According to the New York Times and Congressman Joe Sestak, most people really aren’t concerned about the war in Afghanistan. What do you think?

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger

Congress finally authorized an extension of unemployment benefits on Wednesday, providing a critical lifeline to families across the country and an absolutely essential boost to the economy.

While I’m very sympathetic to the arguments of letsgetitdone and others that the deficit simply isn’t a problem our government should be concerned with right now, political realities dictate different behavior from our politicians. People still list the national debt as a concern unprompted due to decades of brainwashing by the business-friendly right wing in this country. This leads less brave or creative politicians to disastrous ideas like the cat food commission.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex) cannot name a single issue on how the Republican Party today differs from the Republican Party during the Bush administration. Watch.

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the Co-Chairs of “the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,” would have us believe that a deficit and debt crisis threatening the fiscal future of the United States is upon us, that “This debt is like a cancer,” and that unless we begin to make across the board cuts in expenditures, and also raise taxes in a way that distributes the pain across all segments of the population, there is no way we will return to fiscal sustainability. This view is false and also alarmist for many reasons.

Jamie Galbraith on how he views the catfood commission.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

After months of modest gains, the U.S. economy lost 125,000 jobs during June. That’s the worst jobs-related news this year. Without serious action soon, the struggling U.S. economy is going to get even uglier. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama’s economic team was slow to recognize the severity of the jobs crisis, and now seems unable to get Congress to actually do something about it.

The United States can be fiscally responsible and meet the urgent necessities of the American people by stopping corporate welfare to concentrated industries, taxing the wealthiest that profited from three decades of tax breaks and reigning in weapons and war spending. Expanding Medicare to cover all Americans will save money and improve health. And, Social Security is essential to most Americans and is a contract between the government and the people that should not be broken.

Today, the Out of Afghanistan caucus in the House issued a challenge to their colleagues, calling on them to face up to the “essential hypocrisy” of calling for programs for education, job relief, health care and other domestic spending to be paid for because of deficit hysteria and then turning around and funding the never-ending, strategy-less war in Afghanistan without worrying how it is paid for.

James K. Galbraith, in his own words, about his brilliant, blistering testimony to Obama’s Fiscal Commission.