It remains a mystery to me why the candidates who are able to tell the truth because they are doing the right thing aren’t able to capitalize on it. Telling the public that they are constantly given the lies of the right wing in order to get their votes against their own interests seems like something we really need to press home, over and over.

News media need to present the facts that will reveal the falsity of arguments by “deficit hawks” who oppose the spending needed to end the recession.

The basic premise of America Speaks is that budget deficits are dooming us and must be stopped. That premise is wrong and fraudulent. Here’s why.

Apart from whether the President gets hurt politically, and even whether the real interests of the people in the area of HCR are served, there is the larger issue of restoring the Congress and the Senate as institutions. Today, the Senate needs a group of progressives like the liberal Senators of the ’50s and ’60s. It needs people who have the courage of their convictions, and who can negotiate successfully for what they believe in. But the problem is that jello progressives, like Jello Jay can’t do that. The reason is basic to the process of successful negotiation. In any such process, you have to be prepared to walk away from the table to get anything good at all. You have to be able to say “no.” When you lose something in negotiation, you have to be able to deny your negotiating partner something. You have to make that partner pay a price for the concession they denied to you. Jello Jay and his jello progressive colleagues can’t do that. They can’t say no. Until they can, every other party to the negotiations they take part in will roll them. It’s as simple as that. The old liberals were prepared to walk away. But Jello Progressivism says “yes,” no matter how much it loses in negotiation. Jello progressives are so afraid of failure that they always fail, even while they tell themselves they’ve accomplished something. That has to stop, or these progressives have to be replaced, because as things are now they are neither any good to us, nor to themselves.

Putting 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan without first knowing how to pay for them, yet requiring any health care reform to be budget neutral, seems to set up a double standard. Why? This blogs explores this topic and determines one at first blush appears more worthy than the other.

Ever interview somebody too stupid to claim the job they’ve applied for? That would be Ben Bernanke. Show him the door, please. Next candidate, please?

In a speech at NYU, White House Budget Director Orszag describe all the conditions that would justify an immediate additional stimulus and other job-creating efforts — and then failed to mention any measures to put people back to work.

President Obama’s order this week to cut $100 million in administrative costs from federal programs over the next 90 days sends an important message. As the President acknowledged himself, the $100 million is more a tone-setter than a meaningful sum in a federal budget of over $3 trillion. Instead, his words put front and center the longer-term goal of eliminating waste to help reduce the deficit and pay for health care, education, and other programs critical to rebuilding our economy.

Obama’s proposed budget would cut the big subsidies that banks and lenders get from within the student loan programs, and instead redirects that money to student aid. The president’s plan puts students and families ahead of banks, which is what the federal aid programs should be biased toward.

The past week saw President Obama roll out an ambitious budget proposal filled with good news for progressives, but another destructive bailout of Citigroup’s shareholders could be a bad sign for economic policy to come.