Free Republic

The Republican Party is currently trying to sort out an internal battle between its dwindling stock of moderates who are occasionally willing to work with Democrats, and its hard-right base, which views compromise with Democrats in general, and President Obama in particular, as heresy. But in a speech Monday, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the second-ranking Democrat in the House showed that there are significant fissures in the Democratic Party as well. Hoyer, though nominally Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s second-in-command, is starkly different from Pelosi and many others on the party’s left wing when it comes to economic and fiscal issues....

My friend Guy Benson and I were talking about this idea the other night, and I liked it when compared to all our other dismal options. It was also the same night we saw "Lincoln," so I wondered if we were high on celluloid optimism about what's possible in politics.But Guy fleshed out the idea in this must-read post today, and I think he’s onto something. You should go over there to read the whole thing, but here's the gist: Of the commission’s 18 members, six Democrats and five Republicans endorsed the final document, while the seven ‘no’ votes split...

What should Republicans in Congress do right now about the "fiscal cliff"? Everyone has advice, almost none of which squares with reality. Republicans have only two levers of control: the House of Representatives and filibusters in the Senate. Consider the options. Option 1: Do nothing. If no new legislation gets passed we hit the so-called "fiscal cliff." That means all "Bush tax cuts" would expire, for rich and non-rich alike. It means other tax cuts and credits added under Obama (payroll tax cuts, child tax credits, etc.) would also expire. The Congressional Budget Office estimates all that at $4,532 billion...

Hint: It wasn't extremism from Paul Ryan. Our friend Morgen Richmond goes back to the videotape of the September 2011 talk by Erskine Bowles at the University of North Carolina and finds a direct question from the floor about why the Simpson-Bowles plan went nowhere. After joking that he'd prefer not to answer, Bowles says, "I'll just tell you the truth." And the truth is that, despite delivering and even exceeding what Barack Obama and his economic team said they wanted from the President's own bipartisan advisory commission on deficit reduction and budget reform, Obama refused to champion it:CLICK ABOVE...

Man, I love the smell of panic in the morning ... at least when it comes from the other side: Some Democratic lawmakers want to make sure that one question does not get asked at the upcoming first presidential debate --- about Simpson-Bowles.Three Democratic House members objected Tuesday to a request by four senators that President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney be asked which of the commission’s proposals to address the debt they support. The Democrats said such a question would force “candidates to choose solutions from one menu of options.” ...But that caused Reps. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Jerry Nadler...

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan says President Barack Obama blew it when he effectively rejected the Simpson-Bowles 2010 deficit-reduction proposal. "The worst mistake the president made was not embracing that vehicle right away," Greenspan said at the Bloomberg Washington Summit, The Wall Street Journal reports. The proposal, written by former Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, would use a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the growth of the deficit by roughly $4 trillion over 10 years.

Simpson-Bowles would have: raised taxes by $1.2 trillion--bumping to 21% the tax share of GDP from the typical 18%; relied largely on defense cuts to reduce spending; retained all $2.5 trillion in ObamaCare spending and done nothing to reform Medicare and Medicaid. No wonder Luke Russert loved it. Appearing on Chuck Todd's Daily Rundown on MSNBC today, NBC congressional correspondent Russert bemoaned Simpson-Bowles overwhelming defeat in the House yesterday. View the video here.

How can any voter be dumb enough to listen to the spin about the Senate payroll tax cut bill being sooooo bipartisan? Here is how it all reall works: Obama does not tell Reid to stop tabling (killing) bills passed by the House and sent over (16+ jobs bills so far), but he will tell Boehner to pass the Senate stopgap 2 month payroll tax bill that isn't fully funded. Nor will he tell Reid to work with Boehner and the House and work out the Senate and House bills in true bipartisan fashion. No, Boehner must pass the Senate...

Obama and Jay Carney praise bipartisanship on the Senate payroll tax cut bill, yet Obama eschewed the bipartisan Simpson (R)-Bowles (D) plan, that was supported by Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate. Here is how it goes: When Tea Partiers say no to a bill, that's unacceptable to Obama, Reid and Pelosi, but when Progressives that make up the base of tge Democrat Party effectively kill Simpson-Bowles then that is ok with Obama, Reid and Pelosi. The Dem base is what caused them to cave, despite some others being against it. Here's more of how it goes in...

~ EXCERPT ~ In his budget speech earlier this week, President Obama described his budget plan this way: It’s an approach that achieves about $2 trillion in spending cuts across the budget. It will lower our interest payments on the debt by $1 trillion. It calls for tax reform to cut about $1 trillion in tax expenditures — spending in the tax code. And it achieves these goals while protecting the middle class, protecting our commitment to seniors and protecting our investments in the future. Now with all these plans floating around — the debt commission, Paul Ryan’s — Goldman...