Of all of the myths Republicans have generated for American voters, the fiction that "tax cuts pay for themselves" is the Uber Lie. After all, almost four decades of U.S history and a mountain of incontrovertible evidence show the only certain outcomes of GOP tax-cutting plans are skyrocketing national debt and ever-widening income inequality. It's […]

On Monday, Donald Trump became just the latest Republican White House hopeful to propose a Treasury draining, tax cut windfall for the richest Americans. But while Trump calls for slashing the top marginal income tax rates at a time of record income inequality, a new study from the Brookings Institution argues that hiking those same […]

House Speaker John Boehner shocked the political world last week when he announced his resignation less than 24 hours after hosting Pope Francis on Capitol Hill. As it turns out, his timing was altogether fitting. After all, Boehner's life had become a living hell precisely because he had a done a deal with the devil […]

Millions of Americans--Catholic and non-Catholic alike (myself included)--are eagerly awaiting next week's visit to the United States by Pope Francis. There's no mystery as to why. In word and in deed, the humble yet audacious Pontiff has reawakened Americans to the Church's teachings on social justice. But his challenge that "the excluded are still waiting" […]

The 2016 Republican presidential field is shocked--shocked!--that frontrunner Donald Trump refused to correct a questioner insisting President Obama is a Muslim foreigner. Recalling one of the finest moments for the GOP's 2008 nominee, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) revealing explained, "This happens to all of us. It happened to John McCain. You have to push back." […]

Some things never change. With some constants in life, like the invariable force of gravity or the sun rising in the east, that persistence is good news. (Imagine your morning coffee without them.) The bad news is that some myths, no matter how dangerous or thoroughly debunked, never seem to die. This week, the greatest […]

For weeks, the battle over marriage equality in the United States has focused on Rowan County, Kentucky. There, elected county clerk Kim Davis has been jailed on federal contempt of court charges for refusing to issue marriage licenses in the wake of the Supreme Court's Obergefell ruling. GOP presidential candidates including Mike Huckabee and Ted […]

On September 8th, Dick Cheney will deliver an address at the American Enterprise Institute in the hopes of torpedoing the Iranian nuclear agreement. As his Wall Street Journal op-ed this week suggests, Cheney will argue that "the U.S. Congress should reject this deal and reimpose the sanctions that brought Iran to the table in the […]

Unveiling the Congressional Budget Office's latest long term forecast this week, new CBO Director Keith Hall made an unremarkable statement. "The evidence," Hall explained, "is that tax cuts do not pay for themselves." For the overwhelming majority of economists or just about anyone with a passing familiarity with the U.S. budget since Ronald Reagan first […]

While all eyes have been focused on the worldwide stock market plunge, a recent survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal identified a different threat to the vitality of the U.S. economy. But it's not the instability of Chinese stock prices, the devaluation of its currency, the Eurozone's Greek tragedy or even a premature […]