George Will, Wash Post

John Cochrane, WSJ
They keep coming back, like the villains of a good zombie movie, chanting "more taxes, more taxes." Long ago, Congress passed the alternative minimum tax, or AMT"”a simple flat rate to ensure that in an insanely complex tax code, no one escapes paying something. Now we need an alternative maximum tax as a simple, rough-and-ready way to limit the tax zombies' economic damage. Call it the AMaxT.

Jonathan Alter, Bloomberg
That sound you're hearing may be the cracking of gridlock in Washington.Bipartisan bills on three of the big issues of 2013 -- the budget, immigration and guns -- could pass Congress this spring. If the B.I.G. agenda goes through, the public will cheer, providing incentives for politicians to do more. It would also go some way toward rescuing our system from being the embarrassment it is now.

Gail Collins, New York Times
Wow, there’s a lot going on in Washington! Budgets are flying all over the place. The Senate might actually start voting on a gun bill Thursday. And immigration reform has now gotten so far that the House of Representatives has a bipartisan Gang of Eight working on it.

By Mark Green

Host: Why focus again on the GOP? For better or worse, the in-power party speaks essentially through one voice -- POTUS 44 -- while the out-party has many tongues vying to articulate a national message for Congress and for 2014/2016. It's good to be King... but in terms of policy, strategy and power, Republicans are now faaar more interesting.

LISTEN HERE:

While "Both Sides Now" is usually chromosomally XX-rated, this one is our first-ever all-male program. In honor of the topic, we three agree to call it our Same-Sex Show.

*On the RNC's "Autopsy." Chairman Reince Priebus prominently released his party's "Autopsy" (why moniker implying corpse instead of something more Luntzian?) on what went wrong in 2012. With polling showing party in worst shape in couple of decades -- with a net-negative of 20 points -- something's gotta give for it to become the majority.

Our panelists concur the GOP gets more points for candor than analysis. Frum concludes that the party has to do better with voter-contact, social media, and advertising "but the reason why Republicans are in trouble is that it lacked an economic message for the middle class." Ron mocks the emphasis of tactics over content: "it's not just how you say something but what you say... the party's coming apart at the seams because of policies that are ugly and divisive and that sell fear and ignorance."

Back to David: exactly how does the GOP party avoid looking like "wacko birds" (McCain's phrase) when those who talk the loudest -- the Bachmanns, Pauls, Cruzs -- become the unwelcoming face of the party? Frum agrees that "voters are calling for bread but getting stones" from the first two but cautions that Cruz is shrewdly running for the vacant post of leader of the Right, like "Taft, Goldwater and Reagan before him."

Host: Recall how in 60s/70s Democrats were tattooed by Nixonites as outside the mainstream by standing for "acid, abortion and amnesty"... and then blue-collar Catholics -- later called "Reagan Democrats" -- shifted the axis of political power. Now the shoe's on the other foot with hard-right voices on rape, culture and immigration tainting the GOP brand. A generation of impressionable young and Latino voters are starting a mass exodus unless something changes.

*GOP and Gays: From Harvey Milk to "Skim Milk." Justices Alito and Scalia wonder why the Court might sanction something newer than "cell phones" -- and exactly "when did it become unconstitutional to prohibit gays from marrying?" Answered counsel Ted Olson arguing for marriage equality, when science showed that it was innate, like race or gender; Ron thinks it always was unconstitutional "but the Court is only now realizing it." (To Jon Stewart, you needn't have to "beta test" the proposition that separate-but-equal here is a bad idea or what Justice Ginsberg now famously called marriage and "skim milk" marriage.)

David has different views about DOMA and Prop 8: he thinks that it's unworkable to treat federal benefits differently in same-sex marriage states and violates assumptions of interstate "full-faith-and-credit"... but also worries it would risk a culture-war backlash if the High Court imposed one national standard in the Prop 8 case. Ron pounces: but since there's no shown harm from gay marriages, how can the Court justify discrimination any more than against interracial couples in the 1967 Loving case?

David intellectually agrees but believes it to be far preferable to allow states to democratically decide rules of marriage which would create "a more enduring consensus." Question: why take this different approach than Loving? Answer: because civil rights after a murderous Civil War and decades of segregation in one lagging region make it a more singular issue.

