By almost any measure, the 2006 universal care law Governor Mitt Romney championed in Massachusetts has been a clear success. A bipartisan bill which Ted Kennedy worked closely with Romney to pass, the law has reduced the ranks of the uninsured from 10 percent to a national low of two percent. Massachusetts residents overwhelmingly favor […]

A devastating new DNC ad this week has once again highlighted Mitt Romney's gymnastic flip-flops on the issue of abortion. Rushing to his defense, conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker claimed his opportunism was instead deeply principled, declaring "Romney's own change of heart evolved not from personal experience but rather from a purposeful course of […]

Last year, Republicans successfully waged a scorched-earth campaign to preserve at all costs the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans. Back then, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl defended the Treasury-draining, $70 billion a year windfall for the wealthy by proclaiming, "you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision […]

When Newt Gingrich proposed his 15 percent flat-tax scheme in October, the plan like the former House Speaker himself was viewed as an afterthought in the GOP presidential race. But now that Gingrich is the new Republican frontrunner, his tax cut proposal is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves. Because like fellow flat-taxers Herman Cain […]

"If I'm president of the United States," Mitt Romney declared during a recent GOP presidential debate, "My first foreign trip will be to Israel to show the world we care about that country and that region." As it turns out, Romney's pledge isn't just his latest transparent ploy to win over Jewish voters. Mitt's Israeli […]

The Wall Street Journal greeted the failure of the Congressional debt super committee with an editorial titled, "Thank You, Grover Norquist." That gratitude should have surprised no one. After all, Norquist's anti-tax pledge led handcuffed committee Republicans not just to oppose even modest tax increases on the richest Americans, but to demand another tax cut […]

As the GOP presidential field gathers once again for the CNN national security debate, Mitt Romney has already identified Iran as the place to contrast himself with the current commander-in-chief. "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon," Romney declared at the last Republican foreign policy shindig, adding, "If you elect me […]

Two weeks ago, House Speaker John Boehner protested that the characterization of his Republican Party as "servants of the rich" was "very unfair." But after the GOP torpedoed any debt reduction deal from the Congressional super committee including "any penny" in new tax revenue from the richest Americans, Boehner's complaint seems all the more pathetic. […]

For years, what passes for Republican economic policy has been dominated by "necessary lies," that is, statements which conservative ideology requires to be true despite being demonstrably false. Despite decades of GOP mythmaking, tax cuts don't pay for themselves or increase revenue. Employment and the overall U.S. economy grew faster when America's so-called "job creators" […]

Suppose you are a candidate for President of the United States. Suppose further that you know that over the past 40 years, the per-beneficiary cost of Medicare rose 40% less than private health insurance. Say you also know that studies consistently show that the Veteran's Administration (VA) health care system provides "the best care anywhere," […]