Wonkbook: Where Ryan’s and Obama's budgets (mostly) agree. I love covering budgets. Budgets are where politicians have to be clear about their visions. They have to make the numbers add up, which means they have to be (relatively) honest about their choices. That exercise can reveal surprising truths. President Obama speaks at The Associated Press luncheon during the ASNE Convention, April 3 in Washington. (Carolyn Kaster - AP) You would never know from the rhetoric in President Obama's budget speech that there are broad swaths of government policy on which he and Paul Ryan mostly agree.
But if you look at their budgets, there's actually a surprising amount of convergence: Neither man's budget makes any changes to Social Security. That's a change from past years. Obama's budget, meanwhile, features large tax increases on the rich, some cuts to the defense budget, some cuts to government services, and relatively few cuts to programs for the poor. Obama said much of this in his speech. And that's why I love budget season. Top stories Top op-eds. The myth of the presidential mandate. Forget what President Obama and Mitt Romney say they want to do next year. The better question might be: How do they intend to get any of it done?
To use a phrase that was popular during the Democratic primary in 2008, what’s their “theory of change”? (JIM YOUNG - REUTERS) One common theory is that the two parties are so far apart that this election, finally, will provide a mandate for the winner and shock the losing side into cooperating. “We’re going to have as stark a contrast as we’ve seen in a very long time between the two candidates,” Obama told donors in Minneapolis. Republican Rep. This is conventional wisdom. But can you remember the last time it actually worked that way?
If you consider the mechanics of presidential mandates, it’s clear why they don’t amount to much. Nor is it clear what specific policies voters have endorsed when they select a president. In addition, members of Congress don’t report to a national electorate. McCarthy, of course, was right. Our Corrupt Politics: It’s Not All Money by Ezra Klein. Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist by Jack Abramoff Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig Twelve, 317 pp., $26.99 In 1982, Mississippi senator John Stennis was chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Stennis was a senator of the old school—literally. Reflects a change in norms. Crucially, those limits were not always legal. “Would that be proper?” Abramoff lobbied for the Northern Mariana Islands, which sought exemption from certain labor rules for a variety of Native American tribes, which sought to continue a low-regulation, low-tax environment for their casinos, and for defense contractor Tyco, which wanted a tax cut.
Abramoff might be the most prominent example of the corruption that has infected our political system, but he is not the best example of it. “The ordinary lobbyist today is a Boy Scout compared with the criminal of the nineteenth century,” Lessig writes. Olympia Snowe is right about American politics. Will we listen?
(Chip Somodevilla - Getty Images) According to the Voteview ideological ranking system, the most moderate Democratic senator in the 112th Congress — that’s this session, for those keeping track — is Nebraska’s Ben Nelson. The most moderate Republican senator is Maine’s Olympia Snowe. And as of today, they’re both retiring. That shouldn’t be a surprise. For years, our increasingly polarized political system has been culling moderate members. That’s American politics today: two parties, no touching.
She’s right. We use “polarization” as an epithet. And polarization is certainly bad for moderate legislators who want to wield influence by brokering deals between the two parties. To imagine this, consider two political systems. Polarization doesn’t describe people’s opinions. Our system, as any historian will tell you, was built by men who hated parties and anticipated their absence from American politics. Olympia Snowe: Why I’m leaving the Senate. Some people were surprised by my conclusion, yet I have spoken on the floor of the Senate for years about the dysfunction and political polarization in the institution.
Simply put, the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned. During the Federal Convention of 1787, James Madison wrote in his Notes of Debates that “the use of the Senate is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.” Indeed, the Founding Fathers intended the Senate to serve as an institutional check that ensures all voices are heard and considered, because while our constitutional democracy is premised on majority rule, it is also grounded in a commitment to minority rights. Yet more than 200 years later, the greatest deliberative body in history is not living up to its billing. I certainly don’t have all the answers, and reversing the corrosive trend of winner-take-all politics will take time. Olympia Snowe Quit Senate to Protest GOP Agenda.
Between sketchy Whatsapp messages and mysteriously moved household items, the prosecution won’t rest until even the little things make a big difference. “You’re trying, and it’s not working. Your version is so improbable that nobody would ever think it is reasonably possible.” A fan, a duvet and a plug adapter could mean the difference between freedom and life in prison for South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius, who is currently on trial for the murder of his girlfriend, 29-year-old model and law graduate, Reeva Steenkamp. State prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who has been relentless in his vicious cross-examination of the accused, cornered Pistorius in the final minutes of today’s proceedings by demonstrating that the placement of one of the fans, the adaptor it was connected to, the duvet and the drawn curtains all suggested that Pistorius never went to retrieve two fans from the balcony as stated in his affidavit.
“So let’s just sum this up. “That is correct, My Lady,” Pistorius responded. The campaigning gap. Culture Connoisseur Badge Culture Connoisseurs consistently offer thought-provoking, timely comments on the arts, lifestyle and entertainment. More about badges | Request a badge Washingtologist Badge Washingtologists consistently post thought-provoking, timely comments on events, communities, and trends in the Washington area. Post Writer Badge This commenter is a Washington Post editor, reporter or producer. Post Contributor Badge This commenter is a Washington Post contributor. Post Recommended Washington Post reporters or editors recommend this comment or reader post. You must be logged in to report a comment. You must be logged in to recommend a comment. The best way to judge Obama’s first term — and his second.
In his essay on President Obama’s first term, James Fallows dismisses Obama’s conceit that he would prefer to be “a really good one-term” president than a “mediocre” president who served two terms. “The reality,” Fallows writes, “is that our judgment about ‘really good’ and ‘mediocre’ presidents is colored by how long they serve.
A failure to win reelection places a ‘one-term loser’ asterisk on even genuine accomplishments. Ask George H. W. Bush, victor in the Gulf War; ask Jimmy Carter, architect of the Camp David agreement.” (SAUL LOEB/AFP) For Obama, it’s about more than the asterisk. Moreover, if Obama did win a second term his accomplishments would be comparatively limited. Of late, there have been a number of sweeping assessments of Obama’s first term. Noam Scheiber’s article on “Obama’s Worst Year” — which is an excerpt from his new book on Obama’s economic team, “The Escape Artists” — is more critical. Fallows’s piece is perhaps the most balanced of the three.
Klein: Harvard’s Liberal-Arts Failure Is Wall Street’s Gain. In recent years, many top universities have tried to guide their students into careers other than finance. In 2008, Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard University, went so far as to give a speech to graduating seniors asking them to stand fast against Wall Street’s “all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut.”
Tufts University is paying the student loans of graduates who go into public service. The efforts seem to be failing. In December, the New York Times’ Catherine Rampell asked Harvard, Yale and Princeton for data on the professions their graduates were entering. At Harvard and Yale, at least, the numbers have drifted down in recent years. Yet even the lower figures for graduates heading to Wall Street are sort of weird. Two Explanations Explanations for why so many Ivy League graduates rush into finance -- along with law and consulting -- tend to fall into two camps. The economic determinists say this is no mystery. These two camps are not mutually exclusive. Wall Street and the Ivy League: Readers respond. Posted by Ezra Klein at 10:00 AM ET, 02/19/2012 TheWashingtonPost Thursday’s column argued that Wall Street’s recruiting machine is aided by failures in the traditional liberal arts education. One recent graduate disagrees: I graduated from Brown last year and jumped right into law school back home after a couple of internships here and there over the summers.
I quickly became disillusioned when I learned about the starting salaries in every other industry. Having said that, I think you might be reading TFA the wrong way. As much as I think there is something great about the scheme, I think TFA is not very different from banking. While it doesn’t have such great returns early, I honestly feel that TFA is just a way for most talented college grads to try to grab hold of something that’ll improve their chances of making bank in the future. Another: Going the corporate route or moving to Cincinnati to grow detergent sales for P&G just can’t compete. Good point. Culture Connoisseur Badge. Friends Don’t Let Friends Get Into Finance. After having been a tech executive for many years, I needed to take a break, and I wanted to give back to society. Duke University engineering dean Kristina Johnson gave me a great spiel about how the school’s Masters of Engineering Management program churns out great engineers, and how engineers solve the world’s problems.
