For the second time in as many weeks, an analysis by a nonpartisan agency of Congress has demolished the GOP myth of upper-income taxes and so-called "job creators." Just days before voters headed to the polls, the Congressional Research Service documented that for decades tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans were not correlated to economic […]
Category: Budget/Deficit
As Bill Clinton prepares to take center stage at the 2012 Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, Republicans have mounted a blistering attack on the President's economic plan. His proposal, the GOP warned, was "class warfare" and a "job killer" which will "kill the current recovery and put us back in a recession" and still […]
The experience of the past three decades shows that for the GOP, there are only two certainties in life: debt and tax cuts. But you'd never know that watching the Republican National Convention, where a massive ticking debt clock and obvious falsehoods like "President Obama has doubled the national debt" nevertheless dominate the proceedings. Of […]
There's an old saying that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. But when it comes to Paul Ryan and his radical GOP budget, Republicans would prefer to campaign in silence and then govern with an axe. While the Grand Old Party would love to enact Ryan's massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy, […]
Cut taxes. Raise defense spending. Balance the budget. That, in a nutshell, is the promise of Mitt Romney's 162-page, 59 point economic plan. But if that refrain sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. After all, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and the leading lights of the Republican Party have been repackaging that same formula for over […]
Introducing his new running mate on Saturday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney boasted, "We offer solutions that are bold, specific, and achievable." Number Two dutifully followed Number One, as Paul Ryan then promised voters, "We won't duck the tough issues...we will lead." Just not, it turns out, when it comes to the central premise of […]
When it comes to touting bogus presidential endorsements by foreign leaders, candidate George W. Bush is in a class by himself. But while Governor Bush was (easily) duped by a Canadian comedy show into proudly accepting the backing of mythical Prime Minister Jean Poutine, Mitt Romney's misrepresentation of his private conversation with actual Australian foreign […]
With the year-end expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the looming "sequestration" of $1.2 trillion they agreed to during their debt ceiling hostage-taking last summer, the message from Republican leaders is the same as it ever was. Taxes (especially for the rich) must not go up, defense spending must not go down, and the […]
Imagine that you are completing your federal tax return. After looking up the tax rate for your income level, you decide you will pay 20 percent less to Uncle Sam. But along with your underpayment, you include a handwritten note to the IRS letting the government know that you promise to make up the difference […]
This week, Rex Nutting of the MarketWatch caused a stir with his analysis correctly showing that federal spending has hardly budged under President Obama, rising at the slowest pace since the Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House. Predictably, James Pethokoukis of the conservative American Enterprise Institute cited the jump in Washington's spending as a […]