Over a year before the GOP "Pledge to America" demanded permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans costing $700 billion over the next decade, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) fretted, "We're running out of rich people in this country." But as it turns out, anecdotes and polls alike reveal that the rich themselves support letting the […]

On Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner called Democrats' refusal to hold a pre-election vote on extending the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy the "most irresponsible thing that I have seen since I have been in Washington, D.C." And in one sense, he's right. After all, the national debt doubled during Bush's tenure. […]

Almost from the moment President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Republicans have campaigned on a rejectionist platform of "repeal and replace." The promise to "repeal the job killing health care law" is one of the pillars of their so-called "Pledge to America" released this week. But as a new AP poll suggests, […]

If Thursday was a test of political courage when it comes to the expiring Bush tax cuts, both parties failed miserably. Despite a raft of polls showing strong public opposition to the GOP's proposed $700 billion, 10-year tax cut windfall for the wealthy, squeamish Democrats in both the House and the Senate decided to push […]

What is old is new again. Hoping to once again party like it's 1994, Republicans Thursday unveiled their 2010 campaign "Pledge to America." But what the Daily Beast referred to the as "bastard child" of the Contract with America isn't just a warmed over version of the GOP's very successful ploy from sixteen years ago. […]

Delaware Republican Senate candidate and Tea Party Christine O'Donnell is out of touch, at least with herself. But not, it appears, with the Almighty. After all, O'Donnell not only claimed that in the Lord's eyes, masturbation constitutes adultery. In 2006, she insisted, "I heard the audible voice of God." Of course, Sharron Angle is far […]

For weeks, the fate of the continuing peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority has hinged on the extension of the moratorium on new settlements in the West Bank. But as the New York Times is now reporting, that extension may have less to do with any deal Prime Minister Netanyahu reaches with President […]

After first considering the issue in April, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) today announced the Bush recession is officially over. But given persistently high levels of unemployment and poverty, more interesting than the NBER's conclusion that "a trough occurred in June 2009" is the parties' reactions to it. While President Obama and the […]

To be sure, the new Census data on poverty and health care in America are grim. At 14.3%, the poverty rate in 2008 jumped to its highest level since 1994. Meanwhile, the number of uninsured catapulted to 50.7 million, as employers shed jobs and insurance benefits during the deep Bush recession. Ominously, median household income […]