Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich want Congress to let states go bankrupt:
An additional benefit of a new voluntary bankruptcy law for states is that its mere existence may deter any state from ever availing itself of its provisions. If government employee union bosses know that they could have all their contracts annulled under federal bankruptcy law, either through a plan of reorganization voluntarily entered into by state leaders or by the voters through proposition, they may be far more accommodating with state governments to restructure government employee union workforces, pensions and work rules.
Federal bailouts must come to an end. Federal taxpayers in states that balance their budgets should not have to bail out the irresponsible, pandering politicians who cannot balance their budgets. Congress must allow a safe, orderly way under federal bankruptcy law for states to reorganize their finances.
Saree Makdisi writes at the LA Times:
A massive archive of documents leaked to Al Jazeera and Britain's Guardian newspaper offers irrefutable proof that years of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have been an empty sham. The papers make clear that the time has come for Palestinians and anyone interested in the cause of justice to abandon the charade of official diplomacy and pursue other, more creative and nonviolent paths toward the realization of a genuine, just peace.
...
The papers give the lie to Israel's claim that it yearns for peace but lacks a Palestinian "partner." And they reinforce the sense that Israel has gone along with these negotiations only to buy time to expropriate more Palestinian land, demolish more Palestinian homes, expel more Palestinian families and build more colonies for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers in militarily occupied territory, thereby cementing new realities on the ground that would make a Palestinian state a geophysical impossibility.
Michael Gerson says President Obama, unlike President Bush, isn't ideologically compromising enough:
Without doubt, it is easier to communicate Obama's agenda than it is to make the Republican case. Obama's campaign speeches write themselves. Just imagine: "If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we bring Twitter within reach of every disadvantaged child? If the Wright brothers could touch the sky, why can't we have more iPads per capita than the South Koreans? The naysayers will say 'nay.' But this is America. . . ." Any focus group facilitator will tell you that the dials go up with words such as "investment" and "competitiveness" - or "daffodils" and "lollipops" - and down with words such as "debt," "crisis" and "bankruptcy." Who is going to object, as the president promised, to improved cellphone coverage? Who is going to cheer the dour, downbeat call for entitlement reform?
But the main issue here does not concern political advantage. Ultimately, it only matters who is right. If the threat of debt is exaggerated - if it is merely fear-mongering - then Obama's State of the Union strategy makes sense. If the threat is real, Obama, like many politicians before him, is being irresponsible.
E.J. Dionne thinks we'll see a new, paradoxical Obama in the next two years:
The era of no politicking is over. Tuesday's State of the Union speech laid out a rationale for the Obama presidency that stands a chance of enduring through Election Day 2012. The choice is between backward-looking Republicans who talk grumpily about government spending and "Obamacare," and forward-looking Obama Democrats who would use government - carefully and efficiently, of course - to restore American leadership and a humming, innovative economy.
In fact, what Americans must be ready for now is the paradoxical phase of Barack Obama's presidency. Many things will not be exactly as they appear.
George Will says Education Secretary Arne Duncan is "the Obama administration's redeeming feature."
Robert J. Samuelson:
It was a teachable moment - and Barack Obama didn't teach. Unless public opinion changes, we won't end our budget deadlock. As is well-known, Americans want budget deficits curbed. In a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 54 percent urge Congress and the president to "act quickly" and 57 percent prefer spending cuts to tax increases. But there's little support for cuts in Social Security (64 percent opposed), Medicare (56 percent) and Medicaid (47 percent), which together approach half of federal spending. The State of the Union gave Obama the opportunity to confront the contradictions and educate Americans in the unpleasant realities of uncontrolled government. He declined.
What we got were empty platitudes. We won't be "buried under a mountain of debt," Obama declared. Heck, we're already buried. We will "win the future." Not by deluding ourselves, we won't. Americans think deficits are someone else's problem that can be cured by taxing the rich (say liberals) or ending wasteful spending (conservatives). Obama indulged these fantasies.
Gail Collins:
Yes, a committee in the Utah House of Representatives voted 9 to 2 this week to approve a bill that would add the Browning pistol to the pantheon of official state things, along with the bird (seagull), rock (coal) and dance (square). Also, although it really has nothing to do with this discussion, I have to mention that the Utah Legislature has provided its citizens with an official state cooking pot, and it is the Dutch oven.
“This firearm is Utah,” Representative Carl Wimmer, the Browning bill’s sponsor, told The Salt Lake Tribune. He is an energetic-looking guy with a huge forehead who has only been in office four years yet has, according to one of his videos, “sponsored and passed some of the most significant pieces of legislation in Utah history.”
In case you've forgotten, Carl Wimmer is the genius who wanted to criminalize miscarriages in Utah. Yeah, he's that guy.
But as Gail says:
It is generally not a good policy to dwell on the strange behavior of state legislators since it leads to bottomless despair. If I wanted to go down that road, I’d give you Mark Madsen, a Utah state senator who tried to improve upon the Browning Day celebrations by suggesting they be scheduled to coincide with Martin Luther King Day since “both made tremendous contributions to individual freedom and individual liberty.”
NY Times:
Unless lawmakers and regulators stand firm, financial reform will fail. We were encouraged to hear President Obama push back in the State of the Union address, saying that he would not hesitate to enforce consumer protections and other rules in the reform law.
Dodd-Frank recognized that outsize bank profits depended on outsize risks and attempts to diminish that threat. If it works, the banks will still be big and multitasking, but not the money makers they once were. That would be a small price to pay for a more stable system.
And finally, Mark Morford lists "10 amazing truths you already suspected":
Did you already know? I bet you already knew. Or at the very least, had a sneaking suspicion...
The end is near-ish! Government overspending will be the death of us all! Massive, crushing debt will blot out the sun and ruin your lawn! Buy gold and hoard it in your small intestine for the End Times that are coming soon! The GOP and Glenn Beck hath spoken!
Yes, it's the everyday puling of the Republican right, a common refrain about how the liberal gummint is dead-set on bankrupting the nation as fast as possible. And the Tea Party eats it up like the giant sourball of falsehood it very much is.
Ironic, then, how it's actually the Tea Party-riffic red states that suck up far, far more in government handouts than the blue. Did you already know? I bet you did. Even more amusing is the inverse relationship: The more red/Republican a given state votes -- and hence the more loudly it complains about government spending -- the more it swallows federal handouts like Charlie Sheen inhaling Bolivia. It's true. It's also sort of amazing.