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David Brooks on the candidacy for U.S. President of Senator Rick Santorum. He says Santorum genuinely represents the working class- a grandson of a coal miner and the son of Italian immigrants who has represented workers of the steel manufacturing region of western Pennsylvania. Santorum has pushed hard in this campaign largely ignored by the media. He has visited 370 towns riding in a pickup truck trying to cover as much ground as possible and talking with great conviction about his positions distant from the corporate and financial wings of the Republican party, about family, and communities. Bring someone like Sherrod Brown of Ohio together with someone like Rick Santorum and you have good representation of the working class across the political spectrum to win this election for the working class of America, says Brooks, who sees this as a lot better alternative today than Harvard Law.

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U.S. States faced a shortfall of $86 billion during the 2011 budget season, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. This was after a rise in tax collections during the last year from an improving economy, and about $30 billion of tax increases passed in 2009 and 2010. States faced the end of $66 billion in federal stimulus aid, and their share of Medicaid costs are expected to go up by $16 billion in this fiscal year, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. The political mood has shifted with worries about the deficit and fears that tax increases could make the states less attractive for employers. As a result there is a focus on spending cuts with very few tax increases. Forty six states began a new fiscal year this week after legislatures focussed on spending cuts, mostly avoided tax increases, and some states placed restrictions on the pay and benefits of public employees.

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Obama's closest advisor, David Plouffe. Asked about Plouffe's influence in the Obama White House one aide says that Plouffe's imprint is on "everything." For the last 18 months Obama has kept the 2012 election in mind in his actions and kept a campaign focus, on the advice of Plouffe. George W. Bush's advisor, Karl Rove, does not see this positively, as he says it kept the president from governing. One issue on which there is considerable questioning is why President Obama did not support the recommendations of the president's Simpson-Bowles commission on deficit reduction. Though it remains conjecture, it may be because of Plouffe's and other election related advice that reducing deductions- or what are called tax expenditures- as suggested by Simpson-Bowles would be politically unpopular. If true this may be ways in which running for office long before the election date may affect necessary action in governing. The political calculations when allowed to go rampant can distort the needed actions of responsible governing, and lead to timidity, indecision and lack of leadership. ...

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Former Senator Jim DeMint lays out his reasoning for the Republican fight to defund ObamaCare, as the healthcare legislation is now called by Republicans. He points to problems with the legislation with issues about how much the added entitlements will cost in the future( more than the $250 billion by 2023 estimate of CBO insists DeMint based on the general lowballing of projections), and higher premiums for the young and elderly on exchanges. He says the 2012 elections were fought on economic issues not ObamaCare, and that the public he has met in visits to different states as president of the Heritage Foundation continues to be skeptical about ObamaCare. He sees the correct role of the Opposition party to point out the deficiencies in the law and call for corrections in the path for healthcare.

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Walmart comes out in favor of requiring employers to provide health insurance to all workers, a central feature of President Obama's effort to provide near universal coverage in the USA. As the country's largest private employer, employing 1.4 million Americans, this change is significant. In a letter to the President, Walmart CEO Mike Duke, joined by Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union, and John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, who also signed the letter, say they are for an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage. Walmart had a couple of reasons for doing this. For one Walmart needed to join the negotiations, as the Senate Finance Committee is considering other proposals that are less favorable to Walmart than employer mandate. Already Walmart is covering 52% of its employees, and has improved health benefits in recent years in response to criticism of the company. The industry average is 45%, according to a 2008 Kaiser Foundation study, and some companies do not provide the health benefits that Walmart does, so this helps level the playing field by requiring all large companies to share the burden. Walmart wants to see effective cost controls to keep costs down, and Rahm Emmanuel, the President's chief of staff, assured Walmart that "cost control and employer mandate are heads and tails of the same coin." Under the plans considered by the Senate Finance Committee under Max Baucus, small businesses are exempted from the employer mandate. Republicans have opposed employer mandate. And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has opposed it saying it would make companies lower wages and cut jobs. Walmart's shift has been gradual. From a company used to providing skimpy benefits, it has evolved as it improved benefits, and two years ago it joined the SEIU union to call for affordable health care for all Americans by 2012. It has Mr Dach as its governmental affairs vice president, and this is significant, as Dach is an advisor to Democratic party politicians....

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Ezra Klein says about the contrasting choices offered by Romney-Ryan vs Obama-Biden, that everyone wanted to see a clear choice between different approaches to the issues, and now they have got one. Its almost a repeat of Reagan-Bush vs. Carter-Mondale during a period of high unemployment with Democrats risking underestimating the importance of the careful choice made by Romney today.

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Rep. Paul Ryan got his start in politics in 1983 when he was hired to work for a think tank Empower America. This think tank was formed by Weber, Kirkpatrick, Bennett and Kemp, to preserve Reagan era ideas of focussing on economic growth generated by private investment. This was followed by working as an aide to Senator Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Jack Kemp till his election to Congress in 1996. Kemp was the big idea guy and it was Paul Ryan who delved into the budget details at the time to support Kemp's ideas. Kemp was Republican vice presidential candidate, the same position that Ryan is in today. Ryan represented the area around Janesville, Wisconsin, in the U.S. Congress. He graduated from the University of Miami, Ohio.