We listen to a conservative schism: Mike Huckabee predicts that if his party relents on opposing gay marriage, a lot of its evangelical base will be leaving it; yet Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh argue that gays are legally winning the argument and equal marriage is inevitable. Question: since many young voters now are not entering it, is it possible that a Republican aspirant in 2016 can say a version of this to the party's Evangelical base: "Hey, let's focus on middle class jobs and national security rather than who people choose to marry because that's that the business of government." Says David, "the party not only can, it has to in order to survive."

Host: As for Justices Alito and Scalia, same-sex partners have been around for several thousand years pre-cell phone, millennia that included polygamy, slavery and ownership of women; and it betrays their result-oriented approach to imply that discrimination should continue because maybe, someday, there will be a study indicating some harm -- is the American Association for Pediatrics not good enough for them? As for the right time to invoke the promise of Equal Protection, the chant of minorities in the '60s works as well today for those protesting Gay Jim Crow: "What do we want? Freedom... When do we want it? Now."

How did opinion change so rapidly from 2-1 against to 2-1 in favor in less than a decade? Ron stresses that no one can show any harm from expanding marriage to the LGBT community. What also contributed to the shift was Harvey Milk's 1970s strategy of urging others to come out to convince people that their gay nephews and neighbors deserved equal rights. Think of a courageous afew, then millions, standing up and saying of their sexual orientation, "I am Spartacus."

Nate Silver predicts that 40 states by 2012 will allow it since 81 percent of those under 30 now are in favor. So from the prism of an RNC seeking to modernize and win, the party should pray that the Court strikes down Prop 8 on constitutional grounds because that would take it off the national agenda rather than continuing a state-by-state, year-after-year battle that reminds younger voters which party favors equality and liberty and which party doesn't.

*GOP and Guns: After Newtown. We listen to Senator Cruz lecture Senator Feinstein about, in his view, the close parallel between the First and Second Amendments. Says Ron, "Why do people keep calling this person intelligent?", noting that even the First Amendment has exceptions such as libel and fire-in-a-crowded-theater.

Then from the other side, we listen to Obama's emotional plea not to forget Sandy Hook and Bloomberg's explanation why his $12 million ad campaign will hold swing senators accountable. Reagan likes the president's unusually personal, passionate, "all-in" approach which could make the difference legislatively... and, although Wayne LaPierre said that Bloomberg "can't buy America!" (NYC, maybe), until the law changes, Ron's ok with the multi-billionaire mayor spending so much money to help even the NRA's playing field.

While Frum thinks that swing members will indeed now fear both the NRA and Bloomberg, Obama's proposals might not make much of a difference. Instead, he proposes a non-legislative plan B for the President: order the Surgeon General to investigate how much more likely homeowners die when they have guns than when they don't and encourage the Senate Judiciary Committee to study why the gun industry isn't offering safer guns like the biometric ones that can shoot only if their owners are holding them. The NRA can't stop publicity that the chance of dying at home is eight times greater if you keep a gun there (because of accidents, suicides, children) and 10,000 people have been killed with guns since Newtown, a lot more than knives.

Host: Does Cruz not know that a) the first words of his revered amendment are "a well-regulated militia" and that b) there was no right to own guns for our first couple hundred years... until the 5-4 Heller decision ruled that the Amendment guaranteed a right to a handgun for safety but not more dangerous weapons. Of course he knows that. But why not imply that guns are as inviolate as speech when you're running to be the leader of the far Right? Bad law, good politics... for him. But when the Senate votes either on the Obama-Reid bill or the Paul-Cruz filibuster, it may not help when the GOP sticks to its guns while 90 percent want comprehensive background checks and 70 percent limits on magazine clips.

*On North Korea and North Dakota. Ron thinks that Obama and Kerry need "ice-water in their veins" when dealing with bluffing North Koreans. "It's different when you want and when you have nuclear weapons. When you have them, you can't go around threatening a 'Lake of Fire.' David suggests that it might be moral and cost-effective to simply buy off their top 50 leaders rather than continue to tolerate such nuclear brinksmanship.

