When George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office, Republican majorities in Congress voted seven times to increase the U.S. debt ceiling. That recent history, combined with the inconvenient truth that the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan and doubled again under Bush, may have prompted then Minority Leader John Boehner to warn his GOP […]

Back in early February, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan presented the Republican leadership's plan to cut $35 billion from the remainder of the fiscal year 2011 budget. As it turns out, that dollar figure is roughly the same one John Boehner, Harry Reid and President Obama have closing in on for days. Of course, […]

As the nation prepares to mark next week's 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the Party of Lincoln stands on the brink of shutting down the federal government. But whether it comes this week over the GOP's budgetary blackmail of Planned Parenthood and the EPA or next month over the Republicans' newly […]

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed the obvious about Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it. The GOP plan to "voucherize" and inevitably ration Medicare would lead to future seniors paying more - much more - for health insurance. Of course, killing the wildly popular program which helped dramatically reduce poverty […]

Last November, the elderly and the rich powered Republicans to victory in the midterm elections. Voters aged 65 and older backed the GOP by a staggering 59% to 38%, while boosting their share of the turnout to 21% from 16% in 2008. Those with family incomes over $200,000 chose Republicans over Democrats by a 30 […]

If nothing else, the House Republicans' 2012 budget proposal being rolled out this week by Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan offers a never-ending series of ironies. Now touting $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years, Ryan as a member of the Simpson-Bowles commission voted against the panel's plan shooting for the same […]

On Sunday, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) previewed his party's 2012 budget proposal due out Tuesday. Needless to say, its target of $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade won't be met by simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Instead, Ryan as widely expected will propose the "voucherization" and inevitable […]

Having won one class war, Republicans are starting a second. To perpetuate record levels of income inequality not seen since before the Great Depression, conservatives are agitating for middle class Americans to wage a civil war on each other. Their latest divide-and-conquer tactic is to portray government workers as "takers" and "parasites" somehow responsible for […]

Facing dire budget crises, governors nationwide are waging an economic race to the bottom. In Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee and Idaho, the new GOP leadership is pursuing draconian curbs on public employee unions supposedly to rein in compensation and pensions of government workers. Meanwhile, in Florida, Michigan and elsewhere, Republican governors have slashed corporate […]

As was proven once again this weekend, for Republicans nothing succeeds like failure. Across the Sunday talk shows and op-ed pages, a legion of GOP luminaries spoke authoritatively on subjects they had frequently - and often catastrophically - bungled in the past. Apparently, no transgression is too serious, no series of mistakes too disastrous and […]