coast appears to have delivered something entirely different: a gusher of money." But BP's cash handouts, totaling "more than $16 billion so far," have been uneven and unfair. "To show how the money flowed, ProPublica interviewed people who worked on the spill and examined records for St. Bernard Parish, a coastal community about five miles southeast of downtown New Orleans. Those documents show that companies with ties to parish insiders got lucrative contracts and then charged BP for every possible expense.... Assignments for individual fishermen also fell under the control of political leaders."

How to Steal a Small Object so Only 5 Million People Will Notice. Robert Mackey of the New York Times: A video of Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, "admiring a ceremonial pen during a state visit to Chile, and then attempting to slip it into his pocket without anyone noticing, was annotated and set to music by the Czech television program 168 Hours on Sunday." The pen "was encrusted with semiprecious Chilean lapis lazuili stones." Videos of the incident have had a total of more than 5 million hits:

Right Wing World *

Paul Ryan tapes a "Kick Me" sign to his own ass. Conservative David Frum: "The Republican insistence on joining two negatives [cutting social programs & taxes on the rich] in hopes of producing one positive opened the way to President Obama’s speech Wednesday. That speech ... frames the debate in a way that is maximally useful for Democrats. This framing was made possible by the efforts of Republicans themselves, blinded by their own hopes, misdirected by their own messaging."

CW: I've brought the next two stories forward because I added them fairly late yesterday.

"He damn near hit us." Smoking Gun: "Newly released Federal Aviation Administration documents and audiotapes shed a scary new light on a bizarre incident late last year during which U.S. Senator James Inhofe landed his Cessna on a closed runway at a south Texas airport, scattering construction workers who ran for their lives as the politician’s plane hopscotched over them and six vehicles. The FAA material ... details how Inhofe, 76, chose to land on the main runway at the Cameron County Airport on October 21 despite being aware that it was closed and had a large ‘X’ on its threshold.... In a bid to avoid 'legal enforcement action,' Inhofe, who has a commercial pilot’s license, agreed to 'complete a program of remedial training,' according to an FAA letter sent in January to Inhofe.... In a statement today, Inhofe said, 'This is an old story, and the FAA and I have long consider the matter closed.'" With audio & facsimile of FAA documentation. ...

... Rachel Maddow features Inhofe's aviation skills in "Debunktion Junction":

Because they have no earthly idea what kind of a toll manual labor takes on an older person's body, nor do they give a damn, "Three Republican senators on Wednesday will propose a Social Security reform package that would raise the retirement age to 70 and cut benefits for the wealthy. Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Mike Lee (Utah) previewed their proposal on Fox News, saying that it will put the entitlement program on a long-term path to solvency without raising taxes." Reporting by Julian Fabian of The Hill.

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

The President speaks to the press before a meeting on his framework to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over twelve years with Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the chairmen of his bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform:



CNN: "In a joint opinion piece to be published Friday, the leaders of the United States, Britain and France lay out in stark terms their contention that Libya's future must not include its leader, Moammar Gadhafi. 'It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government,' said the article, titled 'Libya's Pathway to Peace,' by U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. 'It would be an unconscionable betrayal.' The article, which is slated to appear in the International Herald Tribune, Le Figaro, and Times of London, was sent to reporters by the White House." The New York Times publishes the joint letter here. ...

... Washington Post: "The splintered coalition of nations engaged in a four-week-old air campaign over Libya struggled Wednesday to come up with new tactics to topple Moammar Gaddafi without resorting to further Western engagement in Libya’s back-and-forth civil war. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the vanguard of intervention in favor of rebel forces, met at the Elysee Palace with British Prime Minister David Cameron. The two leaders have been the main actors in the NATO-led air war since the United States handed over leadership March 31 and pulled back most of its aircraft into a support role." ...

... New York Times: "Pentagon officials disclosed Wednesday that American warplanes had continued to strike targets in Libya even after the Obama administration said the United States was stepping back from offensive missions and letting NATO take the lead." ...

... AP: "A rebel in the besieged western Libyan city of Misrata says Moammar Gadhafi's troops have unleashed heavy shelling of the city's port, killing nine and wounding 20 people in the hours-long barrage."

Al Jazeera: "Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, has formed a new cabinet two weeks after sacking the country's government amid unprecendented protests against his rule. Assad also ordered the release of hundreds of protesters detained over the past couple of weeks but said  those who committed crimes 'against the nation and the citizens' would remain in jail."

