“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
New York Times Editorial: A Breach of Trust
The hard-fought deal that settled last year’s debt-ceiling fight made painfully deep cuts in spending, but it promised one thing: a year’s peace from the destructive Congressional battles that led to threats of government shutdowns and defaults. By signing the pact, Republican and Democratic leaders set spending levels for 2013, putting off further budget wars until after the election.
But now a coalition of extreme conservatives in the House wants to break the budget agreement and cut spending below the agreed level, and the House Budget Committee seems willing to go along.
Reneging on the agreement would not only endanger vital programs like Head Start, but it would erase the thin residue of trust left in Congress. It would clearly demonstrate that the current House cannot be trusted to live up to its own pledges.
Paul Krugman: In the US, Futile Hopes for Another Presidential ContenderIn the US, Futile Hopes for Another Presidential Contender
I haven’t written much lately about the spate of articles either calling for, or at least wistfully speculating about, a “centrist” third-party presidential candidacy in the United States. It’s nonsense, of course, on multiple levels.
For one thing, if you look at what pundits calling for such a candidacy want, it’s all already in President Obama’s proposals. For another, it’s not going to happen. For a third, the favorite imaginary candidate, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, turns out to be totally ignorant about the economic crisis.
“It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a panel discussion last November. “It was, plain and simple, Congress, who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.”
Unless Ron Paul somehow wins the nomination, it looks as if a vote for the Republican presidential candidate this fall will be a vote for war with Iran.
No other conclusion can be drawn from parsing the candidates’ public remarks. Paul, of course, is basically an isolationist who believes it is none of our business if Iran wants to build nuclear weapons. He questions even the use of sanctions, such as those now in force. But Paul has about as much chance of winning the GOP nomination as I do.
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have all sought to portray President Obama as weak on national security-a traditional Republican line of attack. Specifically, they have tried to accuse Obama of being insufficiently committed to Israel’s defense. In the process, they’ve made bellicose pledges about Iran that almost surely would lead straight to conflict.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Ilya Sheyman’s Progressive Run
The fight to win back the House-just like the fights to hold the White House and Senate-will not be easy. In order to not only win but to move any kind of agenda that addresses tax equity, environmental policy, immigration reform, housing, you name it, simply reinforcing the current Democratic narrative while being pulled further to the right by the Blue Dogs just isn’t enough. We need a more democratic-note small “d”-House.
We need to elect progressives.
Former Senator Russ Feingold recognizes that need and was moved to make his first endorsement in a Democratic primary since leaving the Senate. On Tuesday, Feingold pledged his support and that of Progressives United-his recently formed group focused on opposing corporate power-to Ilya Sheyman, a 25-year-old community organizer running in Illinois 10th District for a shot at the incumbent, Republican Representative Robert Dold.
George Zornick: February Jobs Report: Beware Austerity
The jobs numbers released this morning contain good news almost across the board: nonfarm payroll employment rose by 227,000 jobs, above the 210,000 predicted by economists. Recent jobs numbers were also revised upwards: the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 284,000 jobs were added in January, not the initial estimate of 244,000. December actually saw 223,000 jobs added, not 203,000. This makes the three best months of hiring since the recession began. [..]
One needs only to look towards Europe to see how steep austerity measures can hamper economic recovery-and progressives are already keying up to prevent that from happening here. “The US economy is finally producing jobs again, but our weak recovery-which has been aided by good public policy-could easily be choked off by stupid budget policies which would condemn a new generation of Americans to joblessness and a bleak future,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. “Americans should be wary of politicians telling us that the economy is recovering enough to turn immediately to cutting public spending.”
Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto: The White House’s Broadening Latino Agenda
Latinos have been stuck between a rock and a hard place. In 2010, Republican state legislatures began an aggressive anti-immigrant campaign. At the same time, Latinos witnessed the administration fail to follow through on its promise for comprehensive immigration reform. Considering how both parties did or didn’t deal with the issue of immigration, it would not be surprising to see Latinos turn away from both parties. However, the issue of immigration alone does not define Latino interests-and moving beyond this single-issue focus will position the Democratic Party as the choice, not just the default option, for Latinos.
The concerns of Latinos are the same concerns of any other folks in the United States. In fact, issues related to the economy, education or healthcare are of even greater concern to Latinos than to non-Latinos. Latinos suffered the greatest decline in wealth during the recession, have the highest high school dropout rates and have the fastest growing rate of childhood obesity. There is no single box in which to fit Latino issues. But the temptation to do so has not prevented Latinos and non-Latinos alike from using the immigration box.
John Nochols: Strange Things Are Happening to Mitt Romney
“I realize it’s a bit of an away game,” Mitt Romney says of campaigning in the Southern states of Alabama and Mississippi-both of which hold primaries Tuesday.
That’s an intriguing choice of words from a GOP front-runner when he talking about meeting and greeting the voters of two heavily Republican states.
But anyone who has paid attention to Mitt Romney’s campaign knows that the entire endeavor is something of an away game.
He barely won his sort-of “home state” of Michigan, and then he even more barely won the neighboring state of Ohio by less than 1 percent of the vote, after failing to connect with blue-collar voters.
In state after state, Romney has prevailed not because he is a popular favorite but because his opposition has been divided. That has allowed the candidate of the one-tenth of the one percent to remain viable. But it has not made him credible.
Recent Comments