The Wonk Monkey is glad it is the weekend, now for the news.
Aung San Suu Kyi is finally free after seven years of house arrest.
In the Presidents weekly address he is targeting earmarks. However, he calls congress to task on this as well.
“That’s why I’ve submitted to Congress a plan for a three-year budget freeze, and I’m prepared to offer additional savings,” Obama said. “But as we work to reform our budget, Congress should also put some skin in the game.”
Abortion, of all things, is turning out to be a political winner for Democrats in some states.
By branding Republican challengers as outside the cultural mainstream on the issue, Democrats managed to hold on to at least a slice of the political center by courting and winning over moderate women in a handful of key states.
Few of the upcoming contenders for the Presidential Election in 2012 have served in the military.
Of the 16 top GOP presidential prospects for 2012, only Rep. Ron Paul and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have ever served in the Armed Forces. Since President Barack Obama also never served in the military, the odds are that in two years, Americans are likely to cast their votes in the first presidential race in nearly 70 years where neither major party nominee has ever worn the nation's uniform.
The new Democratic leadership in the House is starting to take shape.
House Democrats have reached a deal to keep both Reps. Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn in the leadership, with Hoyer (D-Md.) serving as minority whip and Clyburn (D-S.C) taking a new, as-yet-still-undefined number three position.
Politifacts of the Day:
It is Mostly True when President Bush said: that the ratio of the deficit to gross domestic product during his time in office "was lower than Ronald Reagan's by half. Lower than my dad's. And only [worse than] Bill Clinton among modern presidents. ... My debt to GDP was the lowest or one of the lowest of modern presidents. My taxes to GDP was the lowest and my spending to GDP" was too.
The younger Bush went from a 1.3 percent surplus to a 3.2 percent deficit, a decline of 4.5 percentage points. The best was Clinton, who moved the deficit from a 3.9 percent deficit to a 2.4 percent surplus -- a positive change of 6.3 percentage points. The other presidents all had changes up or down that were roughly two percentage points or smaller.
This suggests that Bush's fiscal record wasn't so sterling if you use a different measure than the one he did. But to analyze the accuracy of his statement, we'll stick closely to the words he used. George W. Bush is correct that he outperformed his father, Reagan and (mostly) Clinton. So if you consider those the "modern" presidents, he's essentially right. If you broaden the "modern presidents" to include those serving in the entire post-World War II period, Bush is about average. While we wouldn't have chosen to define the "modern presidents" to include just the four that Bush mentioned by name, we'll give him some deference in framing the question. So we rate his statement Mostly True.
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