President Obama will make remarks at a DNC fundraiser in Chicago at 7:25 pm ET, at another DNC fundraiser at 8:35 pm ET, & at a third DNC event at 10:30 pm ET. New York Times: "President Obama, having drawn battle lines with Republicans over how to cut the deficit, returned to his political home here Thursday for a fund-raising visit, bringing the message of fiscal responsibility and core Democratic values he laid out in a speech a day earlier. Mr. Obama’s overnight visit — which included a reunion with his former chief of staff, now the mayor-elect of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel — amounted to an unofficial kickoff of his re-election campaign." Chicago Tribune story here.

AP: "Congress sent President Barack Obama hard-fought legislation cutting a record $38 billion from federal spending on Thursday, bestowing bipartisan support on the first major compromise between the White House and newly empowered Republicans in Congress.... The tally in the House was 260-167. Among the supporters were 60 of the 87 first-term Republicans, many of them elected with tea party support.... The Senate added its approval a short while later, 81-19, and most of the opponents were conservatives who wanted deeper cuts." New York Times story here. ...

     ... Politico Related: "Fearing failure of a landmark budget deal that averted a government shutdown, House GOP leaders reached out to Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and top Democrats on the Appropriations Committee to pass the measure. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) contacted Hoyer on Wednesday and asked for his help, said GOP and Democratic sources. And Republicans certainly needed the help — on the 260-167 vote for passage, 59 Republicans voted no, and 81 Democrats voted yes."

     ... The Hill Update: "The House on Thursday afternoon approved two resolutions that would amend the FY 2011 spending bill to block funding designated for Planned Parenthood and last year's healthcare law. But House passage is largely symbolic, as the Senate did not pass either of the bills. Votes in both the House and the Senate were a condition that Republicans insisted on as part of last week's agreement on funding for the rest of the fiscal year." ...

     ... Washington Post Update 2: but Democrats held back their votes until late in the voting process, trying to force Republicans to "own" the spending cuts.

President Obama & Amir Hamad Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar will make statements to the press at 2:50 pm ET. AFP post-meeting report: "US President Barack Obama Thursday poured praise on the emir of Qatar, saying in Oval Office talks that the international coalition in Libya would have been impossible but for his leadership. Obama also thanked Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani for his role in supporting democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, in a sign of an increasing convergence of interests between Washington and Doha."

AP: "The House and Senate are ready to vote on legislation cutting almost $40 billion from the budget for the current year, but President Barack Obama and his GOP rivals are both eager to move on to multiyear fiscal plans that cut trillions instead of billions." ...

... AP: "A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in promised savings by the end of this budget year. The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would cut federal outlays from non-war accounts by just $352 million through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in immediate cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending."

Washington Post: Virginia "Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has advised a state board that it cannot impose new regulations that some argue would for the first time allow gay couples to adopt children in Virginia.... Cuccinelli’s position reverses one of his predecessor, William C. Mims, a former Republican legislator and now a Virginia Supreme Court justice."

Washington Post: "A Nevada air traffic controller allegedly fell asleep early Wednesday as a medical flight carrying a sick patient tried to land, leading federal authorities to order an immediate end to the practice of leaving one controller on duty during overnight shifts. The plane landed safely at Reno-Tahoe International Airport with the help of a radar controller based in California, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The Reno controller was suspended, and the FAA is investigating...." ...

... Meanwhile ... Washington Post: "The Transportation Security Administration and one of its sharpest congressional critics [Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)] are vowing to review air passenger screening procedures for young children amid an uproar over a video of a TSA screener giving an enhanced pat-down to a 6-year-old girl."

AP: "North Korea confirmed Thursday that it is preparing to indict an American who was reportedly arrested for proselytizing. Jun Young Su has been held since November last year, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. The report did not state what crime he was accused of, but South Korean media have reported an American was detained for spreading Christianity."

President Obama's Fiscal Plan

CW: Most of the underlying narrative in President Obama's speech was the same stuff you've been hearing from liberals all your life. If you thought it was refreshing and "new," it's because you haven't heard Barack Obama say it since, oh, say, 2008. BUT. For what it's worth, because I haven't seen anyone mention it, let me just add that the most effective theme in the speech was this one:

I believe it paints a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic. It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them. -- Barack Obama

     ... Casting the entire Republican philosophy of governance as pessimistic is brilliant. And it's true. This will hit a chord with voters (and, please, this was a one-hundred percent political speech) of all persuasions. Americans don't like pessimists. They like to win. They want the U.S. to "Win the Future" (a catchphrase, as Krugman says, that should earn its author an assignment "to count yurts in Outer Mongolia"). WTF.

