Here's President Obama just after he was elected in 2009, promising "reform" of both Medicare and Social Security.

President-elect Barack Obama pledged yesterday to shape a new Social Security and Medicare "bargain" with the American people, saying that the nation's long-term economic recovery cannot be attained unless the government finally gets control over its most costly entitlement programs.

..."What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further," he said. "We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else's."

.... "Social Security, we can solve," he said, waving his left hand. "The big problem is Medicare, which is unsustainable. . . . We can't solve Medicare in isolation from the broader problems of the health-care system."

[More....]

I'm finally learning the meaning of hope and change. Three years ago, hope and change seemed like a slogan to roll your eyes at. No more. Now it's becoming something to strive for. But it's not the hope and change Obama can bring us, he's already failed that test. It's the hope for change we have at the thought of him leaving and taking his ineffective administration with him.

Onto last night's speech. Obama is so transparent. His speech was all about construction workers, teachers, and veterans, and instilling fear of China and South Korea, because they are out to take our jobs. He went for the "heartland." As if all he has to do is proclaim South Koreans should be driving Fords and it will be so.

More importantly, as always, his plan leaves those on the fringe out to dry. And that includes seniors (who according to Obama are causing the health care system to implode by their sheer numbers), those who don't own businesses, and those who need affordable health care more than they need a $1,500 tax break. [More...]

ABC News skipped the analysis after President Obama's speech to cover an unconfirmed but specific terror threat from an outside country connected to 9/11. The target may be Washington or New York. The threat came in Wednesday night. Obama was briefed today.

CBS is covering the speech. NBC went to football.

President Obama has unveiled his $447 billion jobs proposal

President Obama is now speaking. "It's an urgent time." Live blog follows:

Having to watch Boehner behind him ruins it from the outset. Obama says something speechy and gets a standing ovation.

He's sending Congress the American Jobs Act. There's nothing controversial about it. Everything in it will be paid for. Everything. It will create more jobs teachers, construction workers.

It will cut payroll taxes in half for every worker and every small business. It will provide a jolt or a stalled economy. You should pass this jobs plan right away.[More..]

Both BTD and I are busy at work.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The SuperCommittee Henchmen meet today. Raising medicare eligibility to age 67 is on the table for discussions. The Democrats have submitted a memo with various proposed changes and a discussion of each. Here's the memo. Raising the eligibility age appears on page 7.

President Obama proposed raising the Medicare eligibility age as part of the debt-ceiling agreement, but Democrats are hardly united behind the policy.

The Democrats note that it's not going to be a money saver -- it's just going to shift who pays the money. They give the same reasons I gave last month. [More...]

Sorry for being AWOL. Busy. And will be busy for the next few days as well.

Open Thread.

President Obama will give a speech Thursday. He's going to propose a $300 billion job package.

Obama will call on Congress to offset the cost of the short-term jobs measures by raising tax revenue in later years. This would be part of a long-term deficit reduction package, including spending and entitlement cuts as well as revenue increases, that he will present next week to the congressional panel charged with finding ways to reduce the nation’s debt.

Almost half the stimulus would come from tax cuts, which include an extension of a two-percentage-point reduction in the payroll tax paid by workers due to expire Dec. 31 and a new decrease in the portion of the tax paid by employers.

Will he mention raising the age for Medicare eligibility? Jay Carney said yesterday the speech would "include some new proposals that you have not heard us talk about.” We haven't heard Obama talk about raising the age for Medicare eligibility, only reports that he was okay with it. This better not be one of his proposals. If it is, his pink slip is coming.

Among the bevy of motions to dismiss filed by lawyers for John Edwards yesterday, the most interesting to the public should be the motion to dismiss for abuse of prosecutiorial discretion and prosecutorial vindictiveness.

Edwards says former U.S. Attorney George Holding, now running for Congress, investigated him searching for a crime, rather than investigating a crime and searching for the culprit. He says Holding was driven by prior animosity and conflict with Edwards and Holding's own political ambitions.

The brief supporting the motion is 32 pages, I've posted the Statement of Facts here and some of the allegations below.

The crux of the argument by Team Edwards (which now consists of Abbe Lowell, James P Clooney, III and Wade Smith -- Gregory Craig and Skadden Arps are no longer on the case) is : [More...]

It's been a busy work day and now I'm headed out to dinner.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Political analyst Larry Sabato writes in the Wall St. Journal that the 2012 presidential election will come down to 7 super-swing states:

Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13).

Why these 7? He says it's all in the electoral college math, the polls don't mean much. Sabato says:

Republicans therefore are a lock or lead in 24 states for 206 electoral votes, and Democrats have or lead in 19 states for 247 electoral votes.

There's a big difference between a lock and a lead so I'm not putting much stock in this. And what if there's a third party candidate on either side? Sabato says that could put a wrench in things. Redistricting (as in Ohio and "Northern Frost Belt" states) ) could also make a difference according to Sabato since the Republicans will gain about 6 electors from it.

Matt Yglesias writes:

[W]hen it’s cheaper to pay for things by borrowing money than by taxing productive activity, it’s pretty foolish not to step up your borrowing. The issue we ought to be debating is whether we should increase borrowing by cutting taxes or increase borrowing by hiking spending.

This is obviously true. It would be the right economic policy to both cut taxes and borrow to increase government spending. But that's not going to happen in our political world of "governments are like households." The choice for Democrats is whether we will cut taxes AND reduce spending. That's why I oppose cutting taxes now - because cutting taxes is less effective stimulus than government spending. A pragmatic view of our choices makes this clear. Yglesias asks "With the House controlled by Republicans and the White House controlled by Democrats, we’d end up compromising on a mix of the two. Instead we’re talking deficit reduction. Why?" Because Democrats, led by the President, played into the deficit scare is why. For some reason, people don't like to say that. But that's the main reason.

Speaking for me only