Tax the rich...and hope they stay rich - Over at Opinion Journal, Robert Frank writes that states overdependent on wealthy taxpayers are inordinately hurt when that tax revenue disappears in a recession: "The top 1% of earners fill the coffers of states like California and New York during a boom - and leave them starved for revenue in a bust."

Riding the wave to 2012 - Pajamas Media: "Social Security: Obama and the Democrats dodge their debris."

On a related note, the non-partisan FactCheck.org had this one last month: "Democrats deny Social Security's red ink - Some claim it doesn't contribute to the deficit, but it does."

Slo-Mo-Town - Opinion Journal "A Requiem for Detroit": "Unlike New Orleans and Japan, the ruin we see in Detroit is entirely man-made."

"Like Syria" - That's what I kept repeating over and over again to the television while watching Obama's speech. There's nothing he said about Libya and Gaddafi that wouldn't apply to Syria and the Assad family.

Physics humor - Saw a red bumper sticker today with the text: "If this bumper sticker is blue, you're driving too fast."

Message management

AoSHQ: "Gates: Libya isn't in our national interest, Clinton: Yes it is."

And then there's this guy, back in 2008:

Should be an interesting speech tomorrow.

Extra - Or maybe the White House wants to limit the message.

Fantasy finances

Here's an interesting tidbit from this WashPost article "Pensions squeeze government budgets." Over two-thirds of the largest public pension plans assume a rate of return of 8% or greater, while the S&P average annual growth for the past 20 years has been less than 6%.

Just last week, the nation's largest public pension plan - California's CALPERS - voted down the recommendation of it's own chief actuary to adjust the plan's investment forecast to 7.5%. CALPERS stuck with their 7.75% expected rate because lowering the estimate would mean that California towns and cities would be on the hook for millions of new contributions. So they embraced the fantasy of unrealistic returns.

The California voters, it seems, are getting concerned.

How Social Security dies by torpor

Writing in the WashPost, Social Security trustee Charles Blahous lays out a credible scenario on how an unreformed Social Security could die by inaction:

If we delay until 2031, taxpayers would already be providing $280 billion annually in additional general revenue (read: income taxes), just to redeem trust fund bonds and to keep benefit payments flowing. These obligations of general revenue would be nearly as great as the amount required to fix the shortfall after 2037.

Given those circumstances, what would legislators do? Would they impose sudden benefit reductions and tax increases more than three times larger than in 1983, to preserve Social Security’s continued ability to finance itself? Or would they shrug and say, “Well, general-income taxpayers are effectively subsidizing Social Security already. Let’s just formally have them keep doing it.”

The answer seems obvious. Faced with a choice between wrenching benefit cuts and/or payroll tax increases vs. tearing down the wall between Social Security and the rest of the budget, legislators will tear it down.

And that would be the end of Social Security as we know it. No more separate trust fund. No more special parliamentary protections. No longer would benefit payments be shielded from the chopping block by the rationale that they were funded by separate payroll tax contributions. Social Security would be financed from the general revenue pool, and its benefits would thereafter have to compete with every other federal spending priority.

Remember how we've been told that those Social Security bonds are real and not an accounting trick? OK, let's assume that's true. It's 2037 and the Trust Fund is depleted and the Social Security administration can only pay out what's coming in through the payroll tax, meaning that everybody get an automatic 25% benefit cut. I wonder how the popularity of the system will fare after millions of workers do the math to find they've been duped into a giving the government a multi-decade free loan with a negative return on investment.

So, go ahead and do nothing.

Extra – Hot Air: "Democrats appear to belatedly awakening to this very danger."

Ron Swanson's Pyramid of Greatness

I like "Parks and Recreation" and I love Ron Swanson. (H/T EW with link to big version.)

NATO puts Libya on double secret probation - Here comes the mission creep. CNN: "NATO may go for enforcement of 'no fly plus'."

A bunch of economists agree - Politico: "Unsustainable budget threatens nation."

Extra - From the Corner.

Weird science - Here's a diversion for you: "NASA picks its Best and Worst Scifi movies."

Betty Friedan is dead - Who gives a fig what the National Organization of Women (NOW) has to say about Sarah Palin? You might as well ask Bert Convy or some other relic of the 70s. That organization has been a joke since the "one free grope" rule was invoked.

