Obama's Budget  —  Clearly the big story of the day is the deliberate leakage of Obama budget plans.  The highlights:  — Obama wants the 2013 deficit to be half the size of the 2009 deficit he inhereted.  — The 2010 deficit is going to be large.  — Specifically …

A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage  —  IN politics, as in marriage, moments come along when sensitive compromise can avert a major conflict down the road.  The two of us believe that the issue of same-sex marriage has reached such a point now.  —  We take very different positions on gay marriage.

The quickest and broadest tax cut ever  —  Two important takeaways from the President's Weekly Address this morning.  —  #1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will start having an impact as soon as a few weeks from now, in the form of the quickest and broadest tax cut in history:

Swiss party wants to punish U.S. for UBS probe  —  The right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country's biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy.  —  The populist SVP, the country's biggest party …

EPA to Issue Emissions Rules  —  WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's climate czar said Sunday the Environmental Protection Agency would soon issue a rule on regulation of carbon dioxide, finding that it represents a danger to the public.  —  The White House is pressing Congress to draft …

Germany: EU backs blanket financial regulation  —  BERLIN - European leaders backed sweeping new regulations for financial markets and hedge funds at a summit Sunday in Berlin as politicians and nations scrambled to tame the global economic crisis.  —  German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted heads …

Dark Dark Dark  —  Barack Obama's grandmother told him to smile more.  Bill Clinton tells the new president to strut more.  —  As the country takes a bullet train to bankruptcy, the last Democratic president urged the current one to “embody” that old American spunk.

J. Edgar Moyers  —  The TV moralist's government record.  —  One of the darker periods of modern American history was J. Edgar Hoover's long reign over the FBI, as we have learned since he died in 1972.  So it is more than a historical footnote to discover new records showing …

Former Chief of eBay Tries a New Bid.  It's Political.  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Meg Whitman, a former chief executive of eBay, once said that running the Internet auction site was like being the mayor of a large city, with the mix of politics, competing constituencies and widespread resistance to change.

Should Minnesota lower the drinking age to 18?  —  The argument over the legal drinking age will once again arise in Minnesota, and along with it, issues of states' rights, citizenship, and public safety.  Four members of the state legislature will introduce a bill to lower the age to 18 …

From Islamabad to Bradford  —  'It is hard to understand this deal," said Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy.  And, if the special envoy of the so-called smartest and most impressive administration in living memory can't understand it, what chance do the rest of us have?