The President created the cat food commission, reviving it after it failed in the Senate. The Ryan blueprint, with its design to deliberately tweak programs liberals hold dear, was clearly going to be something that turned the Bowles-Simpson plan, which did not get a passing vote from the commission, as the bipartisan baseline. There’s certainly enough to read into Chris Van Hollen’s tacit approval to suggest that this will happen tomorrow. Yet this would be a pre-emptive surrender, and a needless one at that.

CBS News has released a new poll and, not surprisingly, with official unemployment around nine percent, it found that an overwhelming 51 percent of Americans said jobs/economy is the most important problem facing the country. By comparison, the national debt comes in second with a mere seven percent of Americans saying it is the most important problem, followed by health care with five percent.

I’m so looking forward to hearing Republicans and Teahadists and Blue Dogs rail against adding nearly a trillion dollars to the national debt, which as we all know is the greatest threat facing the country and is immoral and makes us like Greece and will lead to Hitler just like it did in Germany or something.

The new Republican House is likely to run into a brick wall in the Senate on most issues. Sure, they’ll try to repeal the health care law, but would need 13 Democrats in the Senate to join them on that. But where Republicans will try to make headway is through the appropriations process.

The lesson of Japan’s descent into deflation is not about raising taxes on workers in a fragile economy. The lesson is not to leave the destiny of the nation in the hands of people who caused the problem and use their power to preserve their wealth and status.