Next to President Barack Obama, probably the last person in Washington who expected a challenger in the 2012 primary election was House Speaker John Boehner. The Ohio Republican, one of the most powerful politicians in the country, won a three-way primary race in 2010 with 85 percent of the vote. Who in his right mind would try to take him on?

As promised in his address to a joint session of Congress last week, President Barack Obama on Monday sent his proposed economic plan, the American Jobs Act, to Capitol Hill and urged legislators to �pass it immediately.� He maintained that the bill �could add a significant amount to our Gross Domestic Product, and could put people back to work all across the country� and that it would not �add a dime to the deficit.�

The military-industrial complex is pulling out all the stops to ensure that not one dime of its vast federal largess is taken away even as the nation faces nearly $15 trillion in debt. Defense contractors, Representatives and Senators, and current and former Defense Secretaries are working together to thwart actual and potential cuts in defense spending resulting from the August debt ceiling deal.

“I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this legislation,” President Barack Obama stated in his Thursday evening speech to a joint session of Congress. He then proceeded to propose modest tax cuts, significant spending increases, an unemployment insurance extension, Medicare and Medicaid reform, and tax loophole closures — all told, an estimated $447 billion in reduced revenue and increased outlays. It is difficult to fathom how such a plan could fail to be controversial.

Former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney unveiled his economic agenda Tuesday, beating President Barack Obama to the punch by two days. (Obama will present his jobs plan in a speech to a joint session of Congress Thursday evening.) Romney’s plan is, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it, “unremarkable, to say the least.”

Who says Ron Paul can’t beat Barack Obama? The Texas Congressman’s threat to prevent the President’s upcoming speech to Congress from occurring the same night as a Republican presidential candidates’ debate — a debate in which Paul will participate — may very well have been the deciding factor in forcing Obama to postpone his appearance.

Across the fruited plain, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is $3.62, a full dollar higher than it was just one year ago. Of that $3.62, 18.4 cents go directly to the federal government, which then disburses most of it to states for road construction and repair.

Observers note that President Barack Obama seems to enjoy comparing himself to former President Dwight Eisenhower, having repeatedly claimed that he was reducing federal spending to Eisenhower-era levels. Although his assertion that the recent debt-ceiling deal would produce “the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was President” proved to be false, it is easy to understand why Obama wants to be like Ike: Today the 1950s are often viewed, rightly or wrongly, as an era of stability and prosperity in America, with Eisenhower the reassuring, moderate presence guiding it all.

Announcing his entry into the 2012 presidential race, Gary Johnson rattled off a list of crises besetting the United States, from “record unemployment” to “loss of our nation’s industrial might.” “Why am I telling you this?” he asked, then answered: “Because America is better than this. And because I can help fix it.”

Ron Paul has some good news and some bad news. According to the Texas Congressman and 2012 Republican presidential contender, the good news is that people are beginning to take his proposals — less federal spending, more oversight of the Federal Reserve, and nonintervention in foreign countries — seriously. The bad news is that the political class may come around too late to prevent the destruction of the dollar and the havoc that will wreak on our government and our economy.