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By Joe Conason
$14.95
By Martin Amis
$16.32
$24
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By Eugene Robinson — After slamming Democrats for not focusing on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” Republicans have decided to ignore their own winning message in favor of “cuts, cuts, cuts.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — If you want to get national attention as a governor these days, don’t try to be innovative about solving the problems you were elected to deal with.
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mn.gov
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Like most states, Minnesota has a big budget problem. But unlike most states, it’s looking to the well-heeled to help fill the gap. Gov. Mark Dayton plans to attack the state’s $6.2 billion deficit by raising taxes on the rich.
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By Amy Goodman — As many as 80,000 people marched to the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on Saturday as part of an ongoing protest against newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to not just badger the state’s public employee unions, but to break them.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — We are acting as if the only real problem the United States confronts is the budget deficit, the only test of leadership is whether a president is willing to make big cuts in programs that protect the elderly, and the largest threat to our prosperity comes from public employees.
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Could it be a coincidence that the same kinds of programs that, say, certain prominent Republicans are calling to be cut out of the budget are also those that tend to be supported by Democratic voters? Hmmm.
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By Joe Conason — Among the mysteries of modern politics in America is why so many of our leading pundits and politicians persistently seek to undermine Social Security, that enduring and successful emblem of active government.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The president has proposed some serious spending cuts and some modest revenue increases to keep things stable. This annoys his deficit-obsessed critics. He should smile, let them rage, and go about his business.
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By Amy Goodman — President Barack Obama unleashed his proposed 2012 budget this week, pronouncing, proudly: “I’ve called for a freeze on annual domestic spending over the next five years.”
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President Obama may have picked one of the only places in the country where delivering a speech about his new budget plan would be met with enthusiasm by visiting the Parkville Middle School and Center for Technology in Baltimore ...
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whitehouse.gov
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Could President Obama’s newly unveiled budget—which includes, he claims, funding cuts to programs he supports—represent an attempt to win over some conservative constituents before Nov. 4, 2012?
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Welcome to the war over E2I2. The great budget battle of Bill Clinton’s presidency was waged around a slightly different set of initials, also inspired by the “Star Wars” character R2D2.
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Martha Soukup (CC-BY)
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According to The Associated Press, “for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush. ...” In fact, as a share of gross domestic product, Americans haven’t paid this little in taxes since Harry Truman called the shots.
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By Eugene Robinson — As we mark the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth, one of our major political parties has become imbued with the Gipper’s political philosophy and governing style. I mean the Democrats, of course.
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By Ruth Marcus — The man once known as Governor Moonbeam sounded more like Governor Laser Beam when it came to addressing California’s fiscal crisis.
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When “Left, Right & Center” aired Friday it was still unclear whether Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak would stay in power as mass protests persisted in the Mideast nation, but show regulars Robert Scheer and Tony Blankley ...
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By Ruth Marcus — The president talks the talk about fiscal responsibility. But the evidence suggests he’s not willing to spend the political capital to translate that talk into action.
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By Andrew Bacevich, TomDispatch —
In defense circles, “cutting” the Pentagon budget has once again become a topic of conversation. Americans should not confuse that talk with reality.
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
In a moving White House ceremony today, President Hu Jintao of China presented U.S. President Barack Obama with a counterfeit DVD of the Hollywood blockbuster “Toy Story 3.”
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Wikimedia Commons / Office of Management and Budget
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So, the former head honcho of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, is now sitting in a very plush position over at Citigroup, from where he gave his latest economic prognostications in Thursday’s Financial Times ...
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By Joe Conason — Data sets and out-year projections may make everybody’s eyes glaze over, but without accurate information, the end result of legislation is disaster.
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By David Sirota — In a Washington circus that features as many morons as oxymorons, we have self-described deficit hawks who promote tax cuts, alleged war opponents who back war escalations and supposed anti-government conservatives who press to expand the National Security State.
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Michael B. Keller
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The Pentagon’s budget is only about half of what the U.S. spends on war and defense. If you add costs like nuclear weapons and the medical care of wounded soldiers, the figure tops $1 trillion. Robert Higgs has the math to prove it.
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Flickr / qmnonic (CC-BY)
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The legislation that President Obama signed Tuesday represents the biggest revamp of the country’s food regulation system in decades—that is, if it gets past those congressional Republicans spoiling for a fight as they pledge to crack down on government spending this year.
