No doubt, Friday's disappointing jobs report was bad news for President Obama. But the Republican response augurs much worse for the American people. After all, while Obama was visiting a Chrysler plant in Ohio to tout his auto industry rescue which ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, Speaker John Boehner took to a podium […]

On Memorial Day, Americans in big cities, small towns and rural communities commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. As President Obama spoke at a solemn ceremony of remembrance at Arlington National Cemetery, blogs left and right fittingly asked their readers to send care packages to support our troops in harm's way […]

On Thursday, John Boehner and the House Republican leadership team unveiled their "Plan for America's Job Creators." As he repeatedly made clear before the Economic Club of New York and again on CBS Face the Nation, Boehner's "job creators" are the top two percent of income earners whose Bush tax cuts President Obama has proposed […]

For decades, Republicans have deployed the word "uncertainty" to block action on acid rain, global warming, reproductive rights, the teaching of evolution and just about any other public policy with which they disagreed. On no issue has the Republicans' regurgitation of the uncertainty talking point been more rapid than on taxes. But while GOP leaders […]

While all eyes this week were focused on the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, back in Washington Vice President Biden met with Democratic and Republican budget negotiators in search of a compromise to reduce the U.S. national debt. As it turns out, the two events are related. Because almost 10 years after President […]

Back in 2008, Republicans for a fleeting moment held high hopes of making inroads into the monolithic Democratic voting block that is Jewish Americans. Fleeting, it turned out, in no small measure due to the selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP VP choice. Now, the leading lights of the Republican Party are once again […]

The United States was slowly recovering from economic catastrophe. Its military forces were deployed worldwide in a global conflict to defeat what even the President's political opponents deemed an existential threat. U.S. national debt would soon top 100% of the nation's entire economic output. And the top marginal income tax rate was 94%. The year […]

As Tax Day 2011 arrives, the distance between the tax debate and tax reality has perhaps never been larger. New data from the IRS revealed that over since the mid-1990's, the richest 400 taxpayers saw their incomes double and their tax rates halved. Overall, the gilded-class has seen its effective tax rates plummet. Meanwhile, prosecutions […]

It is often said that historical events occur twice, first as tragedy and then as farce. But sometimes, as with the predictable GOP opposition to small tax increases for wealthy Americans, the farce is double. After all, every single Republican in the House and Senate voted against Bill Clinton's 1993 upper-income tax hikes, calling it […]

If nothing else, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has unfortunate timing. On April Fool's Day 2009, Ryan rolled out the first incarnation of his Roadmap for America's Future, the document which served as the basis for the 2012 GOP budget proposal. Now on Tax Day 2011, House Republicans will pass that blueprint designed to […]