Congress, as usual, is paralyzed. It can’t figure out how to extend the low-cost student loan program. Without Congressional action, the interest rate will double, from 3.4 percent to 6.8, on July 1. The cost of extending the program for a year is estimated to be $6 billion. With the economy still weak and with [...]

As usual, this completely dysfunctional Congress can’t seem to find the fix for Social Security. The trust fund is now estimated to run out of money in 2033, three years earlier than previously anticipated. After that, taxes will cover only about 75 percent of promised benefits. It’s still not all that hard to fix it. [...]

It looks as though Congress, in the face of numerous protests, including the Wikipedia shutdown, is backing off passage of SOPA and PIPA, the laws which would have allowed the government to block or shut down websites suspected of posting pirated material. The laws, written on behalf of the film, music and publishing industries, had [...]

Interesting story yesterday about how wide the economic gulf has become between members of Congress and their constituents.  According to the New York Times, the median net worth of the folks in Congress grew 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, while the public saw its net worth drop 8 percent. Senators and representatives have always [...]

If I liked anything about John Boehner I’d be tempted to feel sorry for him. He has wanted on a number of occasions to make a deal with President Obama–on the debt ceiling, on unemployment insurance, on taxes–and every time he thought he had one the Tea Party balked. He wants to be the guy [...]

The downed drone in Iran is one of those godsends to cartoonists–you can do so much with it. Our increasing reliance on remotely-controlled unmanned weapons has its plusses and minuses. Fewer troops are put in harm’s way, but at the same time it’s much too easy to destroy harmless things and kill innocent civilians and [...]

The federal government, at least for the moment, will stay in business. The most recent threat of a shutdown was averted when FEMA found enough money under the mattress to limp along until the end of its fiscal year, when it will be automatically funded again. The right-wingers in the House wanted any additional disaster [...]

  First Hurricane Irene flooding the Northeast, then wild fires consuming the Southwest, and now THIS. 

No explanation needed, I’m guessing. Sadly, the market gyrations, as I expected, have produced a hardening of partisan positions, rather than the hoped-for wakeup call. We are in the hands of lunatics on the right and cowards on the left. Let’s go the Wisconsin route and recall the lot of them.

Washington has zeroes in with laser-like focus on the most pressing issue of our day–the unacceptable level of unemployment. No, wait! Just kidding. It’s cutting the size of government, which of course, matters more than anything else to the millions of Americans who can’t find work, who have lost or are in are in danger [...]