Day: July 16, 2014

Anne Marie Cox thinks the GOP is now destroyed as an option for the Millennial Generation.

Late last week, the Reason Foundation released the results of a poll about that generation, the millennials; its signature finding was the confirmation of a mass abandonment of social conservatism and the GOP. This comes at a time when the conservative movement is increasingly synonymous with mean-spirited, prank-like and combative activism and self-important grand gestures. The millennial generation has repeatedly defined itself as the most socially tolerant of the modern era, but one thing it really can't stand is drama.

Which probably explains why Millennial approve of No Drama Obama.

This is the latest from the Congressional brain rust -- this time trying to find money for the Transportation Trust Fund. This time, it is Hoouse Republicans who are looking to use this trick to look like they are paying for the extension to the Transportation Trust fund. Instead of looking at rational ways of raising revenue (taxes, closing tax loopholes), they've decided that undermining America's already hemorrhaging pension system is the right place to get money to pay for our roads. But this is apparently not the first time this accounting gimmick has been floated to actually fund something. The Democrats tried using this mess into a bill to extend unemployment insurance and it was part of the funding mechanism for the last temporary Transportation Bill. Which means that this bit of business is available for some appalling bit of bipartisanship. (Even though the GOP looked at the pension smoothing plan to pay for unemployment benefits and said that it paid for nothing. Now they are all for it.) So what is Pension Smoothing?