When is a tax cut not a tax cut? According to Republicans, when those receiving it are working Americans and the President proposing it is a Democrat. Because after they spent 2010 ensuring the extension of the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy by insisting "you should never have to offset the cost of […]

Three stories will dominate American politics over the next week. As it turns out, they are very much related. On Thursday, President Obama will unveil his jobs plan which will invariably be opposed by Republicans claiming "America is broke." That same day, Congress' debt "super committee" will begin its work to slash $1.5 trillion from […]

On Friday, Republicans deployed two talking points - one new, one old - in response to the grim news that the U.S. economy added no new jobs in August. The same GOP leaders who in January gave credit to the "newly elected House Republican Majority" for the economy's strong performance in the fourth quarter of […]

During the just concluded debt ceiling crisis, only one American political party was willing to see the United States default and its economy crippled rather than raise the nation's borrowing limit. That culprit was the Party of Lincoln, whose namesake once explained the Confederacy's threat to the Union, "one of them would make war rather […]

That all six of the Republicans selected to the Congressional debt reduction "Super Committee" are signers of Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge is hardly surprising. But the choice of Arizona Senator Jon Kyl is an especially fitting one for the GOP. After all, Kyl didn't merely define a generation of Republican talking points when he explained […]

In the wake of S&P's reduction of the U.S. credit rating, Republican leaders and amen corner are apoplectic about what Democrats John Kerry and David Axelrod deemed the "Tea Party Downgrade." Sadly, there's one small problem for the right-wing bloggers insisting "they can't possibly sell that" and for the GOP presidential candidates attacking President Obama […]

Among the things we learned during this week's debt ceiling debacle is that Republicans in general and their Tea Party hardliners in particular don't like to be called "hostage-takers" and "terrorists." While Sarah Palin called Vice President Biden's alleged use of the T-word "appalling," Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA) suggested it was the Obama administration "who's […]

If nothing else, the debt ceiling crisis provided what Barack Obama is so fond of calling a "teachable moment." Hopefully, that extends to the President himself. After seeing his nominees blocked, his legislation filibustered and popular upper-income tax increases delayed by Republicans who withheld their support from his watered down stimulus and health care programs, […]

In the wake of the debt ceiling deal they opposed, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are predictably apoplectic that Vice President Joe Biden allegedly likened Tea Partiers to "terrorists." In that case, they must really be furious with observers like New York Times reporter Joe Nocera and George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill who […]