Visual source: Newseum
Paul Krugman reports the shock over Democrats not simply sitting still to recieve whatever insult Republicans want to sling.
At the beginning of last week, the commentariat was in raptures over the Serious, Courageous, Game-Changing Ryan plan. But now that the plan has been exposed as the cruel nonsense it is, what we’re hearing a lot about is the need for more civility in the discourse. President Obama did a bad thing by calling cruel nonsense cruel nonsense; he hurt Republican feelings, and how can we have a deal when the GOP is feeling insulted?
Maureen Dowd points that Ryan's plan comes direct from the gold-plated halls of Aynrandland.
Congressman Ryan has said the reason he got involved in public service was "by and large" because of Rand, and he has encouraged his staffers to read "Atlas Shrugged."
You'd think that our fiscal meltdown would have shown the flaw in Rand's philosophy. She thought we could derive morals from the markets. But we derived immorality from the markets.
She wrote about Nietzschean superheroes who made things. She died before capitalism evolved into a vampire casino where you could bet against investments you sold to your clients, and make money off something you didn’t own or that existed only on paper.
That's giving too much credit to Rand. If she was writing today, Howard Roark would have invented the credit default swap. There was no kind of crook that Rand didn't love.
Walter Mondale points out the truth about Reagan and taxes that the modern GOP won't admit.
I told the truth in 1984. “The American people will have to pay Mr. Reagan’s bills,” I said in my acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. “The budget will be squeezed. Taxes will go up. . . . It must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.”
I lost the election, but I won the debate. Reagan ended up increasing taxes in 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987 to mend the budget and tax systems.
The Mercury News editorial board welcomes the clarity of President Obama's positions in this week's speech.
The most heartening aspects of Obama's speech were the lines he drew after giving so much ground in recent months. He will refuse to renew the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he said. He will not allow Medicare to be turned into a voucher program. He will not sacrifice investments in education, energy and infrastructure. ...
The plan he offered was not perfect, and it's not likely to emerge from the legislative meat-grinder intact. But it is a balanced approach. It asks a little more from those who have benefited most from this nation's opportunities, in dramatic contrast with the Republican plan.
O. Ricardo Pimentel dosn't so much disagree with Paul Ryan, as dismiss him.
There's balance, and then Ryan's approach: Cut, cut and then cut - inappropriately, both on spending and taxes. That would be like unnecessarily demoting yourself to part-time work and then making your kids pay for their own health care.
...
And, sorry, tax cuts causing more revenue because they create jobs is hokum. No matter; it is a feature in any GOP plan, in good times and bad. You'd think we'd get a clue about motives given their consistency about that.
Dana Milbank reveals his own theory about President Obama's hidden past.
Donald Trump has soared to the top of the Republican presidential polls, thanks in part to the whimsical candidate's claim that he has hired investigators to hunt down President Obama's birth certificate in Hawaii. ...
Let's hope Trump's gumshoes don't succeed in locating the secret document, for if they do they will learn the horrible, gruesome truth: Obama was born a moderate. In fact — and I have this straight from the vital records people in Honolulu — he was the bastard child of an unholy union of pragmatism and centrism.
Honestly, reading the rest of this column makes me wonder if Milbank wrote it before or after Obama's speech, because we seem to have heard very different things.
Okay, so this Leonard Pitts piece has appeared in this space before. Read it again before you read the bit I have coming up next.