Reconciliation

Recap: The U.S. Government: An insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army; it's as if the Fiscal Commission never happened; and the Defense Department won the budget.

Elsewhere:

1) More on the Defense budget.

2) Why are Pell Grants getting cut?

3) Noam Scheiber's profile of Tim Geithner.

4) "The same way a spork makes an incomplete fork and an ineffectual spoon, this compromise budget provides for both incomplete investment and ineffectual deficit reduction."

5) "If I were the president, my line would be closer to the reverse: I don't want to cut Social Security benefits for anyone, but if the Republicans want to tempt me into a compromise they're going to need to make sure that their own core constituency — people born before 1955 or so — pay a fair share of the price."

Recipe of the day: Last-minute Valentine's Day menus.