"Data released by the Commerce Department last week showed that personal income fell 3.6% in January, the biggest decline in 20 years. The drop was even bigger when taxes and inflation are taken into account. Real personal disposable income fell by 4%, the biggest monthly drop in half a century. ... 

"What this means is that the U.S. economy is not merely recovering from the recession more slowly than one might like, but is actually getting worse for many Americans. Despite three-and-a-half years of uninterrupted growth in real GDP and a decline of more than two percentage points in the unemployment rate since 2009, the standard of living is falling for as much as half the population, particularly if you look beyond monthly numbers to longer-term trends."

"Despite President Obama’s promise that his plan would not add 'one dime' to the deficit, the Government Accountability Office announced last week that it would more likely add 62,000,000,000,000 dimes (or $6.2 trillion) over 75 years.

"Obama also promised that 'if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan.' Estimates for how many Americans will lose their existing plans vary. The CBO says 5 million to 20 million. The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. says about 30 percent of employers will push workers onto the public system.
 
"Even the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters have started to freak out over the gold-plated benefits many of their members will lose, thanks to the guy they helped reelect."

"President Obama gave his second-term global warming agenda a lot more definition Monday with a new Environmental Protection Agency chief to replace Lisa Jackson. Picking Gina McCarthy, one of her top lieutenants and the architect of some of the agency's most destructive carbon rules, is a sign he intends to make good on his vow of 'executive actions' if Congress doesn't pass cap and tax.

"Over the last four years running the EPA's air office, Ms. McCarthy has been a notably willful regulator, even for this Administration. Her promotion is another way of saying that Mr. Obama has given up getting Congress to agree to his anticarbon agenda, especially given the number of Senate Democrats from coal or oil states. The real climate fight now is over the shape of forthcoming rules that could be released as early as this summer, and a brutal under-the-table lobbying campaign is now underway. ... 

"Lately Mr. Obama has been going around saying that the problem is that he's a President, not an 'emperor' or 'dictator,' but on carbon regulation this is a distinction without much difference. Ms. McCarthy has been integral in abusing laws that were written decades ago in order to achieve climate goals that Congress has rejected, all with little or no political debate. Someone should ask her about her antidemocratic politics at her confirmation hearings."

"Demagoguery about preschool and corporate jets is not going to convince Republicans that Obama can be a reliable negotiating partner.
 
"Instead, it reinforces the evidence that he never will be. This is the president who, in his grand-bargain negotiations with Speaker John Boehner, agreed on $800 billion in more revenue — and then, in a phone call, told Boehner he wanted $1.2 trillion instead.
 
"And it’s the president who first proposed the sequester, then promised it would never happen, and then denounced it when it seemed clear it would.
 
"We need serious changes in public policy, as Obama’s Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended. But this president doesn’t seem much interested in that kind of governing."

"Rep. Maxine Waters of California, a 22-year House veteran and ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, this week warned of 'over 170 million jobs that could be lost.' That's actually more jobs than America has, and it's little comfort to say, 'But she's a famous idiot,' because Washington is actually full of famous idiots who are making serious decisions about how the sequester cuts are to be applied."

"Whatever one thinks about the merits of cutting $85 billion out of an almost $3.6 trillion budget, the effort to portray the cuts as ushering in days of tribulation, distress and anguish, of trouble and ruin, of darkness and gloom is – how to put this? – insane. ... 

"[W]hat makes this particular episode somewhat different than past ones is that Mr. Obama has supplemented his demagoguery with a touch of cruelty. That is, he has made it clear that he wants to inflict as much harm as possible on Americans in order to make the cuts live up to the hype. The president’s greatest fear is that the sequester cuts will kick in and life will go on. So he’s threatening to pass over wasteful programs in order to target more essential ones. ... 

"It is really quite remarkable, this concoction of willful deceptions, hyperbole, demagoguery, mismanagement, and deliberate harm. And to think that a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Barack Obama promised to put an end to cynicism. Instead he has added massively to it. The harm he is doing to our political culture is very nearly incalculable."

"President Obama's message could not be clearer: Life as we know it in America will change dramatically on March 1, when automatic cuts are imposed to achieve $85 billion in government-spending reductions. ... 

"Scare tactics such as these are similar to the ones that were made when I co-authored the first sequester legislation in 1985, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act. The 1986 sequester was triggered anyway, but the predicted disaster never came. ... 

"Even after the sequester, the federal government will spend $15 billion more than it did last year, and 30% more than it spent in 2007. Government spending on nondefense discretionary programs will be 19.2% higher and spending on defense will be 13.8% higher than it was in 2007."

"The sole purpose of [Organizing for America] will be to advance Obama's policy agenda, and to that end, Obama will meet personally with OFA's national advisory board in the White House at least four times a year. And, here is the money part: You too can become a member of the national advisory board for the bargain basement price of just $500,000. OFA hopes to become 'a powerhouse national advocacy network' by selling such slots to wealthy donors and raising $50,000,000 this year. 

"If that isn't selling access, then we don't know what is. ... 

"If Obama wants to know one of the key reasons why American trust in the federal government is near an all-time low, he need only look in the mirror."

"Don’t kid yourself: President Obama understands the math. He knows federal finances are on an unsustainable long-term trajectory. His Office of Management and Budget produces the same scary debt charts as Paul Ryan’s House Budget Committee (though it doesn’t publicize them with quite the same zeal). But unlike Ryan and House GOPers, Team Obama has never publicly put forward a long-term plan to prevent a future debtmageddon; he has only sketched a path for (more or less) stabilizing debt levels over the coming decade. After that, it’s 'Here Be Dragons.'
 
"But we can offer some speculation on what Obamacrats plan to do eventually. The current sequester fight with Republicans hints at his plan: Cut (defense), Tax (the middle class), and Pray (health-care inflation keeps slowing)."

"It is always cliffs, ceilings and looming catastrophes with Barack Obama. It is always government by freakout. ... 

"Mr. Obama thrives in chaos. He flourishes in unsettled circumstances and grooves on his own calm. He spins an air of calamity, points fingers and garners support. His only opponent is a hapless, hydra-headed House. America has a weakness for winners, and Republicans just now do not look like winners. They have many voices but no real voice, and no one saying anything that makes you stop and think. ... 

"The president looks strong now, but governing by freakout has too many costs. Again, he is overplaying his hand."