Gallup: Obama's job approval tumbles

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Sure, let's blame the guy who has no control in letting legislation get through and is actually willing to compromise.

I swear, politics here is making me incredibly cynical.

Who's willing to compromise?  I haven't seen anyone put forward a compromise.  Obama is insisting on a tax hike and the GOP is insisting on using only spending cuts.

I don't understand how they are equivalent. The GOP is saying no tax hikes on anyone, whereas the Democrats are asking for both taxes and spending cuts. Now, some on this forum don't want any spending cuts at all, but that is not the position of the national Democratic party. They are moderates. The current GOP party is extremist.

Oh yeah, the GOP should be the ones proposing the entitlement cuts, if they really want it, just like the Dems should propose the tax hikes/reform/whatever the hell you want to call it. The GOP ran against the Dems for cutting Medicare in 2010. Why should the Dems just bend over and take it again?

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Sure, let's blame the guy who has no control in letting legislation get through and is actually willing to compromise.

I swear, politics here is making me incredibly cynical.

Who's willing to compromise?  I haven't seen anyone put forward a compromise.  Obama is insisting on a tax hike and the GOP is insisting on using only spending cuts.

I don't understand how they are equivalent. The GOP is saying no tax hikes on anyone, whereas the Democrats are asking for both taxes and spending cuts. Now, some on this forum don't want any spending cuts at all, but that is not the position of the national Democratic party. They are moderates. The current GOP party is extremist.

Oh yeah, the GOP should be the ones proposing the entitlement cuts, if they really want it, just like the Dems should propose the tax hikes/reform/whatever the hell you want to call it. The GOP ran against the Dems for cutting Medicare in 2010. Why should the Dems just bend over and take it again?

You're reminding me of the infamous Monty Python SPAM sketch.  That's not got MUCH tax hike in it.

Hmm? I think we need a healthy helping of tax hikes/tax reform. I would raise revenues, but by instituting a very tight deduction cap so it only helps the middle class. And of course a good helping of spending cuts as well (which is opposed by some here apparently), with a big focus on the military. Raising co pays in Medicare and putting a limit on how much supplemental insurance can cover co pays would help as well, but the GOP decided to play with fire in 2010. Oh well.

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Oh, I agree we need to increase tax revenues as part of a deficit cutting package, but politically that can only be done in conjunction with cuts in entitlement spending.  There's no way such a package can be negotiated as part of the sequester mess and the GOP would be idiots to concede that a tax hike is acceptable in exchange for spending cuts unless it is locked down that those are cuts in entitlement spending.  Discretionary spending cuts are too easily reversed through the use of "temporary" supplemental spending bills.

Entitlement changes with increased revenue coming from tax reform would be the best. Unfortunately politics gets in the way.

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Oh, I agree we need to increase tax revenues as part of a deficit cutting package, but politically that can only be done in conjunction with cuts in entitlement spending.  There's no way such a package can be negotiated as part of the sequester mess and the GOP would be idiots to concede that a tax hike is acceptable in exchange for spending cuts unless it is locked down that those are cuts in entitlement spending.  Discretionary spending cuts are too easily reversed through the use of "temporary" supplemental spending bills.

You're in the minority, then. What package have the House Republicans proposed that doesn't require loophole closures come with rate cuts that would effectively lower revenue? "Broadening the base and lowering the rates" as they call it isn't going to raise revenue - it's just going to shift more tax burden away from the rich and onto everyone else and yield less revenue in the process. As for entitlement spending, the Republicans don't want to cut entitlement spending. They want to want to cut entitlement spending. Because they get elected by the people at the town hall meetings who holler about how "I earned my Social Security/Medicare! I paid into it and those benefits are mine!" without understanding how much more money they get out of those programs than they ever paid into them, and without understanding that their payments were given to people who were retired when they were still working - it didn't go into some little piggy bank with their name on it.

It depends on how its done. Instituting a deduction cap without touching rates would be great. Even if rates are reduced, the top rate should remain the same and the rates of the middle class go down a little.

