A new study this week from the Commonwealth Fund confirmed the shocking gap between lower and higher income Americans when it comes to health insurance coverage. While only 12 percent of families making $89,400 a year (or four times the federal poverty rate for a family of four) was uninsured at some point last year, […]

Back in 1992, President George H.W. Bush tried to counter to the growing perception that he was an aloof, out-of touch patrician utterly detached from the economic struggles of the American people. But his laughably awkward pronouncement to voters, "Message: I care," only served to confirm their suspicions. Now twenty years later, Bush 41's empathy-challenged […]

That GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney announced his support for the Susan G. Komen Foundation's aborted effort to end funding for Planned Parenthood comes as no surprise. After all, defunding the group that each year provides health care and reproductive services for hundreds of thousands of American women is now a litmus test for the 2012 […]

Appearing on CNN Sunday, Romney endorser and VP wannabe Bob McDonnell gave his GOP credit for the nation's improving economic outlook. "Look, I'm glad the economy is starting to recover," the Virginia Governor declared, "but I think it's because of what Republican governors are doing in their states, not because of the president." Of course, […]

Friday's promising employment report showing that the U.S. added 243,000 jobs in January is just the latest sign of a slowly improving American economy. But that good news for the American people is bad news for the "Hope America Fails" crowd of the Republican Party. After all, GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has been falsely […]

Last summer, Congress ended the debt ceiling hostage-taking drama by agreeing to $1.2 trillion in automatic budgets cuts, half of them from the Pentagon, if a so-called "super committee" failed to come up with a plan to do so. Of course, now that the Republican refusal to raise even a dime in new tax revenue […]

One day after branding President Obama "really out of touch with what's happening in America," Mitt Romney marked his Florida primary victory by declaring, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." Of course, back in December Romney announced that "I'm concerned about the poor in this country," adding, "We have to make sure the safety […]

Behind almost all of the disturbing issues raised by Mitt Romney's jaw-dropping tax returns stands one largely unchallenged conservative article of faith. Much lower tax rates for capital gains than income earned through labor, conservatives claim, spur investment, catalyze economic growth and fuel job creation. But if that Republican theology isn't true, then the United […]

President Obama, Mitt Romney has declared repeatedly, "believes America should become a European-style welfare state." While Newt Gingrich warned of the Democrats' "secular-socialist machine," Rick Santorum insisted "President Obama is for income equality. That's socialism. It's worse yet, it's Marxism." And just this weekend, Tea Party darling Allen West thundered that President Obama, Harry Reid, […]

When it comes to paying his taxes, Mitt Romney may not have broken the rules; he just plays by a different set of them. His sub-15 percent effective tax rate revealed that Romney used his carried interest exemption, not-so-blind trusts, Cayman Islands investments and Swiss Bank accounts to his full advantage. But largely overlooked in […]