War has broken out between West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania over who can give away more tax dollars to Shell Oil.

Today is Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) awareness day!

On the eve of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, my thoughts turn to peace. It’s hard to keep them there, though, because of the chorus of voices that scream for violence and war.

I grieve for those who died ten years ago in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania, as well as all who have died — and continue to die — in the wars spawned out of that attack. I long for the day when military fly-overs at football games become a thing of the past, and our cities have more statues to teachers than generals.

But the cheers for executions, and the willingness to spend billions of dollars on weapons to dole out death but mere pennies on social services that preserve life in one way or another for the most needy among us tell me that the day I long for is quite a ways off.

As Obama buys into the deficit hysteria of the GOP, he is endangering not only the social safety net on which millions depend, but also his own particular job. One aspect of the 2012 election calculus that I don’t think Team Obama realizes is that a deal like this will throw away any hope he has of holding onto the Catholic voters that supported him in 2008.

In states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri, Ohio, and Florida, Catholics are a sizable chunk of the electorate, and Obama cannot afford to alienate them. If he caves to the GOP on the debt ceiling negotiations and sacrifices Social Security and Medicare to protect the tax gimmicks so beloved by the MOTUs and banksters, these voters will not be happy.

Just let those states sink in: Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri, Ohio, and Florida. Obama’s not going to win them without significant Catholic support, and cutting the social safety net is NOT going to help get those votes.

“Paul Ryan Gets a Boost from Catholic Bishops” said the headline in Politico yesterday, describing a letter from USCCB President Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York. But reading the article makes me wonder if the reporter read the earlier letter from Ryan to Dolan, or an earlier letter from two prominent Catholic bishops to members of Congress last month.

Ryan’s letter is very, very misleading, and misrepresents the papal encyclical he quotes. Given that he’s writing to a bishop about Catholic teachings, he probably ought not to be telling lies. Dolan’s apparent endorsement of Ryan’s letter, then, becomes quite troubling indeed. Either Dolan is aware of Ryan’s misleading approach and is endorsing it to give Ryan political cover with Catholics, or Dolan has been snookered by the guy Paul Krugman labeled “The Flimflam Man.”

Neither is terribly flattering to Archbishop Dolan.

Paul Krugman spent Wednesday combing through the details of Tea-GOP genius Paul Ryan’s budget and in a series of blog posts utterly destroyed the Ryan budget’s phony math, implausible assumptions and unicorn forecasts. Kudos to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for picking this up.

Krugman once called Ryan a “flim flam” man, a virtual con artist, and yesterday, he proved it. Let us count the ways.

The worst part is not that President Obama has recently forfeited the rhetorical war with Republicans by adopting their tired trope–like regular families are tightening their belts during this recession, the federal budget needs to, as well–but that the analogy is horribly wrong. Their is probably no two entities that technically have budgets that are less alike than the United States Federal government and a typical American family.

It’s not as if Alan Simpson hasn’t uttered a series of disqualifying comments throughout the past year, but this time he really takes the cake.

I have a counter-proposal to the Republican demand that we must temporarily extend all the Bush tax cuts.  They want to include tax cuts for those making over one million dollars a year, for the next two years, despite the fact that it will add hundreds of billions to the deficit  I suggest President Obama demand that instead of using the money to extend tax cuts for the rich, that it be used to mail every taxpayer a $1,000 check.

Senator Simpson is not just sexist and rude, he seems to know next to nothing about Social Security. Even worse, he shows no interest in learning.