The United States may have serious longer-term fiscal problems, but Social Security is not chief among them. After all, the Social Security Trust Fund has a $2.7 trillion surplus and will continue to grow until 2021. Even though the population of Americans over 65 will grow by a third over the next decade, by 2035 […]

Despite slashing the national debt by an additional $1.8 trillion over the next decade, President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget was received with two predictable talking points by Republican leaders. House Majority Eric Cantor, who previously complained about being called a "hostage taker," protested that "we ought to do so without holding [entitlement cuts] […]

At the very start of his political career back in the 1970's, Montana Senator Max Baucus asked New Deal veteran James Rowe Jr., "Do you think I should run as a Republican or a Democrat?" Rowe's uneasy answer--"I sure hope you'll be a Democrat"--has defined Baucus' career ever since. After all, he voted for the […]

During his first run for the White House, Mitt Romney briefly crowed that "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life." But two days later, he was forced to amend that pander to the NRA by clarifying, "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will." Now his new hometown […]

On the federal budget as with so much else, Republicans won't take yes as an answer from President Obama. On Friday, the White House rolled out its fiscal year 2014 budget proposal cutting projected deficits by $1.8 trillion in part by adopting the means testing of Medicare benefits and the "chained CPI" to slow the […]

The Obama administration on Friday lifted the covers on its compromise budget proposal for fiscal year 2014. But despite slashing the national debt by a projected $1.8 trillion over the next decade (bringing the total reductions since 2011 to $4.3 trillion) through painful changes to Social Security and Medicare, Republicans are predictably balking at Obama's […]

If there is one area where the White House and Congressional Republicans are in some agreement, it concerns corporate tax reform. President Obama has proposed slashing the statutory rate from 35 to 28 percent while recouping lost revenue through the elimination of corporate tax breaks costing the Treasury tens of billions of dollars each year. […]

While April Fool's Day is over, Confederate Heritage Month is just beginning. Every year, the seven states of Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia and Georgia remember the Lost Cause with proclamations, reenactments and other historical events. But Americans didn't need the Georgia Sons of Confederate Veterans to whitewash U.S. history by claiming "the South […]

On Monday, Texas Republican Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn joined Governor Ricky Perry to present a united front against the expansion of Medicaid in the Lone Star State. While Perry called Medicaid a "broken system," Cruz warned accepting Obamacare's massive federal assistance "will worsen health care options for the most vulnerable among us in […]

Judging by the stories dominating the domestic news, the past couple of weeks have not been kind to that 47 percent of Americans Mitt Romney mocked as takers, freeloaders and self-proclaimed victims. While the Washington Post profiled a Rhode Island town in which a third of the residents are dependent on food stamps, former SNAP […]