House Democrats have, generally, been pretty irritated by the Senate's inability to move forward even with a version of legislation well to the right of the bill the House has already passed. "The caucus is frustrated in general with the Senate that was bringing this health bill up in June and here we are Christmas, and they're still laboring over the package," Larson said. "Any time, whether it's Joe Lieberman or [Nebraska Sen.] Ben Nelson or someone who is critical to obtaining 60 votes -- or whether it's the Gang of Four or the Gang of Six, you name it, whatever gang is operating at the time -- the thing is, any one of them, or a collection of them, can hold up the process. And I think that's extraordinarily frustrating for our caucus."

But Lieberman, who endorsed John McCain last year over President Obama and escaped without much retribution, presents a special case. "It's certainly beyond frustration," Larson said. "In terms of the concern over an issue that's critical to the nation and President Obama, as Social Security was to FDR and Medicare was to Lyndon Johnson -- that's why people are beyond frustrated." Asked what other Connecticut Democrats could to about Lieberman, Larson laughed. "Pray," he said.

Still, hope springs eternal in the hearts of high-ranking House Democrats. "In the final analysis, I think most senators are going to be hard-pressed to stop healthcare from having a vote," Larson said. "It does go back to 'Mr. Smith goes to Washington.' The general public has a sense that you may disagree on policy, but certainly people are entitled to a vote in the Senate on healthcare... This is too big of an issue, too big of a historic moment, to say that a bill can't be voted on."

Whether Lieberman shares Larson's sense of the importance of the issue, of course, remains to be seen.

Hmmmmmm, whatever the case with the no-shows, perhaps the White House is feeling a bit sensitive about rising disgruntlement from the Left, as recently stirred anew by Matt Taibbi's latest Rolling Stone piece and the kerfuffle between Taibbi and TAPPED's Tim Fernholz.

Let's examine choice bits from what the President said after his face-to-face meeting today with those dastardly CEOs, the full remarks of which can be read here at the White House website:

...[o]ne year ago, when many of these institutions were on the verge of collapse -- a predicament largely of their own making, oftentimes because they failed to manage risk properly -- we took difficult, and, frankly, unpopular steps to pull them back from the brink...

Today, due to the timely loans from the American people, our financial system has stabilized, the stock market has sprung back to life, our economy is growing, and our banks are once again recording profits...

So my main message in today's meeting was very simple: that America's banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry -- and now that they're back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy.

That starts with finding ways to help creditworthy small and medium-size businesses get the loans that they need to open their doors, grow their operations, and create new jobs....I've been hearing from bankers that they're willing to lend, but face a shortage of creditworthy individuals and businesses.

...[g]iven the difficulty businesspeople are having as lending has declined, and given the exceptional assistance banks received to get them through a difficult time, we expect them to explore every responsible way to help get our economy moving again.

And I heard from these executives that they are engaging in various programs like "second look" programs, hiring more folks, raising their target goals in terms of lending -- all of which sounded positive, but we expect some results, because I'm getting too many letters from small businesses who explain that they are creditworthy and banks that they've had a long-term relationship with are still having problems giving them loans....

We also discussed the need to pass meaningful financial reform that will protect American consumers from exploitation and American -- the American economy from another financial crisis of the kind which we just came out of...

Now, I should note that around the table all the financial industry executives said they supported financial regulatory reform. The problem is there's a big gap between what I'm hearing here in the White House and the activities of lobbyists on behalf of these institutions or associations of which they're a member up on Capitol Hill. I urged them to close that gap, and they assured me that they would make every effort to do so.

Well, now. I didn't hear/see any audio or video of this address, but Obama sounds a bit peeved. We'll see if his actions back up his words, but the emphases I've added to the transcript below note the president's reference to "unpopular" bailout actions, letters of complaints, and Obama's own complaint that there's a disconnect between what the execs are telling him in person and what their lobbyists are doing over on Capitol Hill. So, on paper at least, he seems peeved. I hope he actually is.

And if it was in fact a meeting missed in person out of pique, I'm glad to hear Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and others are miffed. I just pray this is not a bit of kabuki theatre for short-term political consumption.

