Visual source: Newseum
NY Times:
The proposal to be unveiled by House Republicans on Tuesday to rein in the long-term costs of Medicaid and Medicare represents a fundamental rethinking of how the two programs work, an ambitious effort by conservatives to address the nation’s fiscal challenges, and a huge political risk.
See below.
Charlie Cook:
However, talking with Republican pollsters, strategists and veteran campaign professionals recently, I now hear sounds of concern that haven’t been heard in almost two years.
Among the worries the party now has is that a government shutdown could get blamed on the GOP. Additionally, these party insiders believe that taking on entitlements, specifically Medicare, could jeopardize the party’s hold on the House, its strong chances of taking the Senate and the stronghold that the party has been established with older white voters—not coincidentally, Medicare recipients.
It’s clear that the Republican congressional leadership believes that a shutdown is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. These are intelligent and reasonable people who have studied the mistakes Republicans made after they took control of Congress in 1994. They are determined not to replicate those mistakes.
While the GOP has worked hard to bring their freshmen and more ideological members around to the realities of politics, these freshmen and other rank-and-file members are getting pressure from back home not to compromise with Democrats.
These constituents don’t want any more short-term deals, and their pressure is offsetting the efforts by the party’s leadership to do things step by step so as to not jeopardize the party’s chances for gains in the Senate.
Part of what is happening is that there is a giant gap between the attitudes of Republican base voters and those who are swing voters.
You bet. The Scott Walker effect and tea party blowback. Tampering with Medicare. Swing voters will find tea party politics anathema, and teahadists will never be satisfied with anything except the unachievable. In any case, this article contains the year's best use of the word "exotic".
Michael Gerson:
Obama’s budget plans are a gaudy spectacle of irresponsibility.
In spite of this, Obama now has Republicans cornered in budget negotiations. By accepting $33 billion in cuts for the remainder of 2011, Obama has taken the middle ground and exploited a major division within the Republican coalition. The administration has transformed a weak record into a strong political position.
What made this possible was Obama’s willingness to betray progressives in Congress even before the budget conflict began. In February, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had criticized spending reductions in the range of $30 billion as “draconian” and “unworkable.” Now that figure is a floor. The left has already lost the budget battle — though the right has not yet won it. Obama clearly takes liberals for granted, shoring up his own fiscal reputation at their expense. Given their quiescence, it seems a good strategy...
But a portion of the Republican conference longs for a confrontation that results in a government shutdown, preferring a fight over a victory. And the only worse outcome for Boehner than a politically risky shutdown is a deeply split conference, pitting the Republican establishment against Tea Party purists — a result that would undermine all future Republican progress.
ScienceInsider:
Daily computer simulations are suggesting that, so far, the hazardous radioactive materials being released into the sea by the Fukushima nuclear plants are still largely restricted to areas near the coast. In the model being run by French researchers, the powerful Kuroshiro current—the Pacific's version of the Gulf Stream—tends to block contaminated seawater from flowing southward toward Tokyo Bay while picking up little contamination itself.
We'll take whatever good news we can get.
Telegraph:
“Britain is not going to be faced with a 14-metre tsunami”. So says Prof. Sir David King, the former Government chief scientist, arguing that Britain should not allow the events at Fukushima to delay plans to build new nuclear power stations. And it seems he has a point. But wait a minute. Back on January 2nd, 2005, just over a week since the devastating Boxing Day tsunami struck around the Indian Ocean, a top scientist was warning that “a mass of rock” off the Canary Islands was “waiting to collapse into the Atlantic” causing “giant tsunamis”. He added: “Britain would have a six hour warning before a 30ft wave hit us”. And who was this prophet of doom? The Government’s then chief scientist, one Prof Sir David King. Could they possibly be in any way related?
We need less reassurance and more straight analysis. Things happen. See New Orleans.
For up-to-the-minute info, check out the Japan Nuclear Incident Liveblogs.
Matt Miller:
There will be loads to dissect in the budget plan Paul Ryan releases Tuesday, which I’ll start doing in my column for Wednesday. But for fiscal fetishists looking for a jump on what will doubtless be weeks of (exciting!) analysis, there’s one number you should watch: At what percent of gross domestic product does Ryan believe the federal government should operate?
On Sunday Ryan said his plan would offer such a number, but he wouldn’t say what it was. The Bowles-Simpson Commission said 21 percent, which I criticized here and here as way too low. Remember, Ronald Reagan ran government at 22 percent of GDP, back when America’s population was much younger, and we weren’t about to double the number of seniors on Social Security and Medicare. Obama’s budget has Uncle Sam on a glide path to between 22 and 23 percent of GDP after hitting a record-high 25 percent because of the economic collapse and resulting stimulus measures. In a column for Fortune magazine in 2005, I said the Democrat’ “secret number” — what government should run at to fund both the retiring boomers and also unmet nonelderly needs like R&D, education and infrastructure — was probably closer to 28 percent. (In our $15 trillion economy, 1 percent of GDP means about $150 billion a year in spending. So the stakes are very high).