Chris Christie and Rand Paul made some dubious remarks about vaccines on Monday, but President Obama's sincere and well-informed discussion of the issue before the Super Bowl on Sunday might do more to discourage parents from vaccinating their children, argues David A. Graham in The Atlantic:

Trying to bust the myths about vaccines causing autism or other cures can actually backfire. ... And trying to convince people out of their beliefs can actually encourage them to hold those views more staunchly, since they flow out of identity with a community rather than facts. That means Obama's unequivocal statements Sunday might backfire, encouraging the anti-vaccine movement and more deeply entrenching beliefs.

How members of the public react when someone tries to persuade them that they're wrong creates a dilemma for public health experts and elected officials. It's an especially tricky one for Obama, whose speeches on all kinds of issues seem to worsen partisan divisions. If people start to think of vaccinating your kids as something Democrats do, then conservatives who oppose vaccination might become even harder to persuade. Their position on vaccinations would become part of their political identity. Indeed, while those refusing to vaccinate have historically included both Democrats and Republicans, worrisome new data from the Pew Research Center shows that a gap has appeared between the parties.

More on the controversy below.

What's in Wonkbook: 1) Republicans and vaccines 2) Opinions, including Judis on Republicans' emerging advantage 3) The economy is booming, and more

Number of the day: 0.7 percent. That was the year-over-year increase in prices for personal consumption as of December, the lowest figure since 2009 and well below the Federal Reserve's target of 2 percent. Eric Morath in The Wall Street Journal.

Two likely G.O.P. presidential contenders suggest vaccines should not be required. "First, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, while visiting a vaccine laboratory [in Cambridge, England], called for 'some measure of choice' on whether shots guarding against measles and other diseases should be required for children. Then, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an ophthalmologist who is also readying a 2016 campaign, said in two U.S. television interviews that he thinks most vaccines should be voluntary, citing 'many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.' " Philip Rucker and Rosalind S. Helderman in The Washington Post.

Vaccines create a dilemma for conservative philosophy. "New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's slightly-too-expansive answer to questions about the measles vaccine has sent oppo researchers scrambling. What, if anything, have the many people angling to be president said about vaccines? ... The default position of most Republicans, and Republican candidates, is that individuals can be trusted and the government can't. How does that manifest when Republicans are asked about vaccine mandates?" David Weigel for Bloomberg.

Chart of the day: There were more than 100 new cases of measles in the United States last month. Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post.

The national attention to the measles outbreak could ultimately be bad for kids. "The outbreak has fueled a backlash against the anti-vaccine movement that is likely to be counterproductive. Dr. James Cherry, an infectious disease specialist at U.C.L.A., for instance, labeled parents of unvaccinated children 'selfish' and 'dumb,' while a Los Angeles Times columnist, Michael Hiltzik, called for treating 'the anti-vaccination crowd' as 'public enemies.' If we've learned anything in politics over the last few decades, it’s that this kind of language is likely to be polarizing, driving people away rather than persuading them." Brendan Nyhan in The New York Times.

Debates like this one risk polarizing the issue of vaccination along a political axis. "Right now, most Americans do vaccinate and support vaccinations, and there’s no evidence of a partisan divide on the subject. But imagine what would happen if that were to change. We already have the blueprint readily available from other science based issues that have become substantially partisan, namely, embryonic stem cell research, global climate change, and the teaching of evolution. In each of these cases, we see that people seize on facts (and behaviors) that align with their political and religious identities and belief systems. Partisanship leads people to divide over scientific fact itself, and then creates policy dysfunction, gridlock, and quite a lot of divisiveness." Chris Mooney in The Washington Post.

GERSON: There is always a limit to individual rights. "Many states (including California) make it relatively easy to refuse vaccination for 'philosophic' reasons. This does not, I suspect, mean that people are reading Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill; it means they are consuming dodgy sources on the ­Internet. ... Some Americans seem to believe that the mere assertion of a right is sufficient to end a public argument. It is not, when the exercise of that right has unacceptable public consequences, or when the sum of likely choices is dangerous to a community." The Washington Post.

