Are they ready to blow it up?

Below are selected paragraphs from a story in Politico today.

… Already on the table are more than $1 trillion in discretionary 10-year spending cuts and hundreds of billions more in changes affecting farm subsidies, college aid and retirement benefits for federal workers. Additional savings from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are in the offing, as well as a potential $300 billion change in the government’s inflation calculator affecting Social Security benefits and some revenues.

By almost any measure, it is a historic pivot. In the past decade, core domestic appropriations have grown by 9 percent in real dollars, one-fifth of the rate of increase for the Pentagon — not counting the additional expenditures for wars overseas. Republicans made a first dent in April and would now be in a position to follow up — albeit risking a big fight in their own conference over defense cuts. …

… To be sure, introspection has never been a surplus commodity in the Capitol. But it is quite extraordinary now to watch so many well-educated, often well-meaning men and women — held in such collective disregard by the public — remain so convinced of their individual correctness.

Read the entire story, "Debt Ceiling Deal's Ticking Clock Creates Pessimism" here.

David Stockman: Ben Bernanke is Finished

The Dylan Ratigan show yesterday had an interesting conversation discussing the economy, debt, the bailouts. It is an alternative explanation of the 2008-09 meltdown. Of course, anybody can say what "would have happened" if we had taken an alternate course in those scary days because there is no fear of being wrong. Still, a lot of people at the time (and apparently today) thought letting the economy fall apart would have been a better choice in the long run. Watch it here.

The Liberation of Europe Begins, 1944

This Day in History, D-Day (History Channel)