"The battle lines for 2012 are now clear: The very difficult task of confronting our debt, which should be a bipartisan project, falls to just one party. Republicans will have a better shot at success if they remember that reducing future spending, while essential, will never be popular. The message of avoiding fiscal catastrophe must be paired with promoting economic growth in the private sector. Cutting government and promoting jobs and growth are two sides of the same coin. 

"But Republicans cannot be under any illusions. Recent polling suggests that 'granny in the snow' may still elect Democrats."

"Gallup just reported that the Obama approval rate among independent voters stands at 35%. The conventional reply to this is that the American people fundamentally 'like' Barack Obama, or that the GOP candidate will make the election an unlikability Olympics.  

"What voters like is the memory of the historic Obama they voted into the office of the presidency. The person they voted for in 2008 is different than the person who kicked off his presidential campaign last week by personally stomping his opposition. 

"Somehow voters are apparently expected to 'like' whichever version Mr. Obama chooses to give them. It is asking a lot. By definition, this is a gap, and it's looking like it could be a dangerous one for the incumbent."

"In 2008-2009, magazines showed Obama with FDR's hat and cigarette holder; in 2011, the National Review gave them to Ryan, as the New Deal's reviser. History gave Obama his chance to make history by creating a sustainable safety net for the 21st century, and he is blowing it. If he doesn't do it, someone else will."

"The Obama fiscal policy since 2009 has been to explode the U.S. balance sheet with ever-greater spending financed by monetary reflation -- which the President in his speech euphemized as 'emergency steps.' The result after more than two years is what scares S&P and more than a few Americans: a historically subpar recovery, unprecedented deficits, persistently high unemployment, commodity inflation and now growing anxiety over U.S. creditworthiness.  

"The Ryan budget has been criticized as heartless and cruel. But its purpose is to address the rising U.S. debt problem without tanking the U.S. economy, and to do so before a truly heartless and cruel credit downgrade of the sort S&P gave Japan in January. Mr. Obama's response was simply to mock the GOP proposal. 

"The ratings agencies are hardly the last word on U.S. economic health. But the S&P outlook is a warning to the White House that financial markets have noticed that this President seems to have decided that his path to re-election lies in demonizing his opponents rather than seeing to the nation's fiscal well-being."

"Fifteen months ago, Obama warned that 'all of us have a choice to make: We have to choose whether we’re going to be politicians first or partners for progress, whether we’re going to put success at the polls ahead of the lasting success we can achieve together for America.' 

"It’s pretty clear now which choice the president has made. 

"And it’s not the one in which America wins."

"I cannot remember a more depressing week in Washington. 

"The Republicans boasted a heroic accomplishment: slashing $38.5 billion from the budget, purportedly the largest cuts in history. 

"But the cake was made from sawdust. 

"Strip away the gimmicks and shine a light on the shadows, and it turns out the real cuts amounted to $352 million, or less than 1 percent of what was promised."

"We initially supported the deal House Speaker John Boehner cut with the White House to cut $38.5 billion from the rest of the fiscal year 2011 budget. It was only a pittance in the context of all of Washington’s red ink, but it seemed an acceptable start, even if we assumed it would be imperfect in its details. What we didn’t assume was that the agreement would be shot through with gimmicks and one-time savings. What had looked in its broad outlines like a modest success now looks like a sodden disappointment. ... 

"As they push a bargain that is still not fully understood, Boehner and the leadership have put their members in an awful fix with another deadline to keep the government open fast approaching. We’d vote 'no,' even if we understand the impulse to move on to more important matters and to avoid a leap into the dark that might include a politically damaging shutdown. At the very least, freshmen and other conservatives should be frank about the deal’s shortcomings, refusing to exaggerate its merits as their leadership often has. The episode is strike one against the speakership of John Boehner."

"If the Democratic Party gives up the vast spending that is driving the nation to fiscal catastrophe, they undermine their ability to win elections as a national political party. They will fight for years to prevent such a spending 'drought.'... 

"But even confiscating all the income of the rich cannot sufficiently fund the reduction in deficits. Nor can slight-of-hand waste, fraud and abuse savings in the entitlements cover the gap. Ultimately, the Democrats either will not in fact deal with the deficit or they will have to do so by very highly taxing the middle class (either way, they want to keep spending, but they will try to hide those alternative realities). ... 

"Politics is about to get much uglier -- but possibly more productive."

"With his speech Wednesday, President Obama will try to claim leadership in the fight against the debt tsunami. But he's already had his chance to lead — many of them, in fact — and he blew it. ... 

"Obama might think that, with a nice new speech, he can wipe this sorry slate clean and redraw himself as a responsible and reasonable fiscal hawk. Republicans, and the public at large, would all do well not to take him at his word."

"This is getting to be a habit. President Obama ferociously resists tax cuts, trade agreements and spending cuts -- right up to the moment he strikes a deal with Republicans and hails the tax cuts, trade agreements and spending cuts as his idea. What a difference an election makes. 

"This is the larger political meaning of Friday's last minute budget deal for fiscal 2011 that averted a government shutdown. Mr. Obama has now agreed to a pair of tax cut and spending deals that repudiate his core economic philosophy and his agenda of the last two years -- and has then hailed both as great achievements. Republicans in Washington have reversed the nation's fiscal debate and are slowly repairing the harm done since the Nancy Pelosi Congress began to set the direction of government in 2007."