Just two weeks after he seconded Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's dire warnings about the August 2 deadline to raise the U.S debt ceiling, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor walked out of the budget talks aimed at reaching a bipartisan compromise over deficit reduction. Like Arizona GOP Senator Jon Kyl, Cantor shifted the burden to Speaker […]

If ever there was bad idea whose time never came, it is Paul Ryan's plan to slash Medicaid spending and convert what remains into a system of block grants administered by the states. The $300 billion federal-state program providing health care for millions of poor, elderly and disabled Americans faces a triple whammy from the […]

Today's 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts arrives at a particularly ironic time. Ironic, that is, because even as talk of deficits dominates the debate in Washington, that windfall for the wealthy was the single-biggest driver of U.S national debt over the past decade and, if made permanent, will be so for the next. […]

An interesting split is occurring within the ranks of the Republicans holding the American economy hostage over the debt ceiling. Led by Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Pat Toomey and Tim Pawlenty, the "Default Deniers" not only refuse the acknowledge the global economic calamity that would ensue should the United States fail to increase the $14.3 […]

No doubt, Friday's disappointing jobs report was bad news for President Obama. But the Republican response augurs much worse for the American people. After all, while Obama was visiting a Chrysler plant in Ohio to tout his auto industry rescue which ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, Speaker John Boehner took to a podium […]

Bolstered by new polls and fresh off their vote to bar an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, House Republicans swaggered into the White House for the latest negotiation to end their economic hostage taking. One, Rep. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, refused to attend and be "lectured to by a president whose failed […]

On Tuesday, grandstanding House Republicans will hold a vote on a so-called "clean bill" to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. Despite his party having voted seven times to double the debt limit while President Bush sat in the Oval Office, Majority Leader Eric Cantor has promised the $16.7 trillion cap will be "dead […]

On Memorial Day, Americans in big cities, small towns and rural communities commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. As President Obama spoke at a solemn ceremony of remembrance at Arlington National Cemetery, blogs left and right fittingly asked their readers to send care packages to support our troops in harm's way […]

After their debacle in the New York special election last week, Republicans promised to improve the marketing of Paul Ryan's plan to privatize and ration Medicare. We now know what that new and improved message will be. As one Republican aide regurgitated the new GOP sound bite, "We want to save Medicare, while Democrats would […]

While all eyes remain fixed on the Republican debt ceiling hostage drama in Washington, the deficit that really matters has all but disappeared from the American political debate. Even as Vice President Biden confidently predicted his bipartisan group of budget negotiators would slash $1 trillion in spending, forecasters are once again downgrading their estimates for […]