• So… how y’all feel about that speech? Reviews streaming in following President Obama’s remarks about U.S. budgetary issues are somewhat mixed, but that’s what you’d expect when the speech in question struck such a starkly firm, at times defiant tone. Indeed, the favorite words of the administration, like “bipartisanship,” “compromise,” and “common ground” were all there, but there was also a lot of base-feeding red meat to his pitch that likely inflamed conservative orthodoxy and left liberals feeling better than they had expected.

• The Paul Ryan Plan President Obama flatly and sternly dismissed Rep. Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity,” stating the plan would “end Medicare as we know it,” has a “deeply pessimistic” vision for America, and there’s “nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.”
• The Tax Man plan? The crux of the President’s rebuttal is that taxes on our highest income earners not only must go up, but that they should go up — a marked departure from more moderate rhetoric he’s used in the past years, likely due to the opposition’s success in injecting the word “socialism” into the debate. source

Posted by Chris Tognotti • Permalink