Everything, they say, is bigger in the Texas. So it is with the failure of the health care system. Leading the nation with a horrifying 25% of its residents uninsured, Texas ranked 46th in the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 scorecard of state health care performance. Nevertheless, that dismal performance was no barrier to Governor Rick Perry […]

In Washington, the partisan war is flaring up again, this time of over taxes. President Obama wants to keep the "Making Work Pay" middle class tax credit while rolling back the expiring Bush tax cuts for households earning over $250,000. Republicans hope to stop him, keeping the Treasury-draining Bush windfall for the wealthy despite the […]

Until this week, Republican Congressman Zach Wamp's claim to fame had been breaking his term limits pledge. But now, the Tennessee gubernatorial candidate is making voters a new promise: secession. And as it turns out, Wamp has plenty of company in transforming the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Jefferson Davis. From their inflammatory […]

On Friday, Gallup became just the latest pollster to confirm the obvious: "Tea Party supporters overlap the Republican base." Despite the fact that the Tea Party movement is simply a continuation of the losing 2008 GOP presidential campaign by other means, the Washington Post today examined how its members marked the Fourth of July. But […]

For months, governors and economists alike have been warning that unprecedented revenue shortfalls in the states would lead to draconian budget cuts and massive layoffs. Now with the July 1 start of fiscal year 2011 for many states, doomsday is here. And thanks to Republican obstructionism in Congress, the combined $89 billion budget gap facing […]

By almost any measure, the $787 billion stimulus program has worked exactly as designed. The overwhelming consensus of economists is that the federal package has been a success, while the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has already added up to 4 points to GDP and 2.8 million jobs. But […]

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Meg Whitman and John McCain have quite the mutual admiration society. During the 2008 campaign, McCain parroted her claim that "1.3 million people in the world make a living off eBay" as the basis for his recession-fighting strategy. And now with the revelation that Whitman paid […]

Over the weekend, President Obama wrote Congressional leaders urging action on a $50 billion aid package for the states designed in part to avert "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters." Which is exactly right. Because while the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has worked as intended to boost employment and GDP, the dire […]

Just a day after winning the Republican nomination for Senate in California, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina lost a contest with an open microphone. She inadvertently told the world that fellow Republican Meg Whitman's appearance on the Sean Hannity show was "bizarre" and that Democratic opponent Barbara Boxer's hair style is "so yesterday." But as […]

In December 2009, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lamented not that President Bush had politicized the Justice Department, but that he didn't politicize it enough. But with its purge of U.S. attorneys, complicity in rubber-stamping detainee torture and blessing illegal domestic surveillance, the Bush administration's gutting of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division and the perversion […]