For weeks, Republican presidential candidates have been a running a gauntlet of ever-more draconian pledges put forth by party purists. Grover Norquist's anti-tax oath, the Susan B. Anthony List anti-abortion manifesto , the "Marriage Vow" and the "Cut, Cap and Balance" pledge are just some of the multiplying litmus tests now demanded by social and […]

"If we get to the point where you've damaged the full faith and credit of the United States," Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee exclaimed in January, "that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity." But if that economic catastrophe comes to pass, its cause will not have been dementia, but disinformation. […]

Well before the current debt ceiling crisis, Americans learned from the elephant's mouth that virtually every GOP talking point is "not intended to be a factual statement." In their perpetual crusade to gut the federal government, Republicans have now distilled their debt duplicity and fear-mongering into a single word: Greece. Earlier this year, Senate Minority […]

If nothing else, you have to hand it to Congressional Republicans for sheer "choot-spa" when it comes to the national debt. Not content to destroy the U.S. economy rather than raise a dime of revenue from the wealthiest Americans, Republicans will vote Tuesday for the "Cut, Cap and Balance Act" making draconian spending reductions inevitable […]

Whatever the resolution to the Republican hostage-taking of the U.S. debt ceiling, it's becoming increasingly clear it will a painful one. Failure to boost the $14.3 trillion limit by August 2nd, as even some of the GOP extortionists are only now beginning to understand, would produce what Speaker John Boehner admitted would be "a financial […]

"The chief consequence of the conservatives' unrelenting faith in the badness of government," Thomas Franks wrote three years ago in The Wrecking Crew, "is bad government." But would happen if virtually every article of that faith were wrong or, much worse, a blatant lie? Then you'd have something that looks very much like the crisis […]

As the GOP hostage-taking drama over raising the debt limit appears headed towards a final showdown, Republican Congressmen, Senators and presidential candidates alike are pushing the "Cut, Cap and Balance" pledge. While Mitch McConnell's "Plan B" would see Republicans yield on boosting the $14.3 trillion debt limit now in exchange for a mechanism to gut […]

On the same day that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Wall Street rating agencies joined the ever-louder chorus of voices warning Republicans that failure to raise the U.S. debt ceiling would result in "calamity," Speaker John Boehner announced that at least 60 GOP Congressmen "won't vote to raise the […]

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 […]