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Wikimedia Commons / U.S. House of Representatives
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The GOP is mobilizing to make some big changes over the next two years, including but not limited to the following: taking down health care reform, cutting the budget and attempting to oust President Obama from the White House in 2012.
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Luojie, Cagle Cartoons, China Daily, China —
Posted on Dec 23, 2010
READ MORE 
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AP / Senate Television
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By Moshe Adler — The only way to reduce the uncertainty in our economy right now is to increase taxes. During the Eisenhower years the top tax rate was 91 percent, and there is every reason to return to this rate now.
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What WikiLeaks revealed might have embarrassed some bigwigs around the world, but will the released information really hurt U.S. interests? America’s jobs outlook is still heading downward as the unemployment benefits of thousands expire. Does the deficit matter more than people do?
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In his latest bid to chip away at our nation’s trillion-dollar deficit, President Obama announced a new proposal Monday to freeze civilian federal employees’ salaries for the next two years, pointing to the need for all Americans to “sacrifice” ...
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Flickr / Leo Lau (CC-BY)
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Those greedy bureaucrats sending out Grandma’s Social Security check and cleaning the toilets in our national parks finally will get slapped down, thanks to our honest, hard-working politicians. Republican lawmakers ...
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By Joe Conason — The facts about earmarks—and the deficit, for that matter—are so simple that even the dumbest birther should be able to understand.
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White House
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By Ruth Marcus — I read “Decision Points” and it turns out that George W. Bush is the Edith Piaf of fiscal policy: He regrets nothing.
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By Eugene Robinson — I come not to bury the manifesto issued last week by President Obama’s debt-reduction commission, but to praise the most welcome of its ideas: Slash defense spending along with everything else.
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Wikimedia Commons
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On Wednesday, a special task force assembled by the Obama administration to deal with the ever-burgeoning U.S. deficit, aka the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, made some controversial recommendations ... (continued)
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By Ruth Marcus — Good afternoon. Well, we got thumped. I’m disappointed, but I continue to believe that our actions were necessary and correct.
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Flickr / Rob Lee
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Republicans pulled off a pretty neat trick, running up huge deficits and then making it their party’s big issue. Not to be outdone, the Democrats have managed to make $1.3 trillion look small. (continued)
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U.S. Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Jamean R. Berry
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By David Sirota — Beware the sophistry of budget talking points—especially those seeking to deter any criticism of defense spending.
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By Joe Conason — The best recent estimates by civil engineers and government experts indicate that we would have to spend well over $2 trillion during the next five years on roads, bridges, airports, railways, transit, sewers, waterways, ports, dams, parks and schools simply to maintain them in decent condition.
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Here’s a sobering reminder, from the vigilant filmmakers at Brave New Films, about exactly what has been lost (thousands of Afghan civilians, more than 1,200 U.S. soldiers, over $1 trillion) in the last decade of the war in Afghanistan. Ten years—and at least someone is counting.
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Bill Maher is one of the non-apathetic, still supportive liberals when it comes to President Obama, and thus Bill O’Reilly brought Maher onto his Fox News show Wednesday for a debate about the tea party, Obama’s opinion ratings and which president is to blame for our staggering deficit.
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By Ruth Marcus — The president’s position that the tax cuts for those making less than $250,000 a year should be extended permanently is fiscally reckless.
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By Ruth Marcus — We need to do something about tax expenditures, those spending programs disguised as tax breaks that cost us close to $1.2 trillion a year.
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DoD / Cherie Cullen
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The most important fact in the New York Times report on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ spending cuts comes 15 paragraphs in, when we learn that the U.S. will still spend more than ever on the military, more than all other countries combined, more than under President Bush. (continued)
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Photo illustration based on an image by Flickr user cometstarmoon (CC-BY)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Can a nation remain a superpower if its internal politics are incorrigibly stupid? While we’re at it, does any other democracy have a powerful legislative branch as undemocratic as the U.S. Senate?
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U.S. Air Force / Master Sgt. Jeremy Lock
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By Amy Goodman — Getting out of the red is the new black. Deficit hawks have swooped down on the U.S. budget. This week, they attacked unemployment benefits.
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Flickr / clementine gallot
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President Obama isn’t letting some ornery GOP types in Congress get in the way of making another push to extend unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans—or so we hope.
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By David Sirota — Though the Reagan zeitgeist created the illusion that taxes stunt economic growth, the numbers prove that higher marginal tax rates generate more resources for the job-creating, public investments that sustain an economy and create incentives for businesses to grow.
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Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s Neoliberal Savagery
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