The Coming Debt-Ceiling Battle
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on April 10th, 2011 4:31 am by HL
The Coming Debt-Ceiling Battle
President Acts Like He Won, But He Lost
Ezra Klein, Washington Post
The substance of this deal is bad. But the way Democrats are selling it makes it much, much worse.The final compromise was $38.5 billion below 2010’s funding levels. That’s $78.5 billion below President Obama’s original budget proposal, which would’ve added $40 billion to 2010’s funding levels, and $6.5 billion below John Boehner’s original counteroffer, which would’ve subtracted $32 billion from 2010’s budget totals.
Obama Promised Higher Energy Costs. He Wasn’t Kidding
Obama Won by Playing Referee
Howard Kurtz, The Daily Beast
After weeks of looking on as congressional leaders squabbled, President Obama left the sidelines and immersed himself in the budget talks, pulling out a deal in the final hours.By positioning himself as the grownup on the playground, he would have escaped most of the blame had the government shut down. And John Boehner knew it.”The president looks like the referee,” says Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist and former administration official.
Waterloo for Public Unions in Wisconsin
James Taranto, Wall St. Journal
“The candidate on the losing end of Wisconsin's hotly contested state Supreme Court race has started raising money for a recount,” the Associated Press reports in a dispatch this morning that could have been written any time in the past 2½ days. The AP buries the lead in a shallow grave, the second paragraph:JoAnne Kloppenburg's campaign manager, Melissa Mulliken, said Friday that fundraising efforts for a recount have begun, but she stopped short of saying the candidate would request one.
