Sen. Conrad: Extend All Tax Cuts; Time to Get 'Serious' About Deficit.

That headline sums up the absurdity of current Washington thinking.

As Chris Hayes of The Nation put it:

It's the standard bribery model of legislating that has come to characterize Washington in the era of oligarchy: if you want to put food on the table of the unemployed, you must lavishly wine and dine the CEOs and bankers who laid them off. Obama didn't create this system, but he is making it stronger before our very eyes.