The sorrow and the pity of Obama’s budget

By Chrystia Freeland – Pity Barack Obama. Everything in his life experience prepared him to be the president who would take on the big challenge of the 21st century: rising income inequality and the hollowing out of the middle class.

Obama’s swift political ascent soon propelled him back into the world of the plutocrats, but even as he was pocketing their donations, he worried about coming to share their worldview. Obama feared that hanging out too much with the super-rich would skew his perspective. He was concerned, he wrote, about losing sight of the “frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population — that is, the people that I’d entered public life to serve.” more> http://tinyurl.com/brfnk3c

Related>

• Obama, GOP senators agree to exchange paper in debt talks, Alexander Bolton, Hill
• House Dem leaders balk at Obama’s plan to cut Social Security, Mike Lillis, Hill
• The price of defying your base, Bill Schneider, Reuters

Obama’s 2014 budget plan to be delivered Wednesday — into a yawning political void

By Lori Montgomery – President Obama will unveil his 2014 spending plan Wednesday (Apr 10), 65 days late and several trillion dollars short, by Republican standards, of effectively reining in the national debt.

But the more relevant fact about the White House budget may be the yawning political void into which it is about to fall on Capitol Hill.

An actual deal remains elusive. It is not even clear who will do the negotiating. more> http://tinyurl.com/dy6xm76

Related>

• Obama to unveil $1.058T budget, Erik Wasson, Hill
• Liberal lawmakers see unlikely ally in GOP on entitlement cuts, Mike Lillis, Hill
• Obama budget to take aim at wealthy IRAs, Bernie Becker, Hill

Obama: Let’s Start a New Financial Crisis

By John Perazzo – We now learn from the Washington Post that the Obama administration, in its relentless quest for “social justice,” is pushing banks to make more loans to people with weak credit ratings.

No, you aren’t in a time warp. This article wasn’t written ten years ago, before the housing-market crisis plunged the American economy into the proverbial sewer. Difficult as it may be to believe, the current president of the United States is actually prescribing precisely the same practice—government policies pressuring banks to lend money to unqualified applicants—that caused the crisis in the first place. more> http://tinyurl.com/cxkc56x

Related>

• Banks: Why Too-Big-To-Fail Is Not Over, Steve Denning, Forbes
• Obama presses donors to help return Pelosi to Speakership, Amie Parnes and Justin Sink, Hill
• US is halfway to Obama 5-year export-doubling goal, Tom Raum, Associated Press

Mitch McConnell Prepares To Give Barack Obama The Political Shellacking Of A Lifetime

By Ralph Benko – Coming up next: a political Battle of Armageddon over repealing Obamacare. The Republicans are attempting to take the majority in the Senate. The Democrats ambitiously wish to take the majority in the House.

Enter Obamacare — which now has landed as the issue on which national politics almost is sure to hinge in the upcoming political cycle. If indeed Obamacare degrades health care (and makes it more expensive and an even bigger hassle) it will prove more of a political liability than an asset. What does the political battlefield look like? more> http://tinyurl.com/cu6jgv5

Ross Douthat Is Wrong About Liberalism’s Rise The Iraq war had little to do with it

By Nate Cohn – Bush’s second-term agenda may have been hampered by Iraq, but it’s hard to argue that Social Security reform would have passed otherwise. More importantly, the collapse of compassionate conservatism wasn’t necessary to create the political space for Democrats to move left and pass health-care reform. Democrats never considered it an ideologically bold proposal, and it seemed likely to attract bipartisan support until a conservative, grassroots revolt in the late summer of 2009. more> http://tinyurl.com/c5bt9vm

Related>

• The Emerging Democratic Majority Turns 10, Ruy Teixeira, Atlantic
• The Iraq War and Domestic Politics, Ross Douthat, NYTimes.com