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2014 midterms could be brutal for Dems.

Maybe in the senate due to staggered terms, but democrats lost pretty much everything already in 2010.

The Democrats won the popular vote in the House in 2012, and they have more seats won by narrow margins than Republicans do. I don't know about 'brutal', but Republicans definitely have room to grow in the House -- more than Democrats do. In the Senate, of course it depends on your definition of 'brutal', but it looks pretty likely Democrats will lose a couple of seats.

Really, except with historical data (like how Presidents do in midterms historically and recent election results) it's far too early to try to analyze what the country's 'mood' will be like in 2014. It could be brutal for Democrats. Or if they get very lucky they could advance in the House. Who knows.

Democrats won the popular vote in 2012 because of safe Democratic seats having much higher turnout than usual.  Even if Democrats lose the popular vote in the House in 2014, they could still gain seats.  The close seats in 2012 seemed to be pretty evenly divided.

To grow much further, Republicans would have to start winning seats with PVI's that they couldnt even win in 2010, which was the closest thing to a perfect strom Republicans will ever find.   

Republicans can grow without much difficulty by getting back what they lost in 2012. Just off the top of my head, Kirkpatrick, Barber, Murphy, Matheson, and McIntyre are all in quite Republican seats and barely won in 2012. Freshman Democrats in California won't be as buoyed by minority turnout and Republicans have already begun recruitment (apparently, the NRCC wants Carl deMaio, who narrowly lost the 2012 San Diego mayoral election, to run against Scott Peters, who's district he won in the mayoral election by double-digits while Peters' race was uncalled for days; they've also got two strong candidates, ex-Rep. Doug Ose and prominent autism awareness activist/statewide loser Elizabeth Emken up against Ami Bera). The simple fact is that there are more barely-D seats than barely-R seats, so Rs have lower-hanging fruit. Do Ds have the potential for bigger gains than Rs do? Yes, that's always the case for the minority party. But in a neutral year, without a wave for either party, Republicans "should" make small gains.

Barber and Kirkpatrick's seats are not "quite" Republican.  Locally, they are actually quite Democratic and they were both only barely won by Romney and even Bush.  Matheson survived the best possible Republican challenger in a year with a favorite son at the top of the district and survived 2010 in an even more Republican district. 

In California, the minority dropoff is nowhere near as severe as in other states.  Notice that even in 2010, Democrats lost no seats. 

In 2010, the seats were gerrymandered for incumbent protection purposes, and there were only a few competitive districts (if I recall correctly, just two; McNerney and Costa); Costa was an entrenched incumbent facing a Some Dude and McNerney faced a fellow who had carpetbagged in from Utah. In 2014, there'll be more competition and a lot more attention directed to California by the NRCC (especially vis a vis recruitment; basically no recruitment effort was put into CA in advance of 2010) because there're more competitive seats and more opportunities. The Republicans will also have to play defense in CA, let's not forget; Miller, Denham, and Valadao -- in, I think, that order -- are quite vulnerable.

No, 2010 was not gerrymandered for incumbent protection purposes, 2000 was. This actually ended up becoming a Republican gerrymander by 2010 as Republicans did very poorly in the state. A more or less fair map was drawn for 2010 and Bono and Lungren really have no excuse. Torie thinks the California map is not fair, and I agree with him in some instances, but for the most part it is fair and is certainly not an incumbent protection gerrymander. If Republican keep losing the congressional vote in California by more than 20 points, they don't have much hope.

Mcnerney is safe, btw. Whether his district is fair or not is certainly up for debate. I would have preferred an inland east bay district and a San Joaquin district. Of course, both would have voted Dem in 2012, and likely in 2014. Republicans need to stop nominating crazies, and up their game.

Also, Miller is more or less done. Any competent Democrat will defeat him in that district. Denham and Valado should be safe. Bera should be ok too, I think. That's a hard one to read. Emken is a good candidate, but did get crushed, although against Feinstein....hmm.