Washington Post

Closing future deficits with either tax increases or spending cuts would require gigantic changes. Discounting the recession's effect on the deficit, Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the underlying "structural deficit" -- the basic gap between the government's spending commitments and its tax base -- at 3 to 4 percent of GDP. In today's dollars, that's roughly $400 billion to $600 billion.

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LEN NICHOLS, Director of the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation; senior adviser for health policy in the Office of Management and Budget, 1993-1994

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Mark Arax is a great reporter. He has an ear for a good story. He knows where the action is, and the remarkable level of detail he captures tells us he's as tenacious and unrelenting as the most hard-boiled noir detective. He's also clearly an obsessive character, particularly enthralled by dashed dreams and hopeless causes, and in "West of the West" -- 10 loosely knit essays and an epilogue -- it's sometimes not clear where his story ends and California's begins.

"An older order is dying," said Steve Coll, former managing editor of The Post. "High-end journalism is dying in America," testified David Simon, creator of hbo's "The Wire," who wore an open-collar black sport shirt for the somber occasion. ...

Steve Coll, former managing editor of The Washington Post, won a nonfiction award for his book "The Bin Ladens," which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and for a 2009 Pulitzer Prize in biography. ...

At his party-switching news conference at the White House last week, the newest Democratic senator, Arlen Specter, shared Amtrak memories with Vice President Joe Biden, reminiscing about the long hours they've spent riding "that train." It was a useful reminder that this 29-year Senate veteran has never been the most rock-ribbed Republican. Specter has always represented Acelaland -- that dense urban region that snakes along the Eastern seaboard and is home to America's financial and political establishment.

The Post partnered with Andres Martinez of the New America Foundation to host an online dialogue with Washington think tankers on health care reform.

Andres Martinez (New America): We're taking stock this week of President Obama's first 100 days in office, so I'd like you to share your thoughts on what the administration has accomplished in this period on health care reform. Any surprises?

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Reihan Salam, co-author of "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save America," said this week that the danger for Republicans is to believe they now represent a vast, silent majority that is waiting to reassert itself. ...

I took that as a signal to Senator Grassley" that Obama is willing to negotiate around an issue Grassley has vehemently opposed, said Len Nichols, health policy director at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit think tank, referring to Sen. ...

Since taking office, President Obama has made great efforts to address the "Muslim world." In his first formal international television interview, with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya, he announced, "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that Americans are not your enemy." Then, speaking to Turkey's parliament, he declared, "The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam."