A new report by CEPR details the moribund job market noting that unemployment levels won't return to their pre-Great Recession levels for another decade.

Over the weekend, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairmen of the president's debt and deficit commission, spoke to the National Governors Association in Boston. During their speech, Simpson and Bowles hinted at the recommendations their group will make to Congress later this year. Despite pleas to the contrary – including during its recent public hearing – the commission seems bent on a package composed mostly of spending and entitlement cuts.

That's the question Brian Beutler over at Talking Points Memo raises this morning while reporting on the possibility of a bipartisan consensus on scaling back Social Security benefits materializing in Congress. Recognizing that such a proposal is usually "the third rail of American politics," Beutler lays out the not-impossible scenario of deficit-weary members of Congress sacrificing the relatively solvent entitlement program of Social Security before the alter of fiscal austerity.

Ryan McNeely had an interesting post over at Think Progress this afternoon on Roll Call's recent "extremely flattering profile" of Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD), a leader among the Blue Dog Coalition in the House. McNeely notes that the article portrays Herseth Sandlin "as a thorn in the side of [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA], bravely defending the nation from increased deficits." Of course, the problem with that description, like the media's general portrayal of the debate on deficits and debt, is that it is so oversimplified that "it does a grave disservice to our discourse."