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How the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommendations on reducting tax expenditures and the Romney, Feldstein proposals to limit tax deductions and loopholes to make the rich pay more- at the same time as the tax code is simplified with lower rates- offer a basis for moving towards a deficit reduction plan that has support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, of Democrats and Republicans. Jeb Hensarling and Pat Toomey are the Republican members on the Supercommittee to address deficit reduction, who support a balanced approach to raise revenue from taxes and spending. Obama advisor, Chrisitina Romer sees the Simpson-Bowles approach to limting tax deductions as a good starting point for building an agreement. Romer goes so far as to say let the Republicans in Congress decide on infrastructure project selection as there so many worthy infrastructure improvement projects that getting started would be the main objective.

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This Washington Post editorial says vice president Biden's comments that "I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes to Social Security. I flat guarantee you," made to a voter in Southern Virginia, is downright disheartening. It points out that this is not the conclusion of the trustees of the Social Security Fund, which includes the secretaries of Treasury, labor and health and human services of the Obama administration. The April annual report of the trustees says that the disability portion of the trust fund "becomes exhausted in 2016," and the overall fund "becomes exhausted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2033." Actions suggested by the trustees include: raising the payroll tax, tweaking the inflation calculator, reducing benefits, or some combination of this. It is clear from polls that the U.S. voter does not want either party to touch Social Security, but the reality is something different. The idea of a flat guarantee in the light of facts that all can see is seen by the Post as going too far, trying to win votes at the cost of postponing necessary decisions which will become harder and costlier if not addressed early....

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Senator Patrick Toomey (Pa.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) are lobbying Republican party members in Congress behind the scenes to accept $300 billion in taxes as the only way to get an agreement on debt reduction in the Supercommittee. This would be part of a plan that addresses entitlements, and changes the tax code to lower rates and reduce tax expenditures by closing deductions and loopholes. This is leading to an intense debate in the Republican party about the wisdom of a purely ideological position on taxes that does not take into account current realities, and risks letting markets take control of the nation's future.

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U.S. presidential candidate Romney's plan to limit deductions to $25,000 leaves the taxes deductions of middle and lower income earners intact and hits high income earners with large deductions hardest.

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John Hills, a law professor at Indiana University and author of "The Political Centrist," says tough political exchanges are endemic to the American political system. Others say putting crosshairs on representatives in Congress like Giffords on websites or its equivalent wasn't the practice since the times of Jefferson and Adams. We looked at the letters of George Washington during the long struggle with the British and it showed composure and civility even in dire circumstances and difficulties. Criticism by Washington of the lack of help and risks he was exposed to throughout the war was worded carefully, with civility and yet conveys the great urgency. What about the letters of Jefferson and Adams who were on opposite sides of the debates of that time, a time more infused with momentous issues because of the French revolutionary tide in those years? A letter to Abigail Adams, from Washington, June 13, 1804, gives a glimpse of that relationship: "The friendship with which you honored me has ever been valued, and fully reciprocated, and altho' events have been passing which may be trying to some minds, I never believed yours to be of that kind, nor felt that my own was. Neither my estimate of your character, nor the esteem founded on that, have ever been lessened for a single moment, although doubts whether it would be acceptable may have forbidden manifestations of it. Mr Adams friendship and mine began at an earlier date. It accompanied us thro' long and important scenes. The different conclusions that we had drawn from our political reading and reflections were not permitted to lessen mutual esteem, each party being conscious they were the result of an honest conviction in the other. Like differences of opinion existing among our fellow citizens attached them to the one or the other of us, and produced a rivalship in their minds which did not exist in ours." Jefferson in this letter says that one act of Adam's gave him a moment of personal displeasure, the last appointments by Adams as President "from among my most ardent political enemies." This says Jefferson "laid me under the embarrassment of acting thro' men whose views were to defeat mine, or to encounter the odium of putting others in their places...If my respect for him did not permit me to ascribe the whole blame on the influence of others, it left something for friendship to forgive, and after brooding over it for some little time, and not alwasys resisting the expression of it, I forgave it cordially, and returned to the same state of esteem and respect for him which had long subsisted...I maintain for him and shall carry into private life an unform and high measure of respect and goodwill, and for yourself a sincere attachment."...

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Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff under President Clinton, and Alan Simpson, former senator from Wyoming, say the U.S. Supercommittee members should remember that their personal priorities and the common good are not at odds. The authors of the Bowles-Simpson Presidents Commission for deficit reduction say there is growing discontent among voters with politicians who are obsessed with gaining partisan advantage. Using issues of national importance that require a common approach from all parties as a way to score political points will only backfire on these politicians. Personal priorities of members of Congress are now no longer at odds with the common good, they are converging. It is upto the Congress, members of both parties, to push back against the special interests and partisan politics, and show leadership on the deficit. The eurozone crisis has shown the dire consequences of any sluggishness or procrastination. The failure of the political class and leadership in Italy and Greece, and in other nations of the EU, has put the fate of these countries in the hands of markets, which have relentlessly pushed up the borrowing rates of Greece, Italy, Spain and other countries, and taken future direction out of the hands of politicians. Erskine and Bowles say don't wait for a fiscal crisis to take action because it will be disastrous economically and politically, with everyone as losers and no winners. Timidity is not an option, leadership is required to take action that is big and broad, tackling tax expenditures, entitlement expenditures, defense, across the board....