Apparently, however, postal workers and a variety of other federal employees, including many military service personnel, collectively owe the federal treasury more than $3 billion. Post employees are most numerous, but that is a bit misleading given that the USPS is the second largest government employer after the military. Still, their "scofflaw" rate of 3.95 percent is more than a third higher than the total federal employee average of 2.8 percent. And since the postal employees scofflaw rate is factored into that 2.8 percent, the non-postal average is lower than that. And they can't complain the check is in, or was lost in, the mail. (rimshot)

The list also more than 27,000 active duty military members, and even 50 people who work for the Executive Office of the President who collectively owe nearly a million bucks. (The EOP includes White House staffers--although it's not clear from reports if they are Bush Administration or Obama Administration employees.) The worst offender, though a small agency with just 48 employees and five scofflaws (10.4 percent) is the National Capital Planning Commission, whoever the hell they are.

I'm glad to hear the IRS is going after these people. Maybe Congress needs to pass a law making continuation of employment partially conditional on tax payments. It would be harsh to just fire somebody for a mistaken or late return; and certainly those appealing a tax ruling should have time and opportunity to defend themselves.

But if there are people with serial, perennial tax avoidance problems, I'm hard-pressed to find a justification for allowing any of them--other than perhaps the possible exception of military members in combat or harm's-way situations--to work for the government if they are in fact cheating the government. A computer manufacturer who discovered employees stealing computers from the inventory would fire those employees, so why shouldn't the government fire federal tax cheats?

The Post's fixer, Chris Cilliza, writes: "Gordon has held the central Tennessee 6th district since 1984 but was headed to his most serious race in recent memory in 2010 as national Republicans had aggressively recruited against him due to the GOP lean of the seat....Gordon along with Reps. Brian Baird (Wash.), John Tanner (Tenn.) and Dennis Moore (Kans.) have announced their retirements in recent weeks from seats that will be major Republican targets in 2010."

The Politico's adds this gleeful quote from National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Andy Sere: “Tennessee is now the place where Democrat congressional candidacies go to die. Within a matter of weeks, four Volunteer State Democrats have abandoned their campaigns for Congress because voters there are rejecting the Obama-Pelosi agenda."

Retirements tend to plague two types of congressional parties: Those who are projected to suffer losses, and those who just did. This was the case leading up to 2006 for the GOP majority and again for Republican minority leading up to 2008. With 10 House Dems retiring, and in the kind of seats that only a longtime Blue Dog could hold back a pending Republican takeover from happening, the weight on Chris Van Hollen's shoulders just got a bit heavier today.

Of course, Reagan's first-place finish may testify as much to the dissatisfaction with both Bushes, the only other Republicans in the small field, which consolidates the support of conservatives and many conservative-leaning moderates and independents behind one, obvious choice.

There's less clarity of choice among those on the other side of the spectrum when forced to pick from the sole two Democrats in the survey--and that split helps Reagan catapult into first. Indeed, the 47 percent sum of Clinton and Obama first-place shares is slightly more than Reagan's.

And the order of Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Bush41, Bush43 makes sense given their "exit poll" numbers, so to speak--their presidential approval ratings as they left office, which you can see here.

Then there is this little puzzler: According to PPP, Reagan is strong among independents and leads every other subgroup except "liberals and African Americans who choose Obama and moderates, Hispanics, and voters under 30 who choose Clinton."

Clinton is preferred to Obama by voters under 30? Whodathunkit? Anyway, here's how PPP explains the riddle:

The age results on the poll are interesting. Nobody who is under 30 now had the opportunity to vote for Clinton, but he was the President while they were growing up and they seem to look back on those days fondly. There seems to be a similar sentiment with the 30-45 demographic. None of them were able to vote for Reagan when he was first elected and few of them were for his reelection but he nevertheless beats Clinton 39-27 with that group. People seem to like the Presidents of their childhood.

It's weird that we would be so set in judgments or assocations made about presidents when we are teens or pre-teens. My first voting-age eligible election was 1988, so by this logic Reagan would rank first. But I rank him fourth, just ahead of W and behind Bush 41--who, for my money, remains, despite some things not to like about him, the least appreciated Republican president of the 20th century and certainly the least appreciated among this trio.

The only interesting thing about the results is that Obama is cited more often than Clinton as respondents' least favorite president, which testifies to the venom conservatives feel toward the current president, or perhaps a fading memory for how much they hated Clinton. Given how much they hated Clinton last decade, it's hard to believe they are wishing he rather than Obama were in the Oval Office right now.