Missed this one yesterday - Veronique de Rugy: "Autopilot programs will squeeze out everything else." Bye-bye, discretionary spending.

The Great Un-decider - Hot Air: "Obama will punt on Social Security reform." With video goodness of Candidate Obama telling us that "a candidate for President owes it to the American people to tell us where they stand." The actual President: not so much!

Americans don't like it - And the taxes haven't even kicked in yet. Reason: "The Sisyphean struggle to sell Obamacare." As Factchecker Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post notes, most of the Democrats' perpetual sales pitch involves oft-repeated lies.

Yes, it's another post about our crushing debt

Monty at AoSHQ links to a Victor Davis Hanson article then echoes my feelings exactly:

We are in a very real sense selling our own children into indentured servitude so we can continue to live beyond our means.
This makes me incredibly angry. It offends me on a very deep moral level. If we had simply arrived on the scene with the situation as it is, we'd be baying for blood and demanding fundamental changes. But since we have marinated in this dream-world for our entire lives, we simply take it as our due. There is the incoherent but widely-spread belief that...well, things will just work out, somehow, without anyone having to make any difficult decisions.

That's accurate: everybody except the "crazy" Tea Party is buying into the fiction that we can "grow" our way out of debt if we could just get the economy moving again even as the CBO reports that Obama's budget would double the national debt by 2021.

What's equally annoying is that a lot of newly-minted history buffs are pointing to Americans 100%+ debt-to-GDP load after World War II as a sign we can erase this debt again. Impossible. In 1946, Social Security didn't have pubic hair, Medicare wasn't yet enacted and America's economy was the only game in town, flush with returning GIs to fill the labor force. The situation this time is the exact opposite: our economy is losing ground to rapidly expanding economies (the ones lending us money), and the mandatory spending of entitlements and interest on the national debt are swallowing the federal budget.

What do we do? Congress is holding drag-out, knock-down debates on cutting $6 billion from the annual budget as we roll up over triple that amount in overspending in February alone. This is how the country dies, not with a bang but with the whimper of a downgraded credit rating.

Impeachment watch - They warned me in 2010 that if the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, there would be calls to impeach Barack Obama. And they were right!

Extra - Smug and sting at Instapundit.

Borrow from your left pocket to pay the right

Charles Krauthammer strikes back at White House budget chief Jack Lew over Social Security with "It's still an empty lockbox."

Invoking the “full faith and credit” mantra for those IOUs in the trust fund is empty bluster. It does not change the fact that, as the OMB itself acknowledged, those IOUs “do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.” Yet Lew continues to insist that these “special issue” trinkets will pay off seniors for the next 26 years.

Nonsense. That money is gone with the wind. Those trust fund trinkets are nothing more than a record of past borrowings. They say nothing about the future.

Consider: If Treasury had borrowed twice as much from Social Security in the past — producing twice as many IOUs sitting in the lockbox — would this mean the trust fund is today twice as strong? Solvent for 50-some years instead of just 26? Of course not. The trust fund “balances” are mere historical record-keeping. As the OMB itself admitted, future payouts will have to be met by future taxes and future borrowings — or by Social Security reform that, by reducing benefits, makes such taxing and borrowing unnecessary.

There is no third alternative. There is no free lunch. And there is nothing in the lockbox.

As I've noted for several fruitless years, those "special" Social Security bonds are an accounting trick and they represent claims on the U.S. Treasury that cannot be paid without either finding other sources of revenue and borrowing, or by monetizing the debt by printing money and allowing inflation to run away. Those "special" bonds don't exist in a vacuum: Social Security recipients want money and it has to come from somewhere.

Et tu, Streisand? - According to Lloyd Grove at the Daily Beast, the eggheads at the Aspen Ideas Festival have fallen out of love with Obama.

A trillion here, a trillion there - Pretty soon you're talking about crushing debt. WashPost: "CBO: Obama policies would require deficits of $9.5 trillion through 2021."

Related - Powerline finds that "slashing" the budget adds up to one-third of a french fry in a Big Mac meal.

Deciding not to decide

Remember when candidate Obama said that taking a position was "above my pay grade"? Good times. Here's Kimberley Strassel with "President 'Present.'"

While a bipartisan mix of Senators beg our President to take a position on the budget crisis, Obama's jetting off to South America for Carnival! But he'll be back in time for a Chicago party.

