What people should also find more than troubling is that, as Krugman also mentions in that column,

People have asked me why the president's economic advisers aren't telling him not to believe in the confidence fairy -- that is, not to believe the assertion, popular on the right but overwhelmingly refuted by the evidence, that slashing spending in the face of a depressed economy will magically create jobs. My answer is, what economic advisers? Almost all the high-profile economists who joined the Obama administration early on have either left or are leaving.

Nor have they been replaced. As The Wall Street Journal recently noted, there are a "stunning" number of vacancies in important economic posts. So who's defining the administration's economic views?

In a strange way, I actually have an "easier" time dealing with the likelihood that Obama does believe these policies - because they indicate that he may not be totally hollow - than I do suspecting that he's been on this path only because what's most important to him is his political fortune and he thinks, and his advisors have convinced him, that this is the best thing for HIM.

I long ago gave up any idea that Obama knew anything about economics, he clearly does not and is taken with the smartest guys in the room, smoothest talking guys in the nicest suit types.  

I do not want to engage in pop psychology but the man seems driven to convert enemies to friends.  That seems to be his end and capitulation or co-opting of hideous policies is simply one means of obtaining that end.  In any event, I've seen enough to realize he is dragging down progressivism because anything he does or fails to do will be characterized by the GOP and their coporate owned media henchmen as failed Dem/liberla policy.  And he is not going to address unemployment in any meaningful way, he is more likely to make matters worse.

At this moment, Speaker Boehner is crafting a deficit deal that would gut Medicare and Social Security, while slashing benefits for seniors and the middle class in order to make sure he protects tax breaks for millionaires. This is unacceptable and House Democrats will not stand for this.

John Boenher didn't put cutting Social Security on the table, Obama did. He has wanted to cut Social Security benefits from the day he took office. He just wants to be able to blame the Republicans for it. link

He is not your policy ally with regard to economic policy. You want to stop him on economic policy. Time to wake up.

Already dues paying party members are dropping out.  Since March dues paying party membership is  down 20% in my county.

A capitulation on Social Security/Medicare, etc. will cause many party people to wonder if the Democratic Party has changed beyond recognition and certainly Democratic voters may find other activities on election day as they did last November.

1. governments should be run like businesses., and
   
2. governments should be run like families.

he's a farking idiot. or perhaps he just plays one in the oval office. but, he did get a good night's rest last night, in some cheesy hotel.

Yesterday Doyle McManus wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on Team Obama's victory plan, analyzing Senior White House Adviser (the "brains" behind the president's 2008 campaign) David Plouffe's comments at a breakfast Wednesday, July 6, 2011, organized by Bloomberg news.

McManus reported in that article that Team Obama sees four reasons they expect to win the 2012 election, and Plouffe's first reason was unbelievably disconnected from reality:

First, Plouffe suggested, Obama has an opportunity to improve his standing among independent voters -- many of whom deserted the Democrats in the 2010 midterm election -- by working with Republicans toward bipartisan deficit-reduction measures.

As Thom Hartmann reminded yesterday:

The President is trying to pitch a $4 trillion deficit reduction package over the next 10 years - that slashes away at programs mostly affecting the working class and even cuts up the social safety net in America - trimming $400 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. All of these tough cuts will be in exchange for closing a few tax loopholes for corporations, millionaires, and billionaire. Ultimately, President Obama's deal is heavy on spending cuts, light on tax hikes.
...
We have a society in which 400 Americans own more wealth that 150 million other Americans. We have a society in which 50% of all the children in America will depend on food stamps at some point in their life before they are 18 - and among African American children that number is 90%. We no longer live in a just society - and if Brzezinski is right - turbulent times could be ahead for America.

I'm really surprised that Frank Rich's outstanding July 4, article in New york magazine hasn't created more of a storm.

Now, I haven't been much of a Frank Rich fan these past few years for reasons that many here probably agree with, but it seems he's had a sort of epiphany about Obama.

Basically, his point was that "The Rich" caused this disaster, it was Obama's duty to go through the cathartic process of bringing the guilty to justice, but when Main Street looked to the President for relief, He crossed the street and stood with Wall Street.

I know I've said it before, but if some candidate, doesn't matter from what Party, stands up and says, "The Rich caused this problem and if I'm your President I promise to use all the resources of the U.S. Government to get back all the money they stole."

I've shied away from discussing the economy there because I think it ends up being a shouting match.

"The ideal thing is to get more realists to use their enthusiasm for deficit reduction -- their professed enthusiasm for deficit reduction -- to lock them into the reality that something on revenues has to be part of the solution, and to make sure that nothing's done on entitlements that's damaging to our interests without making sure that revenues are on the table in a meaningful way," one senior Treasury official told several reporters at a background roundtable meeting weeks ago.

and, from the same senior Treasury official:

[Y]ou reduce the risk that all the pressure to reduce deficits falls on spending today, this year. So if you can make a credible commitment over time to phase in over time a balanced package, you take a huge amount of pressure off the risk that non-defense discretionary gets gutted....

You are much more likely to improve confidence in sustainability of an expansion if it looks like -- if there's a credible multi-year plan Congress will be held to that phases those things over time.

If it's more balanced ... there's less risk to growth in the near term.

I'm hoping to see something no one is discussing included in the bill.