“Ron Paul has now walked the budget-cutting walk he’s been talking about.” The words of Investor’s Business Daily’s Andrew Malcolm sum up most commentators’ initial reactions to the Texas Congressman’s “Plan to Restore America,” and who could disagree? For decades Paul has been arguing that federal spending must be slashed, and on Monday, October  17, he laid out just how he intends to do that if elected President in 2012: Eliminate agencies, end foreign aid, repeal reams of regulations, cut military spending, reduce the federal workforce, and freeze mandatory spending. His expected results: $1 trillion in immediate cuts, followed by a balanced budget in three years. “Bold” — the word most commonly used to describe Paul’s proposal — is, perhaps, an understatement.

The 12-member congressional supercommittee created by the August debt-ceiling deal is tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in cuts to the federal budget over the next decade. With that kind of money on the line, was there ever any doubt that lobbyists would come knocking on the committee’s door?

Referring to his jobs bill in his weekly address to the nation, President Barack Obama stated, “I want it back.” No, the President is not having second thoughts about the $447 billion bill; he just wants Congress to pass the bill so he can sign it.

Observers who surmised that President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act was a gimmick designed to make the employment situation look better just long enough for Obama to be reelected — never mind the long-term consequences — have been vindicated.

“The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession,” President Barack Obama said in 2009. Two years later, in the midst of a still-struggling economy, Obama is proposing over $1.5 trillion in tax increases. What gives?

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.”