So, why are our Congressmen afraid to vote for sensible, cost-effective solutions? Are any of the Democrats still Democrats?

If only Evan Bayh had been around in th 1930s, he might have been able to stop the New Deal. Seriously, what was FDR thinking with all that spending when a depression was on.

The domestic cost of unwinable Afghan and Iraq wars becomes more and more obvious. Where are the calls in Congress or elsewhere to pay for the wars-- past, present and future costs?

With friends like Bayh, who needs enemas?

And the Dems will be SHOCKED when no one comes out for them in Nov.

I smell a whiff of calling bluffs in Obama's spending freeze. The Bayh gambit of proposing huge giveaways to the wealthy via estate tax reforms while giving lip service to caring about the deficit shouldn't escape scrutiny.

Isn't military and "defense/security" spending our deficit problem?

Isn't military and "defense/security" spending our deficit problem?

That plus the tax cuts for the rich that Evan Bayh can never get enough of.

Such brilliant politics. Evan Bayh and Fred Hiatt love this proposal, core Democratic voters will hate it, and the Republicans will relentlessly mock it as the sham it is (and bring the much-vaunted independents with them). Got to admire the political "geniuses" who came up with a cheap political gimmick that has no upside at all. That's some kind of reverse political Holy Grail.

Evan Bayh's resemblance to a peacock doesn't end with his (temporary) position on deficits - the peacock is perhaps the stupidest bird that is not extinct or in iminent danger of so becoming.

OT, but since we're talking money here, I wonder how much cash has gone into these Newsmax ads ridiculing Obama.
TalkingPointsmemo, HuffPo or here, all progressive fora, and one of the first things you notice is these ads and polls.

Maybe they don't have any effect on most readers here, yet these ad buys are just part of the larger Republican effort at shaping/distorting the healthcare reform debate.

Democrats - "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is what we do".

Who has the guts to talk about military spending cuts? Take one look at this chart (via Yglesias), and tell me there is a dollar or two that can be cut without impacting our security?

$30 trillion dollar deficit? Ol' Evan's trying to make "teabagger math" look good. For his next trick, he will give Beck the Blatherer a "buhzillion dollar raise"....

This is why I was really hoping that Pence would run against Bayh, so at least he'd be replaced by a real Republican and we'd be rid of this idiotic DINO who undermines sound policy by adopting GOP talking points.

p.s. Bayh, Lincoln, and Ben Nelson are all saying no to reconciliation for HCR. Anyone surprised?

*crickets*

This is hardly news, the GDP of the US in 2008 was $14.2 TRILLION. This makes the deficit of $1.4 TRILLION only about 10% of GDP, PERFECTLY in line with normal spending during a recession and may be a little low. The NY Times and others flipped out over this, number but not over the percentage.

Now, this is understandable because nobody expected such a HUGE economy to develop over the past 30 years, but it has. The GDP in 1980 was $2.8 TRILLION. So the economy is five times larger than it was in 1980.

So when people think of the grand size of the antional debt, they are thinking in 1980 terms or 1970 when the GDP was one TRILLION dollars. And of course it seems large, but when you consider that its 2010 and the economy is 14 TRILLION dollars. People who are freaking out are just pretending to and because the media likes drama, they are playing along with it.