She said that I could make a big impact by teaching engineering students about the real world and encouraging them to become entrepreneurs. I felt so excited that I joined the university without even asking for a proper salary. That was in 2005. I was shocked—and upset—when the majority of my students became investment bankers or management consultants after they graduated.
Hardly any became engineers. Why would they, when they had huge student loans, and Goldman Sachs was offering them twice as much as engineering companies did? But thanks to the hundred-billion-dollar taxpayer bailouts, investment banks recovered and went back to their old, greedy ways. Stem-execsum. Comparing taxes under Obama’s and Romney’s budgets. I love budgets. And not just because I love tables, charts and appendixes — though, to be clear, I do. I love budgets because they force us to run the numbers, to make trade-offs, to set priorities. The annual budget is, frankly, about as honest as the government ever gets with itself, and with the American people. As I wrote a year ago, President Obama’s 2012 budget showed that the federal government had become an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army. About 40 percent of its spending went to the three major social insurance programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — and another 23.8 percent of federal dollars went to the military.
His 2013 budget shows much the same thing. Right now, we’re not paying for it. There are two reasons revenues are so low. And that’s fine. Comparing the fiscal promises made by Obama and Mitt Romney isn’t quite comparing apples to apples. Romney, meanwhile, is running a primary campaign. But there is agreement here, too. CBO%20Report%209. The health reform law’s biggest threat: 30,000 too few doctors. On a chilly afternoon at a community clinic in Southeast Washington, three young doctors are busily laying the foundation for the health-care law’s success.
Jacob Edwards flips through a manual on skin conditions, diagnosing a rash that looks like chicken pox. Jessica O’Babatunde consults her supervisor on treating an adolescent’s obesity, which is literally off the charts. And Julie Krueger peppers 3-year-old Daphauni with questions at her physical: How do you spell your name?
What did you eat for breakfast? What’s your favorite vegetable? (Cheese.) They are primary-care residents at Children’s National Medical Center. The Obama administration — and, arguably, the American health-care system — desperately needs them to choose primary care. Decades of research have confirmed that more specialists leads to more specialty care, which leads to a more expensive system. The surprise of the health-care overhaul, at least thus far, is that so many young doctors are cooperating. Increasing The Supply Of Primary Care Physicians. Column: Obama’s swing-state problem.
(Jewel Samad - AFP/Getty Images) The 2012 election is looking better for President Obama. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, he opened a six-point lead against Mitt Romney — a finding confirmed in two other polls this month by Rasmussen and Reuters-Ipsos. Part of Obama’s gain, no doubt, is due to the jobs reports from December and January, which have convinced many that the economy is in recovery. But as Al Gore can tell you, presidential elections are not won nationally. They’re won in individual states. In particular, they’re won in the small subset of states that can tip either way, the so-called swing states.
There, Obama isn’t doing so well — perhaps because, in those states, the economy isn’t doing so well. Obama won most of those states in 2008. Similarly, an analysis conducted in January by the Progressive Policy Institute looked at the housing market in 16 battleground states (adding Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota and Missouri to Gallup’s list). The real price tag for stimulus: Between $1 trillion and $1.7 trillion. There’s been a lot of discussion over whether we should have had a smaller or larger stimulus package. But a lot of these arguments leave a key question unanswered: How much stimulus did we actually pass? (Mike Gullett - Associated Press) There was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, of course. That was the big gun. But after that, there were dozens of smaller measures passed. For instance: The White House only put a single year of expanded unemployment insurance into the original stimulus.
They did that, in part, because they expected they would be able to get unemployment insurance extended on its own. That allowed them to show a lower number for ARRA, but more stimulus in total. On the other hand, there were policies passed under the guise of stimulus that were nothing of the kind. Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was kind enough to go back into the Obama baseline we had created and mark which items were stimulus and which weren’t.
The GOP’s new push to defang the CFPB. What the Summers memo tells us about the Obama White House. Avoiding Congress’s fiscal bombs. Obama: The most polarizing moderate ever. Wonkbook: Yes, tax cuts increase the deficit. Congressman Gary Peters (D-MI 9) : News Releases : Entire House Republican Conference refuses to admit that Bush Tax Cuts added to deficit. Comparing Obama and Reagan’s economic records. Why The Obama Recovery Has Been Much More Impressive Than Reagan's.