Mitch McConnell has often differed from the House GOP’s hardline stance on the federal budget. He was the one who came up with the Rube Goldberg-like “resolution of disapproval” process on the debt limit deal which broke the united Republican front. Now, McConnell has added a largely symbolic but crucial action today on the escalating [...]

Let’s just say that Kent Conrad’s mark-up of the Bowles-Simpson plan yesterday in the Senate Budget Committee didn’t go according to the script. The “markup” didn’t include any votes, first of all. This was by design, but it turned the proceedings into something of a farce. Some Republicans argued that Conrad should have allowed votes [...]

My experience with politicians is that they actually do tell you their plans, if you scrutinize their statements enough. Such is the case with Kent Conrad. He introduces the Bowles-Simpson plan as a baseline today in the Senate Budget Committee. But as he plainly tells Ezra Klein, the goal is not to get a budget [...]

Kent Conrad, the retiring Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, just announced that the markup for the FY 2013 budget will commence tomorrow. And instead of creating model legislation, he will simply take the recommendations proposed by the Chairmen of the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission, popularly known as the “catfood commission,” as the baseline. Tomorrow I [...]

David Leonhardt’s big takeout on the “fiscal cliff” did not convince me that the prospect of Clinton-era tax rates is something to fear or avoid. I would start by saying that all of this is true: On Jan. 1 of next year, the federal tax bill for a typical middle-class household — making in the [...]

As it happens, come Friday I will be traveling to Spain (never fear, dear reader, I have some great guest posters lined up for you), and at a propitious time. The euro crisis has returned there and in Italy, an inevitable circumstance, because the bond market participants realize all too well that absolutely nothing fundamental [...]

I don’t think anyone would call me the health care law’s biggest fan. But it’s undeniable that, when you reduce Medicare Advantage overpayments, when you start taxing so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans, and when you add up all the other taxes and levies and cost savings, that outweighs the cost of exchange subsidies and Medicaid expansion [...]

An interesting new research note from Goldman Sachs analyzes the “fiscal cliff” and the prospects for fiscal conservatism resulting from the potential outcomes of the 2012 elections. Goldman remains a vampire squid, but their economic research notes are quite good. If there’s one thing they know about it’s money. And their assessment of the political [...]

With a Jewish holiday coming up tonight thoughts turn to what I should be neurotic about. Matt Yglesias says I should freak out about Europe, and he’s right. But that’s been the case for two years. And the powers that be over there are religiously opposed to the proper steps to take to end the [...]

President Obama just wrapped up his speech on the Ryan budget, and Jed Lewison has a couple live-blogs about it. He was quite pleased with the speech. But I want to point out something he wrote at the very end: Obama continues hammering Republicans for moving so far to the right. “Cap and trade was [...]

Robert Kuttner kicks off a discussion that progressives are going to have to hold among themselves between now and the upcoming lame duck session. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s addressing it in a realistic way. Kuttner points out the trio of major fiscal changes that will hit at the end of the year if Congress [...]