Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Super PACs take center stage in primaries

  As our primary selection day approaches, it appears that we are seeing significant campaign attention from the presidential candidates. The move by the Alabama Legislature to make us an early primary state was a good one.

  As is generally the case, we are seeing negative ads. That is not unusual in politics. The reason that they are employed so often is because they work. Otherwise, the media consultants would not use them. The difference in this year’s presidential contests, however, is who is paying for the ads.

Craig Ford: Robert Aderholt has some explaining to do

  We need to let Congressman Robert Aderholt know we expect him to do his job and help us complete I-759 highway!

  When Congressman Aderholt speaks to the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, he has a lot of explaining to do.

  To start with, he should explain why anyone who wants to hear their congressman speak has to pay $25 per person. We elected him; we shouldn’t have to pay just to have the opportunity to hear him speak and ask him questions.

Michael Linden and Harry Stein: The Senate continuing resolution is already a compromise

  The Senate-passed measure to keep the government operating represents an enormous compromise by progressives to avoid a damaging government shutdown. The Democrat-controlled Senate agreed to temporary funding levels that are far closer to the Republican-controlled House budget plan than they are to the Senate’s own budget for fiscal year 2014. Moreover, this concession is only the latest of many such compromises over the past several years.

Cameron Smith: GOP support for fiscal cliff tax bill: Tactical or terrible?

  Over the last few years, Washington politicians created a “crisis” where a combination of tax hikes, spending cuts, and reaching the federal debt limit stood to send a hobbled American economy back into a recession.

  Instead of comprehensively dealing with the problems in a timely fashion, legislators waited until mere weeks before beginning serious negotiations to avoid falling off the “fiscal cliff.”

Seth Hanlon: Congress should close the carried interest loophole

  In recent days Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) have both suggested that they might be willing to allow some tax cuts for high-income individuals to expire. But Sen. McConnell—and evidently Rep. Boehner, as well—are reportedly still insisting that the Bush tax cuts on investment income be extended.

  The Republican leaders’ willingness to discuss top tax rates is a welcome step forward. But until policymakers address the gap between tax rates on ordinary income (income from wages, salaries, and so on) and the tax rates on investment income (capital gains and dividends), they will not have fully addressed the fundamental unfairness in the tax code.

Ian M. MacIsaac: Freeze, this is a stickup: hostage negotiations in the fiscal cliff crisis

  "We're nowhere."

  That was House Speaker John Boehner's summation of the fiscal cliff negotiations as of this time last week, in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

  Boehner said that plan proposed by President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to avoid the fiscal cliff, which included an end to Congress's control of the debt ceiling limit along with $1.6 trillion in new revenue, was "a non-serious proposal;" particularly because, as Boehner portrayed it, the proposal contained federal spending that outweighed its proposed budget cuts.

Melissa Boteach: The Right embraces ‘Big Government’

  Conservatives consistently attack progressives as champions of “big government” who want to take power away from states and impose one-size-fits all solutions on people with different sets of needs. This is a canard, as the Obama administration has demonstrated in its Race-to-the-Top education reform, regional economic development, and most recently in welfare reform and nutrition assistance.

  In fact, the two most recent efforts to provide states with greater flexibility to move families from poverty to prosperity have been met by outrage and condemnation by the right. It seems that conservatives do believe that “big government” knows best so long as federal policy fits the conservative agenda. I call this the politics of “convenient federalism.”