Outside the Beltway

Two new polls show that the public supports the budget deal, but has no idea what to do to solve our long term problems.

Whenever I despair at the current state of the Republican Party, I remind myself that things aren’t much better across the aisle.

Prepare to be underwhelmed by President Obama’s big deficit speech on Wednesday.

A government shutdown is not just a hypothetical in a debating contest. It will affect real people.

Paul Ryan unveiled an ambitious plan to cut the deficit today. The question is whether it will be the beginning of a debate, or an opportunity for Democratic demagoguery

Rather than fighting over the remnants of the FY 2011 budget, the GOP should make a deal and get ready for the bigger, and more important, battle ahead.

The American people have no idea what’s really in the Federal Budget, which makes any discussion about what to cut virtually impossible.

Matthew Doig of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune posted a want ad for an investigative reporter and it’s gone viral.

Another survey shows that Americans don’t know much about their own history, but does it really matter?

Republican budget cuts to this point have been less than serious.

Republicans are about to take a walk along the third-rail of American politics.

More evidence of what we already knew: the public isn’t especially interested in cutting entitlements.

The most likely cuts in federal spending are likely to actually increase the deficit over time.

The drive to cut taxes is at the heart of the budget mess.

We can’t rely on private companies, the stock market, or the taxpayers to maintain our lifestyle in our golden years.

The primary job of the Federal Government today is to take money from Peter and give it to Paul.

You don’t have to be Admiral Akbar to suspect that the President’s refusal to deal with entitlements in his budget proposal is a trap for the GOP.

President Obama’s new budget involves nothing less than a thumb in the eye of anyone who hoped he would seriously address federal spending in his first term.

Ezra Klein dubs the Federal government “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.”

No, the legislation does not in any way “suggest that some kind of rape that would be okay.”

If you watched last night’s State Of The Union Address, you wouldn’t have had any idea just how serious a problem we’re facing.

We won’t be able to solve our fiscal problems until the American people grow up. So far, there are no signs of that happening.

The current approach of the GOP to health care is not dissimilar to its approach to fiscal policy: not a lot of substance.

The American public still has a totally unrealistic view of what it will take to get the Federal Government’s fiscal house in order.

When determining the effects on the deficit of a certain legislative action, both revenues and spending have to be accounted for. Indeed, you can’t determine whether there is a deficit, surplus or balanced budget without both variables.

Freshman Members of Congress are threatening to block a vote to raise the debt ceiling that Congress will have to take by this Spring. They’d be irresponsible if they did so.

The seemingly sensible end-of-life counseling that was originally part of the Health Care Reform Bill is making a comeback.

The new House Republican majority will force lawmakers to vote when they want to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, publish committee attendance records, ban former members from lobbying in the House gym and require new mandatory spending to be offset by cuts to other programs.

Did we have a free market in health care prior to the passage of PPACA? No.

Is “ObamaCare” a slur or a breezy and descriptive nickname?

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year 2010.

The battle over the individual mandate is really just nothing more than the latest round in a batter that has been ongoing for 221 years.

Republicans were largely silent during the Bush Administration as spending went out of control. Will they do that again?

President Obama is already taking heat from the left for his compromise on tax cut extensions, but will it actually hurt him in the end?

The Republican talking point that lowering taxes lowers spending and raising taxes increases spending is denied by reality.

There is a simple mathematical equation that explains why deficit reduction is so difficult.

Thomas Ricks laments that the combination of the all-volunteer military and lower top marginal rates mean that the wealthy have “checked out of America and moved into physical and mental gated communities.” To solve this problem, he proposed bringing back the draft.

A new poll about the proposals coming out of the Deficit Commission makes it clear that the American public needs to grow up.