William Shakespeare - Henry VI, Act IV, Scene II : "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." *

Naked Capitalism on the "Implosion of Foreclosure Mills."
(*No offense intended.)

INSIDE JOB - A "Must See" now out on DVD

"An angry, well-argued documentary about how the American financial industry set out deliberately to defraud the ordinary American investor."  -  Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"Indignation is often the most self-deluding of emotions; this movie has the rare gifts of lucid passion and informed rage."  -  David Denby, New Yorker

"By the end Mr. Ferguson has summoned the scourging moral force of a pulpit-shaking sermon. That he delivers it with rigor, restraint and good humor makes his case all the more devastating."  -  A.O. Scott, NY Times

This Academy Award-winning documentary on the roots and consequences of the '08 financial meltdown is now available on DVD, if you missed it in the theaters.  Absolutely essential information and quite entertaining - "Netflix" it or check it out at Amazon (link).

"Governing with the GOP is like rooming with a meth addict" - Bill Maher rants

Tea Party Values

From Jon Chait at New Republic:

(T)he evidence that Tea Party activists want to cut spending -- at least actual spending programs -- is sparse. Polls show that Tea Party supporters overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The main thrust of Tea Party opinion is not the belief that Obama has spent too much money, but the belief that Obama has spent too much money on people unlike them:

The smear campaign against Elizabeth Warren

Rortybomb has a good rundown on the attacks against Elizabeth Warren, who is in charge of setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Prof. Warren, an expert on financial fraud against consumers, is one of the finest public servants President Obama has appointed. So, of course, The Wall Street Journal and Republican pols are trying to take her down and to defund her agency. Read about it HERE.
Update: More on the shots against Prof. Warren HERE,from Joe Nocera at NYT.

So...uh...what do teachers make ?

"The Most Aggressive Defense of Teachers You'll Hear!"

Via Steve Benen  &  MoveOn @ jackleftown's Youtube Channel.

Tax breaks vs. slashed safety nets - "The InfoGrafik"

Center for American Progress:  House leaders are unfortunately restricting their proposed budget cuts for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 to nonsecurity discretionary spending in an attempt to tame a $1.3 trillion deficit. This approach is especially shortsighted since the Federal Treasury loses twice as much revenue due to tax breaks than Congress appropriates on all nonsecurity discretionary spending.

The chart below compares the 10 safety-net programs slated for deep cuts with the cost of the tax breaks that should also be considered for reduction or elimination to bring the budget into balance. The column on the left is a list of safety-net programs that have already been targets of the House leadership’s budget ax. The column on the right is the cost to specified tax breaks...

Surrendering the narrative

Krugman has a good column today on the apparent unwillingness of the White House and the Congressional Democrats to forcefully challenge the GOP's politics of "belt-tightening," and - amidst still staggeringly high, long-term unemployment numbers - to put creating jobs front and center of their agenda.  HERE.

The GOP gets serious about the budget...

Via Talking Points Memo

The "Logical Argument" Fallacy...

 Mark Thoma @ Economist's View:
 

 I think we make a mistake by talking about (Beltway budget battles) as though the goal of Republicans is actually deficit reduction. It's not, the goal is a reduction in the size of government and once you understand that, it's clear why Republicans will not support tax increases of any kind. 

They'd rather cut taxes now (and argue it's about jobs or long-run growth rather than ideology), and increase the deficit even more because they still believe the beast can be starved...Logic about the best way to close the deficit won't win this argument because it has little to do with the deficit itself.

Weird Politics

A new WaPo/ABC poll cited today by Ezra Klein demonstrates the weirdness of our politics: Republicans are great at stirring up anxiety and unfounded fears but terrible at following through on policy - because so much of the fine print of their ideologically-driven agenda won't fly with many of the same voters who elect them:

The Case of the $160,000 City Bus Driver...

...turns out to be a case of political desperation by a Wisconsin Republican facing recall in the wake of his attacks on public employees. Here & here - as explained by Greg Sargent/Plumline.

