I'm afraid it'll be more dreariness, E.J. You keep forgetting about the red half of the country.
What needs to happen is a sharp course correction -- from an agenda championed by the forces that were beaten in the last election to an engagement with the problems our nation must solve.
The One was re-elected, sure, but the House remains in GOP control, Mr. Dionne.
No by-line listed in this post but by the time I'd read to the second yellow comment I knew it was Dionne...
Democrats have been much tougher in this round of negotiations than they were in the past not only because the GOP vastly overreached in trying to gut Obamacare, but also because they know how important it is to insist that budget cutting and deficit reduction not be the sole priority of the political class. Rep. Paul Ryan (who was, by the way, the other member of the Republican ticket that lost last year, partly because of his budget ideas) hoped to steer the talks in this direction. But Democrats have made it clear that it's not 2011 anymore.
So budget cutting and deficit reduction are not the only priorities? What are the others?
The United States should build, not just cut. We should invest again in an infrastructure whose decayed condition ought to shame us. We should deal with high ongoing unemployment, reverse the rise of inequality and give poor and working-class kids real opportunities for upward mobility.
Actually I agree with the goals, so long as we don't raise taxes. SMARTER SPENDING™.
Future negotiations must be premised on getting rid of sequester cuts that are hobbling our economy and on matching future cuts with new revenues. Talk of changes in Social Security and Medicare need to take into account not only their long-term costs -- which require, above all, further fixes to our health-care system -- but also how these programs may be inadequate for a generation whose members will not enjoy the pensions their grandparents had.More money to O'care, less to pensions!
It's important to understand that the American people really have blamed this mess on the GOP and really did revolt against the tea party's irrationality. The public's reaction has not been "a plague on both your houses," even if the shenanigans make Congress as a whole look very bad.
Keep it up with the Kool Aide, E.J.
The president and his allies seem determined to seize this moment and not squander a triumph built on a willingness to stand firm against right-wing radicalism. Obama can't slip back into the style of deficit wrangling that so weakened him in 2011. He now has an opening to refocus on his priorities: universal pre-kindergarten education, immigration reform, rebuilding our transportation and communications systems -- and, one would like to hope, an even broader agenda for speeding growth and sharing its dividends fairly.No time for compromise! Forward!