It's good to be the king President. Fire up Air Force One! Bammy wants deep-dish pizza.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

End of the line - Weekly Standard: "Mandatory spending to exceed all federal revenues."

Running out of other people's money

Kevin Williamson explains how we can't tax the rich to erase the deficit in "There aren't enough millionaires." For example: if we depend on only millionaires to wipe out the shortfall, we would have to increase their annual federal taxes by $6 million. Even people pulling down a cool million a year can't pay $6 million in taxes.

You can be fiscally sane, even when the government isn't - Megan McArdle has a common sense (cents?) rundown of the "10 quick pickups for your personal finances." For my money (yuk yuk), Beth Kobliner's "Get a Financial Life" should be required reading for every person starting out in a new job. Short version: save your money, dummy, and don't buy that Jet-Ski.

No Social Security reform from this White House - Moe Lane reads between the lines of a story from the Hill and correctly declares: "No SS reform from Obama Administration."

This is all theater from this Administration to spray a patina of "fiscal seriousness" before the inevitable election year pivot to "defending Grandma's check." It's pretty obvious from Obama's kiss-off to the Deficit Commission that he's going to nothing to tackle our long-term debt problem.

Obama's got top men working on the government - Top. Men.

"The claim is a breathtaking fraud" - Don't know how I missed this one but Charles Krauthammer had an article the other day about how the White House is embracing the fiction that Social Security is fiscally sound.

Extra - Rep. Paul Ryan on what's driving our debt.

Earthquake in Japan - There's not much I can add at this late hour except that I was listening to NPR this morning and the reporter in Japan had to pause every minute or so to say "...here comes an aftershock."

Used cars for sale, slight water damage:

(H/T The Truth About Cars)

Everybody knows it's coming - Deficit commission chair Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson call our coming collapse "The most predictable economic crisis in history." The canary in the coal mine is that big investors like Warren Buffet are edging away from U.S. bonds.

In other economic news, President Obama has called a press conference tomorrow to talk about oil prices. My prediction: he's going to say the Commerce Clause can force Americans to buy a Chevy Volt.

More - Congressional Democrats to Obama on the budget: "Are you gonna do anything?" Obama: "No time! Gotta give my big speech on bullying."

Vote of no confidence - National Review Exchequer: "Biggest bond fund dumps U.S. debt."

What? What'd I miss? - That was sudden: "Wisconsin Senate GOP votes to strip state workers of collective bargaining rights."

Extra - Good review from Legal Insurrection.

Government spending: is there anything it can't do?

I guess President Obama was in Boston yesterday at a fundraiser for the DCCC. His speech was boilerplate stuff: what a terrible economy we inherited, look how we turned it around, and we need to address the deficit but let's give all these schoolkids their own laptops.

This section, however, boggles the imagination:

We’re going to have to make an investment to make sure that research and development, the cutting-edge technologies that drive our economy, continue to happen right here in Boston. You go over to MIT, you go over to Harvard, and they’ll be the first ones to tell you if we don’t have federal research grants, a lot of the work we do is not going to happen. And if it’s not happening there, then all those biotech firms, all those medical advances aren’t going to be taking place here, or along Route 128.

I love Obama's credulity here: these colleges say that unless they get a big pile of taxpayer cash, it's back to the Middle Ages because this research is "not going to happen." (As the Church Lady would say: "How convenient!") Remember how Thomas Edison took that big federal grant from Rutherford B. Hayes to develop the light bulb? And Steve Jobs built Apple on the taxpayer's dime? Thank heaven for public funding to underwrite Jonas Salk's research on the polio vaccine. Otherwise, it might never have happened.

Three Pinocchios - WashPost: "Did we say Obama's a liar on the level of budget cuts? We meant to say he's a triple liar."

Very bad things - Christian Science Monitor: "What happens if Congress doesn't rein in national debt?"

Today's most unexpected headline - Politico: "Reid: Save federal funding for the cowboy poets!" It's all about priorities, people. I mean "y'all."

The black hole - Over at Opinion Journal, Gerald Seib takes note that interest on the national debt is "a quiet cancer" on the nation's fiscal position. I think it was former newscaster David Brinkley who commented that interest on the debt buys America nothing: no Medicare, no highways, no shiny new aircraft carriers. And every year, we're paying a bigger share of nothing.

