The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates for the final health care bill are bringing smiles to Democratic faces. Over 10 years, the $940 billion package will cover 32 million more Americans while ending insurance abuses including rescission and the use of pre-existing conditions to deny coverage. But the ersatz deficit hawks of the Republican Party […]

Still smarting after his budgetary beat down at the hands of President Obama Friday, Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling this weekend invited a second round of punishment. "I stand by what I said," Hensarling said Saturday, referring to his manifestly ridiculous claim the previous day that "the old annual deficits under Republicans have now become the […]

Just one week after the media chattering classes announced that Republican Scott Brown's upset win in Massachusetts represented a political sea change, voters in Oregon sent an unmistakable message of their own. And to be sure, they signaled an important win for Democrats and their progressive allies. Rather than gut school funding and other essential […]

Last year, President Obama kept his campaign promise to cut taxes for 95% of American households. But facing tough reelection prospects in November, a group of House Democrats is getting weak in the knees when its comes to Obama's pledge to reduce the budget deficit by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for Americans making […]

When Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords balked at supporting President Bush's wildly irresponsible tax cuts in 2001, the retribution from the White House and its GOP allies in Congress was swift and severe. Ostracized and humiliated, Jeffords became an independent, briefly shifting control of the Senate to Democrats. Assessing that sea change, Connecticut's Joe Lieberman […]

A funny thing has happened on America's way to health care reform. As Republicans promise a "holy war" to block supposed "government-run" health care that would "break the bank", Democrats in the House and the Senate offered reform plans that would cover all almost Americans, plans which pay for themselves. As it turns out, that's […]

On Wednesday, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush doubtless pleased his audience at the U.S Chamber of Commerce when he declared, "I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism." But in his knee-jerk assault on his brother's successor, Governor Bush conveniently omitted that George W. Bush compiled the worst […]

While the Obama White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats debate among themselves whether a so-called "opt out" public health insurance option will be included in reform legislation, Minnesota Governor and GOP presidential wannabee Tim Pawlenty has already weighed in. Asked if he would "lead a charge" in his state to opt […]

With his seriously compromised and deeply flawed legislation, Senator Max Baucus has achieved rare bipartisan consensus on health care: virtually everyone from both parties hates his bill. But with his feeble acknowledgement that despite all of his kowtowing to his GOP colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee "no Republican has offered his or her support […]

Back in January, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman presciently warned President Obama about the GOP's bad faith in negotiating the stimulus bill, announcing, "Look, Republicans are not going to come on board." Now Krugman's paper is reporting the White House may finally be learning its lesson and planning to "go it alone" on health […]