New York Times Editors: "Negotiations with an implacable opposition are about to get much tougher, but it was a relief to see Mr. Obama standing up for the values that got him to the table." Comments are here.

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "If there is an essence of the liberal vision for America..., it's the idea that a modern, enlightened society promises economic security to all, notwithstanding illness, accident of birth, or age.... In the era of Roosevelt and Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, Democrats talked openly and proudly of this mission. But in the last few years, at least, Democrats have seemed less comfortable with such rhetoric.... This contrast has been vivid in fights over the economy, climate change, and health care, with Democrats making sensible, nuanced arguments about growth rates and Republicans making hyperbolic, simplistic claims about 'socialism.' Not on Wednesday."

Rick Hertzberg: "Given the position his own reluctance, until now, to stake out a clear ideological divide had left him in, Obama succeeded in constructing a reasonably solid fortification for the fiscal battles to come."

Adam Serwer of American Prospect: "... despite the signs the president might tack right on this issue, he basically ended up giving the most full-throated rhetorical defense of American liberalism I think I've ever heard him give."

"The Umpire Strikes Back." Jon Chait of The New Republic: President Obama "beat Ryan and the Republicans to a bloody pulp.... He expressed moral outrage in a way I've never heard him do before, and in a way I didn't think he was capable of."

Massimo Calabresi of Time: "President Obama didn't offer a lot of specifics about how he intends to close the federal budget deficit in his speech at GW Wednesday, but he did make one thing clear: he intends to go head-to-head with Republicans over taxes."

Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget & Policy Priorities looks at the numbers & doesn't like 'em: "Because the Obama plan relies on budget cuts for two-thirds of its deficit reduction measures, it goes dangerously far in ... cuts in mandatory programs other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security," i.e., "in core programs for low-income Americans, our most vulnerable people.... Another significant concern stems from the President’s proposal to limit the annual growth in Medicare costs per beneficiary to the per capita rate of growth in the ... GDP plus only 0.5 percentage points and to require automatic cuts in Medicare if this target would otherwise be exceeded. ... Finally, the President’s plan calls for a mechanism to trigger automatic reductions in programs and tax expenditures if the debt would exceed certain benchmarks.... But all triggers like this that have been designed in the past have ... required the deepest budget cuts when the economy was weakest and the smallest cuts when it was strongest — the opposite of what sound economic policy entails.... It should be recognized that this plan is a rather conservative one, significantly to the right of the Rivlin-Domenici plan." ...

     ... Update: commenting on Greenstein's analysis, which he endorses, Paul Krugman writes of Obama's budget proposal, "... it’s a center-right plan already; if it’s the starting point for negotiations that move the solution toward lower taxes for the rich and even harsher cuts for the poor, just say no."

President Obama, speaking at George Washington University, presents his plan to reduce the deficit. Video of full speech:

Here are the President's full remarks, as prepared for delivery. ...

... On the Ryan/Republican Budget Plan: Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.... In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? ... That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President. The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.... There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. -- Barack Obama

NEW. Here's the White House's fact sheet on the President's proposal for a long-term budget framework.

The New York Times comparison between major features of Ryan's & Obama's plans demonstrates how Obama is more in line with what pollsters say the majority of American people want.

Paul Krugman: "Much better than many of us feared. Hardly any Bowles-Simpson — yay!"

Steve Benen: "President Obama's speech ... was exactly the sort of spirited defense of government and progressive values the nation desperately needed to hear right now."

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones wonders how this will play out:

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again. -- Barack Obama

Meow! Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones: in anticipation of President Obama's surprise speech in which he reputedly was going to rely on Catfood Commission recommendations, mainstream Democrats shifted to the right to suddenly embrace the Catfood Commission, which they had previously condemned or criticized. CW: now that Obama has given his speech, in which he barely mentioned the Katzenjammer Kids, what will the disoriented Dems do next? They were against it before they were for it before they were against it again? Having no principles makes life confusing.

The Commentariat -- April 13

Artwork by Victor Juhasz for Rolling Stone.** "The Real Housewives of Wall Street." Matt Taibbi of Rollng Stone on the Secret, Unofficial Budget in which Ben Bernanke & people you never heard of lend billions of your money at next to zero interest to firms that don't need it, that don't deserve it (shoddy hedge funds! Muammar Gaddafi!) & that may lend it back to the government at three percent, and if you're really lucky, to you at some usurious rate. Taibbi zeroes in on a $220 million risk-free Fed loan to two socialite ladies who had almost no business experience, a tax-free Caymen Islands vanity firm & prominent bankster husbands. Thanks to reader Karen S. for the link. And, as always, thanks to Sen. Bernie Sanders for making this info. semi-accessible (Bernanke is holding back all the info he can). CW: you might find reading in this format easier, but you'll have to click thru the pages.

