Summing up the current Republican debt ceiling hostage-taking are two of the most telling statements in the annals of American politics. "Reagan," Vice President Dick Cheney famously declared in 2002, "proved deficits don't matter." And on Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor added, "What I don't think that the White House understands is how difficult […]

Among the truisms of American politics is this: the side decrying "class war" is the one winning it. So it is with the ongoing Republican hostage-taking drama over the debt ceiling and upper-income tax increases. Facing overwhelming pressure from his own party, Speaker John Boehner retreated from the "grand bargain" on deficit reduction he supported […]

As the debate over health care reform heated up in the fall of 2009, Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander called Medicaid "a medical ghetto" that "none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care." As it turns out, Alexander and his GOP colleagues were […]

During the debate over the stimulus program in early 2009, 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 good time to take him up […]

As the South teetered on the edge of calamity near the end of the Civil War, the Confederate Congress refused pleas to arm the slaves. "If the Confederacy fails," CSA President Jefferson Davis lamented, "there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory." Almost 150 years later and with Davis' political heirs having […]

On July 4, U.S. officials, foreign dignitaries and conservative luminaries gathered outside the American embassy in London to unveil a $1 million statue of Ronald Reagan. As it turns out, the timing was more than a little ironic. Because even as the Gipper was honored in Britain, it's increasingly clear he would have no place […]

Every Fourth of July, we Americans celebrate our independence and pause to reflect on the enduring wisdom of our Founding Fathers who envisioned the cherished liberties we so often take for granted. But this year, the commemoration is tinged with sadness as evidence mounts that Americans don't know their own history. While a new study […]

While the nation is celebrating its independence this Fourth of July weekend, few in Minnesota are in a partying mood. The government shutdown continues in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, with services stopped and 23,000 employees furloughed as a $1.4 billion, two-year budget gap remains unfilled. Republicans in both house of the state legislature would […]

President Obama Addresses the Nation on the Debt Ceiling* (As Prepared for Delivery, July 1, 2011.) My fellow Americans, I want to speak to you today about a matter of the greatest national urgency. We face a crisis unique in our history. This threat comes not from a foreign foe or bloodthirsty terrorists, but is […]

When it comes to perpetuating the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy, Republicans have long been the party which cried "uncertainty." ""We're calling for an end to the threat of tax hikes," as Speaker John Boehner put it in one formulation, "to provide certainty to those in our country who create jobs." While the […]