The U.S. economy grew 2.8 percent in the last three months of 2011, the Commerce Department announced in an advance estimate Friday. The new figures help quell lingering fears of a double-dip …

Top Defense Dem: GOP Must Blink First To Avoid Pentagon Cuts

Despite a brewing panic among Congressional Republicans (and some Democrats) over automatic, across-the-board defense cuts set to kick in on January 1, 2013, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee says those cuts must stand unless and until Republicans relent on their anti-tax absolutism, and agree on a balanced deficit reduction package that includes higher revenue.

“The purpose of the sequester is to force us to act to avoid the sequester,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor roundtable. “It’s like a nuclear weapon — it’s totally useless; it can’t be used except to accomplish some other goal than its use. It’s used to deter.”

Newt Gingrich, Space Keynesian

Newt Gingrich’s case for boosting federal investments into private sector space projects awkwardly embraces a core tenet of modern liberalism: the belief that government spending can help the economy.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” Gingrich said in Florida, explaining that it would entail “commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism and manufacturing, because it is in our interest.”

The former Speaker’s argument rests on textbook Keynesian economics: the notion that targeted government investments in industries can stimulate economic growth.

Top Dem Offshoring Expert Smells Something Fishy In Romney’s Tax Code

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) says Mitt Romney will have to make his pre-2010 tax returns available. That may sound like a predictable demand from a partisan Democrat. But it’s more than that.

Levin may well know more about tax avoidance strategies than anybody in Congress. In his capacity as the Democrats’ top investigator he’s has made extensive inquiries into the techniques businesses and individuals use, including overseas havens, to hide their money from the IRS. And what Romney’s revealed so far troubles him.

Colbert Mocks Obama’s ‘Jay Leno In Chief’ State Of The Union

It’s no surprise Stephen Colbert wasn’t satisfied with President Obama’s State of the Union address. Perhaps worst of all, it got in the way of Colbert’s favorite television show, NCIS: Los Angeles.

“We know this country is in deep trouble, but this clown, to him it’s all a big joke,” Colbert said of Obama, rolling a clip of the president joking about crying over spilled milk.

Jon Stewart On SOTU: Obama’s The ‘Tax Credit Oprah’

Jon Stewart on Wednesday took on the best — and worst — moments of President Obama’s third State of the Union address. First, there was the opening line: I killed Osama bin Laden! It was a bit too early, Stewart said. “Does Rick Springfield open with ‘Jessie’s Girl’?”

GOP Warming On Dem Idea To Fund Huge Medicare Hole

House Republicans are coming around to the Democrats’ plan for permanently ending the Medicare “doc fix” problem — a $300 billion and growing albatross around the nation’s neck that virtually everybody believes needs to be fixed. The option is now on the table, key Republicans tell TPM, just one month after some of those same lawmakers dismissed it as a senseless Washington gimmick.

Last fall Democrats began pushing the idea to pay for a full repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with war savings from troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans didn’t much care for it, but Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) hopped on board during the Super Committee negotiations, and has since been working behind the scenes to win GOP support.

Senate Democrats Plan To Put Republicans On The Wrong Side Of The Middle Class

Senate Democrats are preparing an aggressive legislative agenda to complement the vision President Obama outlined in his State of the Union Address. The goal is to test the idea that the public supports an agenda of aggressive federal action on behalf of the middle class, and that Republicans are locked in a pattern of reactionary opposition, even to popular policies.

The push is premised on the notion that the country has turned the corner on the fights over deficits and the size of government, and that keeping issues of equity and opportunity for the middle class at the center of the national debate will redound to Democrats’ political benefit, either by breaking the GOP or by putting them on the wrong side of public opinion.

But in an extremely consequential election year, when consensus becomes an endangered species on Capitol Hill, it will take a groundswell of political pressure to force either party to work with the other on a substantive agenda. So expect the Dems to hawk these issues relentlessly.

Giffords Resigns From Congress: ‘I Will Recover And Will Return’ (VIDEO)

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords bid farewell to the House of Representatives Wednesday morning receiving an emotional standing ovation from her colleagues.

The Arizona congresswoman submitted her resignation to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) just over a year after a horrific shooting in Tucson that left six people dead and Giffords critically wounded. Since that time, Giffords has made incredible progress, but she is resigning to continue focusing on her recovery. The House met Wednesday morning to take up Giffords final piece of legislation, designed to give stiffer sentences to smugglers who use small, ultralight aircraft to bring drugs into the U.S. from Mexico.

House leaders paid tribute to Giffords’ public service ahead of her resignation. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Giffords is “the brightest start this Congress has ever seen,” adding that Giffords will be missed.

Three Key Questions Raised By Romney’s Tax Revelations

Mitt Romney’s campaign has tried desperately to put a lid back on the can of worms that burst open weeks ago when the one-time GOP presidential front runner declined to release any of his tax returns.

But by actually releasing his 2010 return, and an estimation of his 2011 return, camp Romney has provided reporters with some, but not all, of the answers they’re looking for as they try to paint a complete picture of the finances of one of the wealthiest candidates for President in U.S. history.

Romney’s revelations confirm that his effective tax rates in the past couple years have been as low or lower than those of workers with truly modest means. They also confirm that he’s availed himself of truly complex tax strategies designed to boil his liability down to the lowest level allowed by the country’s heavily rigged, labyrinthine tax code. And we know, too, that these are things Romney didn’t want voters to know — at least not yet.

But they raise a series of new questions that will likely require Romney to disclose several years’ worth of additional tax returns if he wants to answer them satisfactorily. Here are three big ones that touch generally on the theme of Romney’s efforts to reduce his tax burden by taking advantage of areas of the law that simply aren’t available to most people.