The Official Budget

Here are the details of the FY 2011 budget cuts from the House Appropriations Committee in a fairly annoying Scribd format. Ezra Klein put them into handy, if fuzzy, graph form, that compares the cuts to FY 2010's budget (blue) & Obama's proposed budget (green):

... Lisa Mascaro of the Los Angeles Times: "The previously undisclosed reductions stunned advocates for community health centers, foreign aid and climate change research. Among the cuts is a $500-million reduction in funding for the federal health and nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC. Democrats staved off even bigger cuts, but the final package carried a decidedly Republican policy stamp." ...

... BUT. Andrew Taylor of the AP: "... the picture already emerging is of legislation financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially 'score' as savings to pay for spending elsewhere, but that often have little to no actual impact on the deficit. As a result of the legerdemain, Obama was able to reverse many of the cuts passed by House Republicans in February when the chamber passed a bill slashing this year's budget by more than $60 billion." ...

... AND Tim Fernholz of the National Journal: "... the final cuts in the deal are advertised as $38.5 billion less than was appropriated in 2010, but after removing rescissions, cuts to reserve funds, and reductions in mandatory spending programs, discretionary spending will be reduced only by $14.7 billion." CW: That is, the White House gave Republicans bragging rights but not so much in the way of cuts, or as Fernholz put it, the administration showed "a willingness to concede on rhetoric to find gains on substance." ...

... AND Derek Thompson of The Atlantic has a handy rundown of "real" cuts & "phantom" cuts negotiated in the budget deal. He does caution that these figures are debatable; that is, some of "phantom" cuts may represent real money that could have been spent elsewhere. ...

Glenn Greenwald tells liberal pundits to get real & quit lamenting President Obama's "ineptitude"; Obama is a shrewd negotiator who is getting exactly what he wants.

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post gives President Obama & Speaker Boehner passes for exaggerating the magnitude of the budget cuts, but he gives the media two Pinocchios for letting them get away with the "biggest cuts in history" boast.

... Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: during budget negotiations, "... a handful of relatively small-bore line items affecting particular industries attracted some of the most aggressive lobbying behind the scenes, as business interests, health care providers and others fought to hold on to, or kill, proposals that affected their bottom line." One of the most inexplicable victims of that lobbying effort -- Sen. Ron Wyden's Healthy Americans Act -- which allowed some workers to opt for healthcare insurance exchanges & which had nothing to do with budgetary concerns. ...

... Alexander Bolton of The Hill: Wyden says he may vote against the budget bill. ...

... Michael O'Brien & Jordan Fabian of The Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he's considering a filibuster of the budget agreement to fund the government for the remainder of this fiscal year."

The budget is a moral document. -- Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska):

Andrew Leonard of Salon: Republicans, fighting Medicare since 1964. Here's some Democratic pushback -- that worked (anybody remember President Goldwater?):

Paul Krugman suggests a VA-style public option for Medicare. He admits it won't happen because "... what would terrify the right, of course, is the likelihood that genuine socialized medicine would actually" be popular. ...

... The Progressive Change Campaign Committee asks you to "Sign the petition [to] President Obama:

If you cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits for me, my parents, my grandparents, or families like mine, don't ask for a penny of my money or an hour of my time in 2012. I'm going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates -- not Democrats who help Republicans make harmful cuts to key programs.

... If the President begins the discussion by saying we must increase taxes on the American people – as his budget does - my response will be clear: tax increases are unacceptable and are a nonstarter. We don’t have deficits because Americans are taxed too little, we have deficits because Washington spends too much. And, at a time when the American people face skyrocketing prices at the pump, energy tax hikes are a particularly bad idea. -- John Boehner ...

     ... CW: parse what Boehner says. This is not a read-my-lips statement. It depends on where Obama "begins" the conversation, he says. Just last week Boehner said he would "have the conversation" about tax hikes. And his spokesman said the statement above "doesn't preclude discussion."

Mark Ambinder of the National Journal, who has his White House sources, lays out what President Obama will say today: "Obama’s political strategy ... is to force the belligerents to deal on his terms.... Obama will set the limits now, and spend the next six months pushing hard to make sure Republicans can’t cross them. He will not accept Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system, nor will he endorse the breakup of Medicaid into block grants for the states. He will not accept a deficit-reduction plan that draws all of its force from government-transfer programs aimed at poor and middle-class Americans. He will not accept a plan that doesn’t ask the rich to pay more, both by raising marginal income tax rates back to pre-2003 levels for some and by lifting the cap on wages subject to the Social Security tax."