Sucks to be you, Generation Y

I'm bone-tired of hearing Nancy Pelosi and others complain that anything over $6 billion in budget cuts is tantamount to kicking schoolkids into the snow. I wonder where's the moral outrage of saddling these same kids with mounds of debt, high inflation, and an anemic economy. Over at National Review, they lay out the numbers in "An Emergency for Americans under 30."

A news alert for the Debt Paying Generation: President Obama’s budget for Fiscal Year 2012 brings the national debt from $14.1 trillion to nearly $26.4 trillion by 2021. This will take the amount of debt per working American by the end of this fiscal year - all 153,000,000 of them - from $101,150 to more than $161,631. Young Americans are going to get hammered by this debt if entitlement, welfare, and defense reforms are not under way within the next two to five years.
Those 115 million Americans between 5 and 30 years old are going to have to absorb virtually all of this debt.

Just today, word came out that the Obama Administration has presided over the largest monthly deficit in American history, overspending by $223 billion in February. Yet it's next-to-impossible to get Congress to cut $6B, much less $100B, from the yearly budget which is now running a deficit over $1.6 trillion.

Sorry, kids.

Extra - Hit & Run: "Are we broke yet? Michael Moore says no, reality begs to differ."

More - Via Powerline, the budget cuts in perspective:

Too good to excerpt - Robert Samuelson: "Social Security is Middle-Class Warfare."

"We are setting a trap for ourselves" - Here's Tyler Cowen in the NY Times: "It's Time to Face the Fiscal Illusion."

Always look on the bright side of life

I know I can be a gloomy Gus with all my hand-wringing over America's debt, so it helps to read some encouraging words from eminent British historian Paul Johnson:

"Of course I worry about America," he says. "The whole world depends on America ultimately, particularly Britain. And also, I love America - a marvelous country. But in a sense I don't worry about America because I think America has such huge strengths - particularly its freedom of thought and expression - that it's going to survive as a top nation for the foreseeable future. And therefore take care of the world."

He goes on to say that the Tea Party movement "cheered me up to no end" and he's a fan of Sarah Palin.

The man is a menace! - Here's a NY Times story about David Koch's $100 million gift to open a cancer research center at M.I.T.

Steyn speaks - Here's Mark Steyn in an interview with Hugh Hewitt discussing the debt crisis and the reality of entitlements: "But the fact is, these entitlements are unsustainable. So Americans can tell pollsters they're quite happy with 1930's entitlement provisions for Social Security, but it ain't gonna be there."

Sebelius admits double-counting

It's electric! - Megan McArdle reports that Chevrolet has sold nearly 1,000 Volts. Rising gas prices should push sales of electric cars into the stratosphere, maybe four-digits.

We're all Keynesians kleptomaniacs now

It's depressingly familiar: another poll showing that – even as the country racks up record-shattering deficits – Americans of all political persuasions don't want to do a thing about spending.

Jeff at Protein Wisdom despairs: "And here we thought the country was ready to grow up" and Doug Ross follows up with a post titled "Poll finds lack of support for arithmetic, logic and reason."

As depressed as I was when Obama became President, I held out a long-expressed hope that only a Democratic President could reform entitlements, as "only Nixon can go to China." But it's now glaringly obvious that Obama is utterly and completely unserious about cutting the budget deficit in any meaningful way.

We're going to keep spending and borrowing and spending and putting it on the kid's tab.

More heartless governors - Guess who's talking about rolling back pensions for police officers unless he gets tax extensions? California's own Jerry Brown. Meanwhile, over in New York, Andrew Cuomo's proposed health care and education cuts to close a $10 billion deficit are not going over well with the state's Democrats.

Car's a clunker

According to the Detroit News, Consumer Reports took a look at the Chevy Volt and scratched its head:

"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy," said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. "This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer."

Well, I'm surprised by this assessment since everybody knows that the combination of a corporate model set in the 1950s mixed with an entrenched union (see 50s model) then infused with government intervention always produces gold.

Extra – Patterico "Great news about that Government Motors car": "So it’s not very good, but it is very expensive...And when this car fails, will GM need a bailout to pay for this boondoggle?"

Stop, hey, what's that smell? - The push for low-flow toilets in San Francisco has resulted in more sludge in the sewer system and a rotten egg smell.

To combat the stench, San Francisco has spent $14 million on bleach...from Halliburton! Cheney wins again!

