So it's come down to this. Once again kowtowing to the most extreme members of his Republican Party, House Speaker John Boehner is willing to shut down the federal government and trigger a global economic meltdown, all in the GOP's quixotic quest to defund, delay or otherwise damage Obamacare. With his gambit to defund the […]

By 2022, the Affordable Care Act is forecast to enable roughly 30 million uninsured people to obtain health insurance. But according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), that expansion of coverage will progress much more slowly than the agency forecast just last year. Thanks primarily to Republican […]

In its latest forecast, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) once again confirmed that the United States does not face a near-term debt problem. Over the next few years, annual budget deficits will continue to fall in both dollar terms and as a percentage of the U.S. economy. Over the next decade, the debt will remain […]

In a rare moment of agreement with President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner in March admitted that "we have no immediate debt crisis." But despite Tuesday's analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) showing that the near and mid-term U.S. debt picture has improved over the last six months, Speaker Boehner has apparently changed his […]

Two new polls from Pew Research and NBC News/Wall Street are predictably prompting two very different reactions among supporters and foes of the Affordable Care Act. While the Washington Post's Sarah Kliff laments, "Americans are very, very confused about the Obamacare," Patrick Brennan of the National Review crowed, "Pew finds people dislike Obamacare so much […]

This week, House Speaker John Boehner turned to a new sleight of hand trick in his latest effort to extract draconian spending cuts as the Republicans' price for raising the U.S. debt ceiling. Citing five examples from the past, the Speaker's "Fact Sheet" claimed that "Coupling efforts to reduce America's debt and deficit with increases […]

With the federal government set to hit the limit of its borrowing authority as early as mid-October, Republicans are once again threatening to hold the debt ceiling hostage. As the National Review described the latest ransom demand from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, "To increase the debt ceiling, Cantor said, Republicans will demand a one-year […]

In their latest effort to abort the Affordable Care Act, Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the states are targeting the "Obamacare navigators," the dozens of community groups, hospitals, charities and universities receiving a combined $67 million in federal grants to provide outreach, customer service, information and assistance to those Americans trying to enroll in […]

For months, Republicans have been waging a new war on the IRS. Echoing their successful gutting of the Internal Revenue Service back in the 1990's, GOP leaders have been calling the agency "the new Gestapo" and demanding its budget be slashed by a quarter. But with a "tax gap" already nearing $500 billion a year […]

This week, the Republican crusade to undermine the Affordable Care Act went from the ridiculous to the sublime. Florida Senator and 2016 GOP White House hopeful Marco Rubio sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius demanding a halt to an $8.7 million, 16-city ad campaign promoting the ACA's enrollment period which […]