JUDIS: Republicans may have an emerging advantage. "Republicans are gaining dramatically among a group that had tilted toward Democrats in 2006 and 2008: Call them middle-class Americans. These are voters who generally work in what economist Stephen Rose has called "the office economy." In exit polling, they can roughly be identified as those who have college—but not postgraduate—degrees and those whose household incomes are between $50,000 and $100,000. ... The defection of these voters—who, unlike the white working class, are a growing part of the electorate—is genuinely bad news for Democrats, and very good news indeed for Republicans." National Journal.

ELIZABETH STOKER BRUENIG: Welfare keeps families together. "Poverty, rather than welfare, breaks up families; and that welfare can actually stabilize rather than disrupt the family unit. ... Disability payments, as 'a de facto guaranteed minimum-income programme,' allows people with disabilities to remain in places where their families live rather than chasing after work in far-flung places." The New Republic.

BEUTLER: People will die if the Supreme Court throws out Obamacare, and Republicans don't have a plan. "Republicans have spent the past several years cyclically promising and then failing to deliver an Obamacare alternative. They didn't have an alternative prepared in 2012 when conservatives asked the Court to declare Obamacare unconstitutional. They didn't have an alternative prepared later in the year, when Mitt Romney was their presidential candidate. They didn't have an alternative prepared when they shut down the government as part of an ill-fated effort to defund Obamacare. They didn't run on an Obamacare alternative in 2014. And they don't have an Obamacare alternative prepared this week, though they're scheduled to pass another repeal bill on Tuesday." The New Republic.

With his budget, Obama might find he has some leverage. His proposals "echo the priorities of many Republican lawmakers, who are torn between their pledge to shrink the size of government and their desire to demonstrate an ability to govern. They, too, want to increase defense spending and replenish a trust fund for highways and other infrastructure scheduled to run dry in May. That deadline could force both sides to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, Republican leaders newly in control of both chambers have vowed to avoid another politically damaging government shutdown — which means finding common ground with Obama on agency appropriations before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1." Lori Montgomery and Steven Mufson in The Washington Post.

The administration proposes that Medicare negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. "Medicare was forbidden by the 2003 law creating its prescription drug program to negotiate on price. For years, liberals have been pushing to give Medicare that authority, which would make the United States more like the rest of the world. Now, the Obama administration has taken a step toward that goal, albeit a symbolic one. It's not clear how hard the administration will fight for this idea, but you can add this to the list of budget requests that probably aren't going anywhere." Jason Millman in The Washington Post. 

The budget would also legalize marijuana sales in Washington, D.C. "The fiscal 2016 budget blueprint Obama unveiled on Monday bars only federal money from being spent by Washington city officials to legalize or reduce penalties for possession or sale of marijuana and other drugs. The spending blueprint leaves the District of Columbia free to spend its own money on legalization. Under a $1.1 trillion budget deal in December, Congress had barred the city from spending any funds, including its own, to carry out pot sales." Ian Simpson for Reuters.

The U.S. economy is booming. "The better way to tell the economy's underlying strength is to strip out the volatile inventory and net export numbers, and only look at consumer spending, government spending, and private investment—and over a year, not a quarter, to smooth out any weird weather effects, like last year's polar vortex-induced slump. This goes by the catchy name of final sales to domestic purchasers, and it shows us how much of today's growth we can expect to continue tomorrow. The surprising answer is that, even though annual GDP growth slowed from 2.7 percent in the third quarter to 2.5 percent in the fourth, this "core" growth actually ticked up from 2.7 to 2.8 percent. And that, as you can see above, is the best it's been the whole recovery." Matt O'Brien in The Washington Post.

Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's finance minister, says the country will pay back its debts. "Mr Varoufakis told the Financial Times the government would no longer call for a headline write-off of Greece's €315bn foreign debt. Rather it would request a 'menu of debt swaps' to ease the burden, including two types of new bonds. The first type, indexed to nominal economic growth, would replace European rescue loans, and the second, which he termed 'perpetual bonds', would replace European Central Bank-owned Greek bonds." Tony Barber in the Financial Times.

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