The American people don’t subscribe to the conservative position about why our nation has a deficit. Most people blame our deficit not on excessive social spending but instead on low taxes for the rich or the huge military budget, according to this National Journal poll. Just because some people might be concerned about the deficit doesn’t mean they support the Republican party on the issue.

Over at The New Republic, Noam Scheiber has a pretty decent account of how the Obama administration made its pivot to deficit reduction after the 2010 election and messed up the debt ceiling issue.

Fifty-one years ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his final, prescient warning about the rising power of the military industrial complex. More than half a century later, we find ourselves in a political system which has ignored Eisenhower’s sound advice as the influence of the war industry on our society reaches a crescendo. Nowhere is this “disastrous rise of misplaced power” more apparent than in the debate about the Pentagon budget taking place in Washington, D.C.

In the wake of the Congressional Supercommittee’s collapse, we finally have consensus on both sides of the aisle: the lawmakers orchestrating the partisan drama are, behind the scenes, happy to collaborate on destroying economic security for all but the wealthiest Americans.

A new Gallup poll shows Americans most concerned about jobs and the economy, but only 6 percent think the federal budget deficit is the most import concern. This huge disconnect between what Americans care about and what Congress is focus on contributes to the low esteem in which Americans hold the current Congress.

Undemocratic extra-legislative body comprised of Republicans and Democrats evenly divided is incapable of getting anything accomplished…just like the actual legislative body.

Huzzah!

Lost Decades looks at why the explosion of debt happened through the traditional lens of supply-and-demand. It examines the motivations and situations of people on both side of this debt. Why did demand for debt increase in the United States? The first reason Chinn and Frieden identify is the huge deficits run during the George W. Bush years. These are the trillions spent on the Bush tax cuts, the expansion of Medicare part D and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that weren’t paid for.

Reducing our spending on overseas military commitments is the deficit reduction idea that has the broadest public support across all partisan groups, according to new Pew Research Center poll. Solid majorities of regular Democrats, Republicans and independents all want to see America stop wasting so much money on foreign military commitments.

See if you can spot what explanations for slow employment AREN’T in this MSNBC story.

If I had a nit to pick with Obama’s deficit reduction plan, it’s that he’s framing increasing taxes on the wealthy in the service of reducing the deficit — traditionally a Republican goal — rather around the idea that progressive taxation builds a healthier democracy. But he’s on the right track.

How do I know? Because David Brooks hates it.