David Leonhardt of the New York Times: if Congress does nothing, the deficit will shrink -- a lot. CW: Ezra Klein made this same point the other day. The secret to the do-nothing remedy: the Bush tax cuts expire.

CW: I don't do polls, but ...

     ... SOME are too good to ignore. CNN: "Donald Trump is now tied with Mike Huckabee for first place when Republicans are asked who they support for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, according to a new national poll." ...

     ... AND there's this from Public Policy Polling, a Democratic pollster with a good rep for reliability: "PPP's newest national poll finds that after a little more than 3 months in charge House Republicans have fallen so far out of favor with the American public that it's entirely possible Democrats could take control of the House back next year." ...

     ... AND Another New Poll Just Like the Old Polls. Susan Page of USA Today: Americans "Overwhelmingly oppose making major changes to Medicare. By 2-to-1, they support minor changes or none at all to control costs, rather than major changes or a complete overhaul. Even a third of Republicans say the government should not try to control the costs of Medicare." They "Favor imposing higher taxes on families with household incomes of $250,000 and above, as Obama has endorsed: 59% support the idea, 37% oppose it."

Mitt Romney finally takes a stand on something "controversial." Kasie Hunt of Politico: "Mitt Romney forcefully said Tuesday night that he believes President Barack Obama was born in America and that 'the citizenship test has been passed.'"

Right Wing World *

Al Franken stole the Minnesota Senate election, and other nonsense from Michele Bachmann. ...

... Like this: Something else that we can do to reinforce our pro-marriage, pro-life, pro-family agenda is to limit the subject-matter jurisdiction of the courts.... We have it within our authority to decide what judges can rule on and what they can’t. -- Michelle Bachmann

Your Tax Dollars Devoted to Amateur Lit Crit. Rand Paul, still on his light-bulb kick (he opposes energy-efficient bulbs -- and toilets!) provides a Congressional Committee with a synopsis & exegesis of Ayn Rand's novel Anthem. He mispronounces "Ayn," but why quibble? Besides, the mispronunciation could be a subtle part of his pushback against the Rand Paul Birther Cabal who assert Sen. Randy is named after Ayn Rand:

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Another "Threaten Lazy Bureaucrats Day." Wisconsin Politics: "Gov. Scott Walker says he may have to again consider laying off state employees if his collective bargaining law remains tied up in the courts for much more than the next week or two."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Barry Bonds, the former outfielder who hit more career home runs than anyone else in baseball history, was convicted Wednesday of a single count of obstruction of justice, but a federal jury here could not reach a verdict on the question of whether Bonds had lied about never knowingly using steroids during his career."

Al Jazeera: "The international contact group on Libya has agreed to set up a temporary 'trust fund' to help channel assets to the opposition Transitional National Council in Benghazi.... The group united to call on Libya's longterm leader Muammar Gaddafi to step down.... The financial mechanism being set up will allow international donations to be made directly available to Gaddafi's opponents -- possibly from frozen assets of the Gaddafi administration."

Politico: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has had conversations with top Wall Street executives, asking how close Congress could push to the debt limit deadline without sending interests rates soaring and causing stock prices to go lower, people familiar with the matter said. Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Tuesday night that he was not aware of any such conversations."

President Obama spoke about fiscal policy earlier this aternoon. Wall Street Journal: "In a midday speech in Washington, Mr. Obama will propose a plan that includes cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicare, limits on military spending and an overhaul of the tax system designed to bring in more revenue. To pre-empt criticism from lawmakers, Mr. Obama is hosting congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday morning to preview his goals." AP story here. ...

     ... Update: here's the Washington Post's story on the President's speech. New York Times story here. See video clips in left column.

Washington Post: "Egypt’s top prosecutor has ordered former President Hosni Mubarak and his sons detained for 15 days for questioning about the origins of their family’s wealth, Egypt’s state-run television station reported Wednesday. The news comes a day after the former president was hospitalized in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, just as prosecutors had moved to interrogate him and his sons regarding allegations of corruption."

Wall Street Journal: "Sens. John Kerry and John McCain proposed legislation Tuesday to create a 'privacy bill of rights' to protect people from the increasingly invasive commercial data-collection industry. The bill, labeled the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011, would impose new rules on companies that gather personal data, including offering people access to data about them, or the ability to block the information from being used or distributed."

AP: "Former Sen. Rick Santorum on Wednesday announced a fundraising committee that allows him to take the first steps toward a presidential campaign."