Wisconsin Cong. Paul Ryan, Taxophobia & Ayn Rand

Jonathan Chait in Democracy:

Not long ago, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan—who enjoys unparalleled prestige on budget issues among conservatives of all stripes—railed against the deficit and was asked about the massive cost of extending tax cuts. He replied, “Keeping tax rates where they are, and preventing them from going up, is not spending, because that is people’s money in the first place.” What on earth could this mean? Here is the answer. Ryan has declared his deep intellectual debt to Ayn Rand (the obsessively anti-government author of Atlas Shrugged -ed.) He required all his staffers to read her work. When he responds to a question rooted in simple accounting with a moral claim (“people’s money in the first place”), he is saying that the arithmetic of revenue, outlays, and deficits does not matter to him. None of the pecuniary issues that he claims to care about so deeply ultimately matter. He is fighting a class war, which he views as a war for freedom itself. 

Rand’s passion and hate flowered in a postwar world in which the working classes were slowly drawing closer with the upper classes. The great irony of the recent triumph of her vision on the right is that it takes place in conditions just the opposite. The poor and working classes have languished for decades, while the rich pull in unimaginable sums. This is the atmosphere that has paradoxically given rise to the right’s fervid class warfare...

A "Common Sense" Guide to the Great Deficit Debate

“THE TEA PARTY IS WINNING!”
No matter how much liberals may poke fun at them, Tea Party partisans can claim victory in fundamentally altering the country's dialogue...Thanks to the Tea Party, we are now told that all our problems will be solved by cutting government programs...Does anyone really think that cutting such programs will create jobs or help Americans get ahead? But give the Tea Party guys credit: They have seized the political and media agenda...
E.J. Dionne Jr. Washington Post: 2-21-2011

In the wake of a deep financial crisis and continuing high unemployment, we are confronted with a contentious, often angry argument over our future as a nation: 

- How best to expand economic productivity and resources, and to “grow” jobs?    

- What programs and social policies do we value as citizens?  

- What public goods will we invest in? 
- How do we pay for government at a scale that we can agree we need? 

These vital concerns are increasingly reduced - problematically - to the sole issue of deficit spending.

Unions in Wisconsin - Down But Not Out!

"Working America, an advocacy organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO that provides an outlet for non-union members to support the labor movement, has signed up approximately 20,000 new members (in Wisconsin) since Feb. 15," reports Amanda Terkel.

Is help finally on the way for folks whose homes are "underwater" ?

Huffington Post:

The Obama administration is seeking to force the nation's five largest mortgage firms to reduce monthly payments for as many as three million distressed homeowners in as little as six months as part of an agreement to settle accusations of improper foreclosures and violations of consumer protection laws...

Tax Loopholes, credits, write-offs - an elephant in the room

Jamelle Bouie at The American Prospect:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a nifty chart showing the huge impact of tax expenditures -- credits, loop holes, write-offs, etc. -- on the federal budget. Short story: In terms of overall spending, tax expenditures dwarf virtually everything else, including major entitlement programs:

The Sad But True Story of Wages in America

Economic Policy Institute has it, HERE.

Via Economists View.

"Where Are The Jobs?"

Media Matters has a very useful, fact-filled, extensive report on "The GOP's Two-Year Campaign Against Job Creation and Economic Growth," documenting the retrograde agenda and nihilism at the center of the Republican strategy to...uh...I don't know...Destroy America?    HERE. 

Winners (?) and Losers in Madison

Natasha Vargas Cooper, reporting from Madison, in The Atlantic:

"In Wisconsin, despite the biggest protests Madison has seen since the Vietnam War, there is no way getting around the basic fact: The public sector unions lost their toughest fight yet. They may have resisted mightily and sparked a national movement in opposition to Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, which stripped them of most collective bargaining rights, but he was able to sign it into law Friday afternoon, nonetheless. The damage is done...

"Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, the former leader of the Wisconsin GOP, proclaimed Walker's victory a win for the party as a whole. But what happened in Wisconsin wasn't that simple -- for Walker, the GOP or the unions."      

Read her full accounting of the current situation HERE.  It's not an optimistic gloss on the rebirth of Democratic activism, which is why it's a "must read" moving forward.