Last Thursday, the Senate voted, 60-39, along partisan lines to pass legislation raising the nation's borrowing capacity to $14.3 trillion. During debate of the bill, senators rejected an amendment to establish a commission to make recommendations to reduce the deficit, but agreed to an amendment reinstituting statutory pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules with some exemptions.

Following up on Craig's post earlier this evening, I wanted to point out some of the really good points that Spencer Ackerman over at the Washington Independent and Matt Yglesias over at Think Progress have been making all day about President Obama's recently announced spending freeze. Ackerman asks why in the world defense spending should go unaffected and Yglesias adds that, while there are reasons to treat various kinds of spending and taxes differently, "the security / non-security distinction doesn’t hold up ... at all."

This past Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wrote a letter to the Government Accountability Office, calling for an audit of "all aspects of our involvement in the extension of credit to AIG." The letter sparked a storm of interest, with pundits saying it was a move by Bernanke towards supporting increased Fed transparency, a hot topic these days as Bernanke waits for the Senate to confirm his new term as Fed chair (waiting which is getting harder...). There were literally hundreds of articles about the letter, with every major news outlet writing it up, making the letter a major piece of news.