Sea of red - Here's a little piece of trivia I found over at Big Government and this article titled "Financial reality, part III: Reforming Social Security." "If we were to double federal taxes on all Americans, our deficits would still be in excess of $400 billion per year." Yikes.

Oscars tonight - YouTube won't allow embedding of this video but it's one of my favorite Academy Awards moments. Louise Fletcher wins best actress for her role as Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and thanks her deaf parents with sign language.

What to focus on - Tigerhawk has a chart of the threat to the U.S. economy: "It's the entitlements."

Iran reactor don't run - Here's some good news to start your day from the NY Times: "Iran reports a major setback at a nuclear power plant." Could be the Stuxnet, maybe? Good.

Flashback for Wisconsin Republicans - Remember this little rhetorical flourish when dealing with Democrats unclear on the finer points of democracy.

Sounds like an Elvis Costello song - Investor's Business Daily: "The Social Security trust fund may be worth less than zero." (H/T Instapundit.)

Winning the future by facing reality

Here's Charles Krauthammer summing up "Rubicon: A river in Wisconsin."

We have heard everyone - from Obama's own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?

Amazingly, the answer is: now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin - Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level - a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?

When Krauthammer writes about "famously progressive Wisconsin" I can't help but think back to super-liberal Massachusetts replacing Ted Kennedy with Scott Brown. There's been a tipping point somewhere where Americans realize the status quo of public policies erected 50+ years ago cannot stand anymore.

Hold onto your hats: Freddie Mac lost money, wants some taxpayer cash - Shocking, I know. Business Week: "Freddie Mac reports loss, seeks $500 million in aid." When you're running a $1.5 trillion deficit, $500 million is the spare change in the couch.

Who's going to pay for all this? - Here's Victor Davis Hanson at Real Clear Politics: "After Obama, the deluge." "After Obama leaves office, a perfect storm of rising international interest rates, an anemic dollar and panic on the part of foreign lenders may force an end to this unhinged American rush to borrow and blow what it has not earned."

"You're an Ocean" by Fastball

Here's one of those songs that should have been a huge hit, but wasn't. Oh well. With Billy Preston on the keyboard.

Social Security again - Here's former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin with "Social Security and the budget mess": "It would be nice to see somebody in Washington willing to lead." Amen to that, brother.

Extra - The government made promises, it knew it couldn't keep.

Saying it ain't part of the budget don't make it so - Veronique de Rugy has a very good outline of the pressure Social Security puts on the federal budget now that its finances have tipped into the red: "Social Security is part of the problem."

Andy Stern beclowns himself

Over at Hit & Run, Matt Welch reviews the SEIU chief's reasons for ignoring the voters in Wisconsin and is it really necessary to go beyond argument #1? "Wisconsin's budget deficit is far from the nation's largest."

This is like saying: "I'm gonna have another piece of cheesecake because I'm not as fat as Michael Moore." By Stern's own admission, the budget deficit is $1.8 billion in Wisconsin; a gap that must be closed by state law. As George Will noted today, governor Scott Walker campaigned and won election on making these changes and now a "minority of the minority" wants to silence the vox populi. Color me unsurprised.

It's been a rough winter, I know - Via Maggie's Farm, Passive-Aggressive Notes has some reminders left for people who take parking spots cleared of snow by other people.

The spoiled-brat Baby Boomers - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "The worst generation's war in Wisconsin."

Slow President's Day - I guess I could say something about Libya but all the news is very sketchy so far. The Colonel is heading for Venezuela? Sure, why not. In other news, I took my teenagers to see "The King's Speech" today.

There will be no champagne in Victory Lane - That's because the winner of the Daytona 500 is only 20 years old. In only his second Sprint Cup start, Trevor Bayne became the youngest winner of America's Race. Very exciting finish.

FDR, union buster - Real Clear Politics: "FDR's ghost is smiling on Wisconsin's governor."

It's like, you know, and stuff - City Journal: "What happens in Vagueness, stays in Vagueness - The decline and fall of American English." (H/T Arts & Letters).

Legal updates - The Obama Administration asks the judge who declared Obamacare unconstitutional: "You were serious about that?"

Bipartisan failure

It's now glaringly obvious that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans in Washington have any intention of addressing the country's debt addiction. Look at the graph below:

Keith Hennessey explains:

The gap between the red and blue lines is the budget deficit. A deficit of 3% of GDP will hold debt constant relative to the economy. Under the President’s policies the deficit would dip in 2018 to 2.9%, and would otherwise forever be at or above 3%. Our government debt burden will increase forever.

