Addressing the Congressional Joint Economic Committee Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned policymakers to "avoid fiscal actions that could impede the ongoing economic recovery." Given the grim predictions for job losses and slower economic growth forecast to result from the August debt ceiling deal and the Ryan GOP budget plan, Bernanke was certainly right […]

"Congressional historians said Mr. Boehner's move was unprecedented." While the New York Times was referring to Speaker John Boehner's refusal to grant the President's request for a September 7 address to joint session of Congress, "unprecedented" is apt description for the stone wall of Republican obstructionism facing Barack Obama from the moment he took the […]

As the New York Times reported Sunday, within the Obama White House a fierce debate is raging about what to do next about jobs and the economy. But on the same day Americans learned advisers David Plouffe and Bill Daley are pushing President Obama to put forward only proposals which can pass Congress as part […]

The ink isn't yet dry (or even written) on the 11th hour debt deal, but the media are already doing their usual body count of the victors and vanquished. In the Washington Post, conventional wisdom regurgitation machine Chris Cillizza produced the predictable winners and losers list. While the Wall Street Journal and right-wing columnists proclaim […]

"The people who are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of al Qaeda terrorists.," former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neilldeclared in April, adding, "They're really putting our whole society at risk by threatening to round up 50 percent of the members of the Congress, who are loony, who would put our […]

"If we get to the point where you've damaged the full faith and credit of the United States," Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee exclaimed in January, "that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity." But if that economic catastrophe comes to pass, its cause will not have been dementia, but disinformation. […]

Whatever the resolution to the Republican hostage-taking of the U.S. debt ceiling, it's becoming increasingly clear it will a painful one. Failure to boost the $14.3 trillion limit by August 2nd, as even some of the GOP extortionists are only now beginning to understand, would produce what Speaker John Boehner admitted would be "a financial […]

As the GOP hostage-taking drama over raising the debt limit appears headed towards a final showdown, Republican Congressmen, Senators and presidential candidates alike are pushing the "Cut, Cap and Balance" pledge. While Mitch McConnell's "Plan B" would see Republicans yield on boosting the $14.3 trillion debt limit now in exchange for a mechanism to gut […]

As the debate over health care reform heated up in the fall of 2009, Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander called Medicaid "a medical ghetto" that "none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care." As it turns out, Alexander and his GOP colleagues were […]

President Obama Addresses the Nation on the Debt Ceiling* (As Prepared for Delivery, July 1, 2011.) My fellow Americans, I want to speak to you today about a matter of the greatest national urgency. We face a crisis unique in our history. This threat comes not from a foreign foe or bloodthirsty terrorists, but is […]