The current trajectory will certainly lead us to a point in the near future where the Government is the only thing that can bail us all out.  Obama could have gotten out in front of the curve and headed this off but he has delegated the "recovery" to those most repsonisble for the recession.  These policies have failed and will fail us more as time goes on.

"The anti-government attitude is here to stay.  The sooner we find ways of achieving our goals despite that fact the better.  We need to take the same tactic that conservatives use on issues like abortion. Attacking head on will result in failure. We need to start at the edges and work towards the core. Smart, common sense legislation that is too easily understandable for the GOP to torpedo easily."

What an unmitigated load of garbage.

The tactic that conservatives use on abortion is to nibble away at the edges of issues like abortion? Holy *hit man you are truly delusional.

The anti-government attitude is here to stay.  The sooner we find ways of achieving our goals despite that fact the better.

We need to take the same tactic that conservatives use on issues like abortion. Attacking head on will result in failure.

We need to start at the edges and work towards the core. Smart, common sense legislation that is too easily understandable for the GOP to torpedo easily.

And how exactly do you start at the edges and work towards the core as you sign onto republican ideas and go out and sell them? One must be in opposition to something in order to work against it.

And you're so right about the failure to take home mortgages into account - to do so would skew the analogy all to hell, so it has to have been intentional.  Too bad we're not all as dumb as these people seem to think we are.

Oh, how I would love to see someone at a town hall put Obama on the hot seat over this...

And, this just in from the new Deficit Commission:

When the Catfood Commission II was put together, the goal for the panel was to come up with $1.5 trillion in additional deficit reduction solutions, on top of the $900 billion already enacted in the debt limit deal. The reason $1.5 trillion was the target is that, under the terms of the deal, the debt limit would be allowed to rise by $1.5 trillion if the Catfood Commission II recommendations could be enacted.

But President Obama immediately set out to explain that $1.5 trillion was not enough. He said he would put forward a specific plan that would reduce the deficit well beyond that $1.5 trillion and deliver it to the committee.

And now, the Democrats on the committee are following the leader of their party.

The key dilemma facing President Obama and Congressional Democrats is that Republicans are wholly unwilling to support any new job-creating spending projects -- even projects with bipartisan support -- unless they're offset with spending cuts or savings elsewhere in the budget.

Thus, Democrats on the new joint deficit Super Committee will seek more than the $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction they've been tasked with finding, in order to help offset some of those costs.

"All of us would like to set as a target for ourselves even more than $1.5 trillion," Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who's also the top House Democrat on the Budget Committee, told reporters at a Tuesday Capitol press conference.

Xavier Becerra, another member of the committee, agrees with Van Hollen, and pronounced himself open to the "cutting of services... so long as...there's proof that the proposal will lead to job growth and deficit reduction."

Basically, Becerra and Van Hollen are trying to deliver the original grand bargain, the one that calls for job creating stimulus ideas in the near term balanced out by deficit reduction, including to cherished programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, in the long term. This is what the Administration thought it would get when they enacted the stimulus, and followed up with a focus on the deficit (including in the Affordable Care Act, which was very deficit-focused). Then they switched to a "balanced" deficit reduction plan as the grand bargain. But with that having failed, we're going back to the initial plan: a few shekels for jobs now, and a torching of the social safety net later. Van Hollen and Becerra stressed that they still want revenue increases in the plan somewhere, but I imagine they will value some job creation more than tax increases.

I can't say that more directly.  It was not possible.  He was at the edges of what congress would allow with $800B.

But there are certain things that they believe in more strongly depending on how the issue is framed.

That's what progressives want.  Frame the issue so that Americans want/support Democratic priorities.

Spending cuts that don't impact entitlements?  Let's start with "Defense," it is obscene what we spend.  But that would be wanting it all.

Direct stimulus?  The cost of Govt borrowing has never been lower.  Spend spend spend!!!!  On infrastructure, parks, broadband , alternative energy and other long term assets.