Atrios has been writing much about expanding Social Security because most Americans will have to live on it when they retire and it's impossible to do it. President Obama has been talking about using chained CPI to suck in Republicans to help craft a bipartisan bill on on the economy. Gun control has been defeated by a cowardly Senate. The Republicans are obstructing every appointee Obama makes. It's f*&king ridiculous, but unfortunately there is a basic principle at play that could reek havoc over us in 2014. It's called "Kick out the bums." You remember the tea party revolt in 2010?

I really like what brooklynbadboy has to say on the faltering Democratic Party and he uses the 'kick out the bums' theorem to make his point:

This isn't going well, and Democrats are in charge. 2014.

That's what our folks in Washington need to understand. That is going to be the overwhelming assessment we get from the public unless we turn this shit around and at least appear to be fighting for the average person. Because in 2014, nobody is going to give a shit that we didn't change the Senate rules or failed to reform campaign finance or that chess moves are being planned out for 20 years from now. All they're going to know is this shit isn't going well and Democrats are in charge.

So, to the White House and the Senate leadership: You all are about to get creamed. Again. I know the GOP will obstruct everything. Good. Use that as your springboard. Just dismiss this foolishness of trying to craft a bipartisan legislative agenda and go for the full on political combat. So just get rid of the filibuster, stop fucking around trying to balance the budget, and just start doing shit for regular people who are broke.

Do shit for regular people who are broke.

DO SHIT FOR REGULAR PEOPLE WHO ARE BROKE.

Stop trying to feed into the beltway fetishism of bipartisanship because it's not going to happen with these R's so get with it and act like real Democrats. Help the American people. You know, jobs, jobs, jobs...(h/t Digby)

I caught some of Obama's last presser of his first administration and although he is fighting against the psychos wanting to destroy the global markets by refusing to raise the debt ceiling; I just don't understand some of his other words pertaining to our economy. Why does the President spend so much time on convincing America that the deficit is the GOD of all things and he's there to reduce it in a balanced approach? That's not what he was elected for.

The always awesome Charles Pierce:

The general public seems to think that The Economy is defined by how many people are working and how many people are not. The political elite, including the president, and the courtier press that services that elite, all seem to define the economy through the deficit. The cognitive dissonance in Washington is about how best to deal with an economy defined by the deficit. The cognitive dissonance in the country is about how best to deal with an economy that is being defined at the highest levels of the government in a way that the rest of the country finds odd and inadequate. So when the general public hears the president say this...

As I said on the campaign, one component to growing our economy and broadening opportunity for the middle class is shrinking our deficits in a balanced and responsible way. And for nearly two years now I've been fighting for such a plan, one that would reduce our deficits by $4 trillion over the next decade, which would stabilize our debt and our deficit in a sustainable way for the next decade. That would be enough not only to stop the growth of our debt relative to the size of our economy, but it would make it manageable so it doesn't crowd out the investments we need to make in people and education and job training and science and medical research — all the things that help us grow.

...it thinks the president has his priorities in the wrong order. When he talks about The American People, and the Middle Class thereof, he ought not to convince himself that he was re-elected because he's the guy who'll best bring down The Deficit. He got re-elected because the other guy convinced America that he wouldn't much care if people ate grass by the side of the road. The people who voted for this president did not do so because they wanted a balance program to bring down the deficit. They did so because they thought he was less likely to make their everyday lives harder than they already are. Because, as the blog's First Law Of Economics states: Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money.

Prez Obama has used the Republican talking points about the federal debt for a long time now and I had hoped it would disappear for his second term, but I've been mistaken. I wonder if it's the Beltway Villagers unduly influencing his advisers to make sure he constantly talks like this when discussing the economy in front of America, or if he really believes this FOX News strategy. It makes no sense at all. Americans want to work. Americans want to make money.

That's what the economy means to them.

The additional maddening thing is that if you fix the jobs problem you largely fix the deficit problem. The reverse is not true. If you "fix" the deficit you kill the jobs.

It's that simple.

Media Matters writes: Limbaugh: Obama's Aurora Remarks Show He's An "Egomaniac"; "Everything Has To Be About This Guy"

Every innocuous comment President Obama makes must be analyzed by Rush through his own special 'Did he really say this or that?' filter. Why, the audacity for Obama to even speak.

You know, every parent I know would have imagined the what-if scenario in the aftermath of the Aurora shootings: 'What would have happened if my kids were in the Colorado movie theater during the slaughter? ' How dare Obama do the same as any other parent?

And as far as egomaniacs go....Is there none bigger than Limbaugh?

What an imbecile.

Among the myriad Republican myths about taxes, the most pernicious and demonstrably false - that "tax cuts pay for themselves" - is the mostly deeply held by the GOP faithful. As President George W. Bush famously (and erroneously) put it, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase." Now, a survey of leading economists conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is just the latest shovelful of evidence to bury Arthur Laffer's zombie lie.

Earlier this year, as Congressional Republicans learned the hard way three weeks ago from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, another Chicago Booth poll revealed that "80 percent of economic experts agreed that, because of the stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise." (As Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee, ""Only 4 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed. That is a distinct minority.")

Now, the U of C is back with a new two-part survey on the Laffer Curve. In the first question, 35 percent agreed and another 35 percent were unsure that "a cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would lead to higher GDP within five years than without the tax cut." (That response is unsurprising, given that one definition states that GDP equals consumption plus investment plus government plus net exports minus taxes.) But far more interesting are the results on the question that gets to the heart of Arthur Laffer's supply-side snake oil which has been Republican orthodoxy ever since Jude Wanniski sketched Laffer's curve on a cocktail napkin. In a nutshell, not a single one of the economists surveyed agreed that "a cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without the tax cut."

In his comments, David Autor of MIT pointed out, "Not aware of any evidence in recent history where tax cuts actually raise revenue. Sorry, Laffer." Former Obama administration economist and current University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee put it this way:

Moon landing was real. Evolution exists. Tax cuts lose revenue. The research has shown this a thousand times. Enough already.

Of course, you don't have to take Goolsbee's word for it. Your own eyes will suffice.

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