The Oddness of the President's Upcoming Deficit-Reduction Plan

But there's a strong likelihood the American economy will still be anemic in 2013, if not on life support. Even if we avoid a double dip the jobs picture we'll almost certainly be terrible. Even if by some miracle job growth soared to the average monthly growth over the past decade, the unemployment rate wouldn't get back down to 6 percent until 2024.

When unemployment is still in the stratosphere, it would be insane to start cutting the deficit by $3 trillion to $4 trillion. That would push unemployment into outer space.

And in proposing such a huge deficit reduction package, the president continues to reinforce the Republican lie that the budget deficit is our biggest challenge -- indeed, that we're in the fix we're in because government has become too big.