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 […]

In August, the New Republic, the New York Times and others warned that the 2010 campaign would feature a new Republican bogeyman. The Times announced, "There's a class war coming to the world of government pensions," while TNR's Jonathan Cohn explained the latest GOP hatefest in "Why Public Employees are the New Welfare Queens." Of […]

As promised, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) this week introduced legislation proposing to make the budget-busting 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts permanent. The so-called Tax Hike Prevention Act wouldn't merely drain $3.9 trillion from the U.S. Treasury over the next decade. At a time of record income inequality, the Republicans' $700 billion windfall […]

In his speech to school children carried live on CNN, PBS and many other networks, the President implored students, "Take control -- challenge yourself," adding, "Only you know how hard you work." Those quickly forgotten and uncontroversial words were delivered by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, […]