about the tax increases. when you talk about the fact they cut and slash spending at the same time they hike taxes, it really was a formula made to fail. spending cuts and tax increases both take money out of the economy and slow the economy and, yes, they create this idea of austerity. but, look. it s a balancing problem. on the one hand you need to deal with it budgets and deficits and you need to keep growth going. here is what i saw over the weekend. recession in greece which is a actually a depression if you line it up against the u.s. great depression in 1929 it looks a lot a like in terms of how much unemployment there send a how much the economy was contracted. greece is having our great depression of the late 1920s. wow. moving on to washington now. president obama s renewed push for a grand bargain may be showing some early signs of paying off, at least with one top republican. senator bob corker of tennessee