In a crisis our economy can handle an enormous temporary budget deficit. Our deficit problem is that future deficits are large, sustained, and projected to grow forever. Our little yellow double-headed deficit arrow will grow into a monster and keep growing.

"Grow into a monster" because if interest rates rise just a little, the additional cost to the federal government on interest payments rises considerably leading to a debt spiral where it becomes extremely difficult to pare down the accumulated principal.

I know! Let's build a high-speed choo-choo!

Wisconsin statehouse stuff - Wisconsin blogger Ann Althouse has lots of pictures from the march in Madison. As usual, the protesters made a mess.

Extra - From Hit & Run.

More - Slate "United We Flee": "So can legislators stop a bill by refusing to show up? They might but they're not actually allowed to." Well, yes, but the penalties for the missing Democrats appear to be non-existent.

Quote of the day - Senate budget chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND): "History will condemn us all if we don't do substantially more [to reduce debt] than is in this budget. I feel it puts at risk the economic security of this country."

GMTA, super-genius edition - Holy cow, did you see Final Jeopardy tonight? Ken Jennings used the exact same wording as my post from yesterday: "I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords." Maybe he's a fan.

I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords

Hot Air: "Great news: Supercomputer utterly destroys all-time champs on Jeopardy."

For the record, the Final Jeopardy category tonight was "U.S. Cities" and the clue alluded to two airports (O'Hare and Midway) thus leading to the answer of Chicago. The IBM Watson computer guessed "Toronto" which is hilariously and fundamentally wrong in that it's not a city in the United States.

I suspect the last Jeopardy round tomorrow will feature a lot of tricky wordplay-type questions so the humans can beat back Skynet. We're not out of this yet.

I think I'm turning libertarian, I really think so

Recently I subscribed to Reason magazine and I stop at Hit & Run every day. It's like a kindler, gentler Tea Party that wants to put this country back on the path to fiscal sanity. Anyway, here's Reason's review why we're not going to "win the future" with this latest budget and the establishment parties:

On top of everything else - There's the open sore of Obamacare. Megan McArdle: "The ever-more-desperate health care budget gimmicks."

The veil has been lifted - Wow, you'll never guess who wrote this: "Obama to the next generation: screw you, suckers." (H/T Hot Air).

And here's a contemporary reference: "The Cee Lo Green budget." Heh.

Forget the discretionary cuts - Daniel Foster on the Corner: "A nation of cowards on entitlements." As Willie Sutton said: that's where the money is.

Blinded by obviousness and math - The Hill: "Voters troubled over future of Social Security." An astounding 15% of Americans believe the system is financially sound. I'll betting even they don't believe it, but wanted to swing the poll.

Harrumph! Somebody's going to be snubbed in the faculty dining room - Harvard professor Niall Ferguson lays the smackdown on the Obama administration's handling of Egypt and its foreign policy in general.

Enslaved by debt

NY Times columnist David Brooks has written an article that appears to be an encapsulation of all my entitlement spending hand-wringing for the past eight years. The main point here is that if Americans dislike the discretionary spending cuts that are being considered in Congress, it is because auto-pilot entitlement spending is swallowing the U.S. budget:

The coming budget cuts have nothing to do with merit. They have to do with the inexorable logic of mathematics. Over the past decades, spending in nearly every section of the federal budget has exploded to unsustainable levels. Each year, your family’s share of the national debt increases by about $12,000. By 2015, according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Moody’s will downgrade U.S. debt.

The greatest pressure comes from entitlements. Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt has now risen to 47 percent of the budget. In nine years, entitlements are estimated to consume 64 percent of the budget, according to the invaluable folks at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. By 2030, they are projected consume 70 percent of the budget.

In other words, because nobody wants to cut Grandma's check, we have to make cuts elsewhere – "elsewhere" being shorthand for everything that Americans call "the government." But even with these "draconian" cuts, we're barely making a dent in the deficit:



In his CPAC speech, Mitch Daniels had it right (pun intended) when he called our national debt the new "red menace," a point David Brooks uses to conclude his article:

It’s not only about debt; it’s about freedom. It’s about whether we get to make budget choices or whether we have our lives dictated by the inexorable growth of programs beyond our control.

Exactly.

