Okay: YOU Balance The Budget September 14, 2012September 13, 2012 OBAMA EVEN BETTER THAN CLINTON? If you liked Bill Clinton’s presidency, and, boy, did I ever, then — Jonathan Chait argues here — you should admire Barack Obama’s even more. And not be embarrassed to admit it. HOLDING HIM IN HIGH REGARD Chait’s view may certainly be your own once you’ve read Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair or heard him on NPR. Michael Lewis really got to know him. YOUR TAX BILL UNDER ROMNEY If you want to see how the Romney/Ryan tax plan would affect YOU, watch them not tell you (perhaps because you would not like it?) here. Under two minutes. WOULD GORE HAVE PREVENTED 9/11? Jack Rivers: “I remember your saying you thought things would have been different with Gore as President. That he would have demanded we devote more resources to stopping Bin Laden and that the CIA and FBI might have unraveled the plot. Now, more than a decade later, I read this and I think you may have been right.” Remember the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”? Well, the writer got a look at some earlier briefings and reports that “the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it. IT’S RYAN WHO VOTED TO REMOVE WORK FROM WELFARE Amazing. As this Washington Post blog entry concludes: “Waiving the work requirement may or may not be a good idea. But despite what the Romney-Ryan campaign’s ads say, Paul Ryan is the only person on the national ticket to have supported doing it.” OKAY, DEAR READER – YOU BALANCE THE BUDGET Here. Take all weekend if you like. I’m not sure who’s behind this site, and I couldn’t tell whether the Daily Bible Guide at the top was hard-wired or just placed there by some ad engine (does it even show up when you go there?). But the effort appears to be serious, factual, and non-partisan. You can click on pie slices to reduce them; but more interesting may be the next screen where you can select various proposals (with an information button on each to get more background) and see what effect they would have. They are ranked by size, with the biggest saving coming from Simpson-Bowles, which would save nearly $4 trillion over 10 years . . . on down through more modest ways to save . . . and then into ever deeper negative territory with proposals that would make things worse, the last of which would actually add $4.2 trillion to the deficit. (The proponent of that one argues that it wouldn’t really, because cutting taxes would so spur growth it would cut the deficit. Which sounds awfully like what we’ve tried for the last decade, but what do I know?) Monday: Michael Lewis on Barack Obama — the audio version.