Speaking of bluffing, North Dakota's new law that basically bans abortions after six weeks will be struck down as inconsistent with Roe v. Wade, concludes Ron. David thinks that Roe was wrongly decided and, as noted above in the equal marriage context, prefers that such decisions should be made democratically at the state level.

Mark Green is the creator and host of Both Sides Now.

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Tom Cochran, RealClearPolitics
Anytime you drive down a highway, drop a child off at school or jump on a train, the last thing on your mind are tax-exempt municipal bonds, which help to pay for highways, schools and transit.You need to think about them now.Congress and the White House have targeted the tax-exempt status of these bonds as a way to raise revenue. Mayors and local elected officials, however, know that would be a penny-wise, pound-foolish decision. 

Rep. Paul Broun, NY Times
THE latest budget proposal by Representative Paul D. Ryan, called “The Path to Prosperity,” is anything but. It fails to seriously address runaway government spending, the most pressing problem facing our nation. I cannot vote for something that would trick the American people into thinking that Congress is fixing Washington’s spending problem, when in actuality we’d just be allowing it to continue without end.Supporters of the “Path to Prosperity,” including many of my fellow Republicans, say that we have to stop spending money we...

The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Al Cardenas says of $60B Congress approved after Hurricane Sandy, 'only 10 percent was for disaster relief'

In the weeks since Congress approved aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy, conservatives have explained their opposition by saying the bill was loaded with political pork. Al Cardenas, the former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida who now heads the American Conservative Union, said the vast majority of the bill went beyond disaster relief. "Congress just adopted a $60 billion stimulus package, of which only 10 percent was for disaster relief. Now, I can't for the life of me understand why a good conservative would want to promote the $60 billion pork ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Barack Obama says "the majority of the American people agree with me" on spending cuts and tax increases to fix the budget

The sequester lives, and it’s the Republicans’ fault, President Barack Obama told Americans on Friday. As blunt, broad spending cuts started their slow crawl across the federal government on March 1, 2013, the president said he just needed Republicans in Congress to "catch up to their own party and the country." That means an approach to deficit reduction that "asks something from everybody," he said, including raising tax revenue. Saying he believes Congress "can and must" replace the sequester’s cuts with "a more balanced approach," he added:

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Peggy Noonan, Wall St. Journal
Everyone has been wondering how the public will react when the sequester kicks in. The American people are in the position of hostages who'll have to decide who the hostage-taker is. People will get mad at either the president or the Republicans in Congress. That anger will force one side to rethink or back down. Or maybe the public will get mad at both.

WASHINGTON -- The White House is refusing to share fully with Congress the legal opinions that justify targeted killings, while maneuvering to make sure its stance does not do anything to endanger the confirmation of John O. Brennan as C.I.A. director.

Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
At the dawn of a new presidential term and a new Congress, the answers to two overarching questions will shape the course of the next four years:First, about Republicans: Are green shoots of sanity beginning to appear in the permafrost of Washington dysfunction? Second, about the president: Unchained by electoral considerations, has the real, unabashedly liberal President Obama begun to reveal himself?My answer to the first question is a tentative and very qualified yes; to the second, an equally tentative, slightly less qualified no. 

Erick Erickson, Red State
Barack Obama was able to get Obamacare passed largely because he had a group of Democrats in Congress who were not running for re-election and thus had no fear of the voters. They overreached and the Democrats were swept out to the minority in the House of Representatives. In fact, the voters in 2010 wrecked devastating losses on the Democrats nationwide.When politicians, regardless of party, are no longer accountable to the voters they tend to do extremely arrogant things, they tend to overreach badly, and they tend to collapse. 

The same demographic trends that helped the GOP keep the House will hurt their shot at the presidency. And the trends that propelled Obama to reelection will impede Democrats from retaking the House.

David Walker, USA Today
The negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff represented another embarrassment for the United States. The Congress and the president created the fiscal cliff as a pressure point to force serious action on our structural deficits and growing national debt. The fact that we did go over the cliff, and then negotiated aquick fixthat failed to achieve meaningful deficit reduction, was a clear failure of leadership.Now, in 2013, our elected officials will be put to the test again. It is essential that they make meaningful progress this year toward putting our fiscal house in order. That will...

Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune
Here's the essence of the deal that the White House and Congress reached to pull America back from the fiscal cliff:Say your family has horrendous financial problems "” you're deep in debt, just paying the interest is killing you, but you keep borrowing more because you spend more than you make. At some point, the credit card companies will shut you down for nonpayment.So, you go to a financial counselor and one of the first things he says is:"Take a pay cut."

Word swept across Washington from Capitol Hill to K Street and the administration — and the response wasn’t positive

“AIG should thank American taxpayers for their help, not bite the hand that fed them for helping them out in a crisis,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “Taxpayers across this country saved AIG from ruin, and it would be outrageous for this company to turn around and sue the federal government because they think the deal wasn’t generous enough. Even today, the government provides an ongoing, stealth bailout, propping up AIG with special tax breaks — tax breaks that Congress should stop.”

Vice President Joe Biden reportedly took a hit at former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) Thursday during a rooftop party for Rep. Patrick Murphy, who defeated West in the 2012 election.

"I'd like to say to all of you, you did the country a favor," Biden told the crowd at Murphy's party, according to TCPalm.

Despite results showing West trailing Murphy by 1,900 votes, West refused to concede the election, suggesting "disturbing irregularities reported at polls" affected the outcome. It wasn't until two weeks after the election that he finally conceded while still insisting on "inaccuracies in the results."

"While a contest of the election results might have changed the vote totals, we do not have evidence that the outcome would change," West said.

Though West is no longer a member of Congress, he's still seeing support from some Republican peers. Reps. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) -- two of the House's most outspoken conservatives -- voted for West as Speaker of the House at the start of the new Congress Thursday.

Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times
Fresh off this week’s last-minute “fiscal cliff” deal, President Obama on Saturday dug in as the prospect of another budget clash with congressional Republicans loomed, warning that he will not negotiate over raising the nation’s debt limit.“One thing I will not compromise over is whether or not Congress should pay the tab for a bill they’ve already racked up,” Obama said in his weekly address. “If Congress refuses to give the United States the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire...

Steve Benen, MSNBC
The new monthly jobs report wasn't quite as strong as some had hoped, but it wasn't necessarily awful news, either. As Matt Yglesias noted, "[M]ake no mistake -- this economy is growing and has been growing steadily for months. It's not booming and it's not undoing the damage of the prolonged labor market weakspot, but it's definitely growing and the situation is definitely improving."I think that's right, but I also wonder whether Congress will screw it up.Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said something the other day that stuck with me: "Something has...

Eugene Robinson, Indianapolis Star
WASHINGTON -- To say that Congress looked like a clown show this week is an insult to self-respecting clowns.Painful though it may be, let's review what just happened. Our august legislators -- aided and abetted by President Obama -- manufactured a fake crisis. They then proceeded to handle it so incompetently that they turned it into a real one.The bogus "fiscal cliff" -- and please, let's never, ever use those words again -- was designed as a doomsday mechanism to force Congress and the president to make tough decisions. But resistance to the very concept of...

Michael Tanner, National Review
Twenty-three point nine trillion dollars.That will be our national debt in 2022 under the fiscal-cliff bill that just passed Congress. That's nearly $4 trillion more than the current-law baseline, and while most of that comes from making the Bush tax cuts permanent for most Americans without offsetting the loss of revenue through spending cuts, at least $330 billion of the new debt results from the increased spending that was part of the deal. Our government debt will amount to more than 118 percent of GDP.So the deal not only fails to cut spending, it also simply tosses more money on...

Steve Kornacki, Salon
The 113th Congress will convene for the first time at noon today, and barring an unforeseen morning development, it will in one of its first act elect John Boehner as speaker.Boehner has been an unusually weak speaker, one who has little power to bend his own party's rank-and-file to his will and little space to cut deals with the other party. That's not about to change, as his handling of the fiscal cliff showdown demonstrated, which is why I wondered a few weeks ago why he'd want to sign up for two more years. But he evidently is willing to pay the price, and we saw on...