Mmm bye-bye Mubarak - Fox News: "Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak steps down." Michael Rubin asks "What Next?" over on the Corner.

I was just there this past weekend - The L.A. Times declares the Montague Book Mill "the world's finest bookstore cafe." It's a neat little place that is all the more beautiful in the summer when the Sawmill River is in full flow. Plus they have the greatest slogan: "Books you don't need in a place you can't find."

Unexpected! - Hot Air: "CBO admits Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs." Here's yet another example of how the CBO tells the truth when forced to consider reality.

Inviting the explosion - It's being reported that Hosni Mubarak is passing authority (uh-huh) to his handpicked vice-president but he's going to stick around until September, indicating he's unclear on the concept. I'm reminded of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe who was once a freedom fighter, then president, then monstrous dictator. Holding on to power is all they know.

Extra - Here we go: let's blame America, always step one.

How can we get through to these stupid Americans?

Coming on the heels of a new poll indicating that Americans still really hate Obamacare comes this story of equal parts desperation and condescension: "Maybe people will like Obamacare better in comic book form."

That's right, an MIT economist is going to use ink and color to explain the great benefits of the health care reform law. Maybe Jughead will get a subdural hematoma.

Idiot - Fox News: "NY Rep. resigns after he sent shirtless photo to woman." Who was not his wife. Nice going, chump. You hurt your family and gave up a job that works about 90 days a year so you can impress some random person.

When you've lost Ed Asner - Radio Equalizer: "Not wild about O."

At the intersection of society, everybody needs to park their car - This past weekend I caught a delightful documentary called "The Parking Lot Movie" about the quirky guys who are parking attendants at a lot near the University of Virginia. (It's on Netflix on demand.) The best part is when people riding in expensive SUVs start to gripe about paying $9 to park all day.

After gorging on lobster and filet mignon, Obama orders a diet coke

The Hill: "Budget director previews cuts in Obama's 2012 plan"

The cuts are relatively small, however, in the larger scheme of things. In total, the $775 million in detailed cuts fall far short of demands by congressional Republicans and will do little toward tackling the deficit, which is estimated to be $1.5 trillion this year by the Congressional Budget Office. The cuts are in addition to a five-year spending freeze which the administration says will save $400 billion over the next decade.

Yes, given this administration's dedication to cutting the deficit, I'm sure those spending-freeze savings will materialize. Good gravy. The American public's backlash against raising the debt ceiling is a cri de coeur to please stop spending.

Extra - Really big numbers. The Corner: "Not a pretty debt picture."

More - Hit & Run: "Oh, the poetry of meaningless budget cuts."

Good ads - My fave Super Bowl ads so far: Product Placement (Bud Light), Tiny Dancer (Budweiser), and Richard Lewis and Rosanne Barr as loggers (Snickers).

Happy 100th birthday, Ronald Reagan!

Oh no, there goes Tokyo - Charles Krauthammer: "If Godzilla appeared on the National Mall, Al Gore would say it's global warming."

If you want to be surprised when watching the Oscars - Don't check out the latest odds at British betting site Ladbrokes. Let's just say that the Best Actor Oscar is a stone cold lock.

Well that's a relief - Via Hit & Run, Harvard Law professor Charles Fried testified before Congress that - heavens no! - Congress can't use the Commerce Clause to force Americans to eat broccoli. However, you can be forced to buy broccoli.

It's not a tax, it's a tax - Hit & Run: "He loves the mandate, he loves it not - The Obama administration's individual mandate flip-flops."

Pop that cork - Finally some good news. WSJ: "A toast to your health - Warning: Alcohol may increase your life expectancy and reduce dementia." Unless you're operating a moving vehicle, whereupon it could reduce your life expectancy very suddenly.

Please please please - Please stop snowing.

Extra - Not another two feet of snow.

Blogging + lassitude = blassitude?

As I mentioned earlier, I've just started a new job and, at least for now, I've been pouring a lot of energy into reviewing the technology, getting my computer to work, and finding a place to stash my lunch. At the same time, I don't know what to think or write about Egypt. Is it all good (democracy!) or all bad (yet another dictatorship)? And while I welcome Judge Vinson's ruling, we all know this is going to the Supremes to be decided by Justice Kennedy's 20-sided D&D die.

I need to recharge my blog-atteries. Here are those "Glee" kids singing Jason Mraz: