With Democrats proposing to set the top two income tax rates at 36% and 39.6% respectively, Republican leaders waged a ferocious battle on behalf of the wealthiest American taxpayers. Former House Majority Leader and current Tea Party moneyman Dick Armey warned, "This program will not give you deficit reduction." Ohio's John Kasich cautioned, "It's our […]

With his much-hyped call for the firing of President Obama's economic team, House Minority Leader John Boehner ensured his speech in Cleveland today would get a lot of attention. But sadly for the would-be House Speaker, the address also spotlighted his unique combination of political cowardice and fuzzy math. After all, while Boehner claimed to […]

On Monday, New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman summed up Republicans wanting to make permanent the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. At a time of record income inequality and massive budget deficits, Republican "politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people […]

Among the latest claims of Republican mythmakers is that Barack Obama is not only a secret Muslim, but one who takes too many days off. Of course, the charge is hardly new. In May 2009, the Republican National Committee sneered, "Have a great Saturday evening - even if you're not jetting off somewhere at taxpayer […]

In the span of just a few days, Sarah Palin has demonstrated that her ignorance of the First Amendment is total. One day after repeating her earlier call for Muslim Americans to "refudiate" their freedom of religion, Palin defended the disgraced Dr. Laura Schlessinger. But in tweeting that Dr. Laura's "1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist," Palin […]

The 2000 presidential campaign witnessed a fierce battle over the future of Social Security, pitting the private, personal accounts of George W. Bush versus Al Gore's "lockbox." Ten years later, Nevada Republican Senate hopeful Sharron Angle has taken both sides in a single day. In her just-released ad titled, "Social Security," Sharron Angle did a […]

No doubt, Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's dashing good looks make the Washington chattering classes weak at the knees. But his policy proposals make most Americans - including most of his party leadership - sick to their stomachs. After all, the past week highlighted how Ryan's supposedly budget-balancing Roadmap for America's Future would instead produce […]

Back in February, 42 governors signed a letter pleading with Congressional leaders to extend the federal matching assistance program for Medicaid. And with good reason. 30 cash-strapped states, including Republican bastions Georgia and Alabama, had already assumed new federal Medicaid funds in their budgets. Worse still, drastic downturns in revenues combined with the recession's escalating […]

Last year, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann summed up what would become the de facto Republican platform for the 2010 midterm elections when she fretted, "We're running out of rich people in this country." Now, as the GOP demands a $700 billion Treasury-draining tax cut for the wealthiest Americans even as it calls for a balanced […]

Historical events, it is said, occur twice: first as tragedy, then as farce. Sometimes, though, as with the latest Republican call for a balanced budget amendment, the farce is double. Even as they call for a budget busting $700 billion tax cut windfall for the wealthiest two percent of Americans, GOP leaders including John Boehner, […]