For the first time in years, passage of the farm bill is producing conflict and controversy on Capitol Hill. But even as House Republicans demand $20 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that would remove five million people from the food stamp rolls, the Government Accountability Office offered yet another example […]

During the 2012 campaign, Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan proposed what might be called "tax cuts for cowards." That is, Romney/Ryan proposed slashing tax rates for the wealthy and corporations, partially offsetting the trillions in lost revenue by promising to close some of the hundreds of loopholes and tax breaks that cost Uncle Sam […]

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican John McCain famously struggled to explain at what point an American could be considered rich. When Pastor Rick Warren asked McCain at the Saddleback Church presidential forum "where do you move from middle class to rich," the $100 million man who had lost count of how many homes he […]

For most Americans now living, those long-ago events were as unthinkable as they were forgotten. In Little Rock, Arkansas (1957), Oxford, Mississippi (1962), and Tuscaloosa, Alabama (1963), Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy dispatched federal troops to enforce the law of the land in the face of local segregationist officials proclaiming "states' rights" as their rallying cry. […]

When the dust-up over the IRS' treatment of non-profit "social welfare organizations" first erupted in early May, I predicted that whatever the findings of looming Internal Revenue Service probes, "the GOP will play politics with the IRS budget regardless. And the certain result will be tens of billions in less revenue annually for Uncle Sam--and […]

Among the many disturbing arguments in John Roberts' Voting Rights Act (VRA) decision, the most pernicious may be his invention of the "equal sovereignty" doctrine. In his Shelby County majority opinion, the Chief Justice struck down the VRA's Section 4 formula for determining which jurisdictions must be subject to "preclearance" in part because the VRA […]

In a campaign email to supporters Tuesday, Texas Governor Rick Perry announced he would reveal "exciting future plans" next Monday in San Antonio. But if Governor Perry is planning to pass up a fourth term in order to wage a second campaign for President, he will find he already has plenty of company from inside […]

If House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's faltering inquisition of the IRS seems familiar, it should. Back in the 1990's, Republicans demonized the agency, slashed its enforcement staff and, unsurprisingly, helped the growth of tax cheating which now costs Uncle Sam up to $500 billion in lost revenue annually. And as Reuters reported Saturday, history […]

Until this week, Republican Congressman Steven Palazzo of Mississippi's Katrina ravaged 4th district was best known for his opposition to federal aid for New York and New Jersey in the wake of super storm Sandy. Now thanks to his partnership with Florida Senator and 2016 GOP White House hopeful Marco Rubio, Palazzo will be known […]

Every year, tax expenditures--Uncle Sam's myriad credits, exclusion, loopholes and breaks--cost the U.S. Treasury over $1 trillion a year. To put that in perspective, that figure is greater than the cost of Medicare, Social Security and national defense. Much larger than this year's projected budget deficit of $642 billion, tax expenditures equal roughly 30 percent […]