"Unless we are able to correct this," National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson warned in November, "very bad things will happen to taxpayers." By "this," Olson meant five straight years of budget cuts and staffing reductions at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Now, thanks to Congressional Republicans once again targeting Uncle Sam's tax collector for political […]

This week, House and Senate Republicans will unveil their respective budget blueprints for fiscal year 2016. To Chuck Grassley (R-IA) of the Senate Budget Committee tell it, the Republican plan for Medicare should be among the most intriguing areas to inspect. That's because after 50 years of warning that Medicare would end the days "when […]

This week, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its assessment of President Obama's proposed budget for fiscal year 2016. For those of us prioritizing economic growth over deficit reduction, the picture is a pretty good one. Despite new investments in education and infrastructure, the Obama budget will reduce the projected national debt by $1.2 trillion over […]

"Traitors." That's the word the New York Daily News, certainly no friend of President Obama, used on Tuesday to describe the 47 Republican Senators who signed an unprecedented letter to the Iranian leadership designed to sabotage the current nuclear negotiations. Sadly, the Daily News and other media outlets are about six years late in reaching […]

For Republicans, there are only two certainties in life: debt and tax cuts. During his eight-year tenure, President Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt accumulated over the first two centuries of the republic. (The hemorrhaging from his 1981 tax cut would have been worse, but for 11 subsequent tax hikes the Gipper signed to help […]

Last year, IRS chief John Koskinen warned about the impact of his agency's shriveling budget. "I have not figured out either philosophically or psychologically," he lamented, "why nobody seems to care whether we collect the revenue or not." That was before Congressional Republicans slashed its funding for the fifth straight year. Now, one year after […]

The sun does not rise in the west and set in the east. Gravity does not make objects fall upwards. The earth is not flat. And tax cut do not pay for themselves. Despite four decades of bitter experience--and incontrovertible data--to the contrary, Heritage Foundation chief economist Stephen Moore nevertheless took to the op-ed pages […]

As 2014 comes to a close, the American economy is finally starting to take off. U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) surged by 5 percent in the third quarter, the best performance since 2003. Employers hired 321,000 more workers in November, marking the 57th consecutive month of private sector job gains. With unemployment down to 5.8 […]

Almost from its inception in 1974, Republicans have hated the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Ever since Capitol Hill's budget scorekeeper presciently predicted Ronald Ronald's magical tax cuts would produce oceans of red ink, the GOP has had the CBO in its crosshairs over its inconvenient truths about taxes, the economic stimulus, health care and more. […]

This week, House Republicans selected Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as the next chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. That lofty perch, the AP was quick to proclaim, gives Ryan "a high-profile platform if he decides to run for president in 2016 or beyond." But that's not the only perk for Mitt Romney's […]