As polling and media analyses revealed earlier this year, Republicans used the 2010 midterm campaign to completely turn the focus in Washington from job creation to deficit reduction. But now that the Occupy Wall Street movement is well into its second month, the GOP is changing its tune. We know this not only from recent […]

For social conservatives, it is often said, life begins at conception and ends at birth. If so, nowhere is that more true than in Mississippi. After all, the Magnolia State seems poised to pass Amendment 26, the so-called "personhood" initiative which by defining a fertilized egg as a human being would ban virtually all abortions […]

Among the predictable differences between the Democratic and Republican members of the so-called debt super committee is this: Democrats propose to increase revenue by raising taxes, while Republicans want to increase revenue by cutting taxes. You read that right. After Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt and George W. Bush doubled it again thanks in […]

House Budget Committee chairman and supposed GOP wunderkind Paul Ryan chose the wrong the week to attack President Obama for "sowing social unrest and class resentment." After all, just one day earlier the CBO confirmed that income inequality in the U.S. is at highest level in 80 years, a yawning gap certain to be enlarged […]

This week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided just the latest analysis confirming that U.S. income inequality is at record levels. But while the income gap is at largest in 80 years even as the total federal tax burden is at its smallest in 60, the 2012 Republican presidential field is proposing to make both […]

Back in August, Americans learned that among Rick Perry's miserable grades in college was a "D" in "Principles of Economics." Now we know why. His contribution to the GOP's flat tax one-upsmanship not only fails to simply the U.S. tax code. As it turns out, Governor Perry's "Cut, Balance and Grow" scheme would undermine Social […]

As Steve Forbes learned in 1996 and 2000 and Herman Cain is learning now, the flat tax is a bad idea whose time never came. After all, the move to a single income tax rate for all earners inevitably shifts the tax burden from the rich to middle and lower income Americans. And if the […]

Memo to Republicans: (1) Until President Obama appears on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit and an oversized cod piece, no conservative can ever accuse of him of taking too much credit for any national security success. (2) When it comes to Iraq, no one who has been as consistently […]

During the debate over the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in early 2009, stimulus opponent Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed, "If the money were lent rather than just granted, states would, I think, spend it wisely and the states that didn't need it at all wouldn't take any." Now would be a […]

Judging by the headlines, Herman Cain's tenure as the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination may be a brief one. After his supposed "jokes" about lethal electrified borders fences, Politico and the New York Times wondered if candidate Cain is even "serious" about the White House. Following his jaw-dropping pro-choice, anti-abortion declaration, the Greg […]