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By Bob Woodward $15.00
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By Joe Conason — When George W. Bush made his first public appearance in many months to discuss economic policy in New York on Tuesday, his utterances may have revealed more than he intended.
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 AP / Jacquelyn Martin
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By Bill Boyarsky — What’s a pittance for a super PAC can buy a state senator, beginning with financing a campaign and continuing support into the statehouse. These campaigns to take over state governments will grow as business sees the possibilities.
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Groundbreaking research in behavioral economics may pose the greatest academic threat ever to free-market theory, suggesting that emotions linked to brain chemistry—not rational self-interest—play a deciding role in how we spend, save and invest.
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 Jason Hargrove (CC-BY)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — There is a terrible bias in the mainstream media, which judge “moderation” almost entirely in relation to positions on social issues such as abortion or gay marriage.
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What is it about this particular election cycle that’s causing Republican candidates’ fortunes to rise and fall so rapidly the pundits are practically getting whiplash? And does our nation’s debt problem have more to do with defense spending or so-called entitlement programs?
Posted on Feb 17, 2012
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 jamiehladky (CC-BY)
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Something interesting happens when hardworking, fiscally minded Americans find themselves on the public dole: They resent the government that lends a hand and feel guilty for accepting help. A major article from The New York Times documents the anxiety, frustration and confusion of a growing class of dependent Americans.
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By Eugene Robinson — If you heard a loud “gulp” Tuesday night after President Obama’s State of the Union address, it probably came from Republican political strategists as they realized their party’s odds of capturing the White House this fall are getting longer.
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By Joe Conason — Who does Mitt Romney think he is fooling with this charade? Republicans are rightly concerned that his sense of entitlement, symbolized by the tax question, will damage their party’s chances next fall.
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By Joe Conason — Politicians and their flacks lie every day, but it is unusual for someone prominent to utter a totally indefensible falsehood like the whopper that just sprang from the mouth of Eric Cantor’s press secretary on national television.
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Randall Enos, Cagle Cartoons —
Posted on Dec 24, 2011
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By Eugene Robinson — Finally. After a year of artful camouflage and concealment, Republicans let us glimpse the rift between establishment pragmatists and tea party ideologues. There may be hope for the republic after all.
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Taylor Jones, Cagle Cartoons, Politicalcartoons.com —
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 Wikimedia Commons / U.S. House of Representatives
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Once again, folks, we have deadlock on Capitol Hill. Happy holidays! Although President Obama and the majority of the U.S. Senate hoped that the House of Representatives would cooperate and pass legislation that would extend unemployment benefits and a payroll tax break, that didn’t happen Tuesday.
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 Doug Wilson
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An analysis by Public Campaign reveals that between 2008 and 2010, 30 of America’s most profitable companies, including Verizon, Wells Fargo, FedEx, GE and Mattel, spent more money buying influence in Washington than they did paying taxes. (Full list after the jump.)
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 Lord Jim (CC-BY)
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Many in the media are touting a recent overhaul of the state of New York’s tax scheme as a sign of a new age of increased burden for top earners and a victory for the 99 percent. But close inspection reveals that such comparisons exclude the contributions of a soon to expire, 3-year-old “millionaires’ tax,” and the new codes favor the rich.
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 Pat Arnow (CC-BY-SA)
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By Joe Conason — Held aloft by the highest approval ratings of any governor in America, Andrew Cuomo now plans a sweeping tax reform that is expected to demand more, not less, from New York’s wealthiest.
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California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton has a certain way of talking that is familiar and even entertaining to those who know him, but “The Daily Show” seemed genuinely shocked to discover a politician who doesn’t give a shit about our Victorian sensibilities.
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 Kenny Louie (CC-BY)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Some of my middle-of-the-road columnist friends keep ascribing our difficulties to structural problems in our politics. But the problem we face isn’t about structures or the party system. It’s about ideology.
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Pat Bagley, Cagle Cartoons, Salt Lake Tribune —
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By Eugene Robinson — There are people on the right capable of arithmetic, but anyone who calls for revenue out loud is branded a heretic in Republican circles, where tax cuts are not a matter of policy but of faith.
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 Wikimedia Commons
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The shiny ideal of representative democracy starts dimming a bit when one considers factors and figures like those charted in a new study about U.S. Congress members’ personal finances. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 249 current members are millionaires—that’s about 47 percent. (more)
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 codepinkhq (CC-BY)
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The Obama administration puts the cost of holding each of Guantanamo’s 171 prisoners at about $800,000 per year, or a total of $136 million taken from taxpayers’ pockets annually. That’s more than 30 times what it costs to keep an individual captive on U.S. soil. (more)
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 Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)
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By Joe Conason — Before Paul Ryan delivers another lecture on the “fatal conceit of liberalism,” he ought to examine his own silly conceit: that he and others like him represent the hardworking majority, when he was merely born at the top.
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 Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — It’s one of the strangest things in our politics: The only “big” ideas Republicans and conservatives seem to offer these days revolve around novel and sometimes bizarre ways of cutting taxes on rich people.
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 Mike Shane
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Truthdig contributor Madison Shockley reports that the author and political consultant was arrested after leaving a Huffington Post event in lower Manhattan honoring New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
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 Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)
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By Joe Conason — Rather than close the grossest loopholes and deductions exploited by billionaires, Republican politicians want to punish all those families living large on $300 a week by taxing them more.
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 EA via Wikipedia
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With presidential hopeful Herman Cain’s ascension to the top of the GOP field, everyone is talking about his 9-9-9 tax plan—or should we say “SimCity’s” 9-9-9 tax plan? (more)
Posted on Oct 13, 2011
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 Flickr / Mel R
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More interesting, perhaps, than this New York Times article’s proffered data on falling household incomes and the reasons for same is its official timeline for our nation’s most recent recession: “ … From December 2007 to June 2009.” (more)
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 Flickr / zpeckler
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Government—the purchaser of last resort—must intervene to revive a sickly economy when consumers and businesses can’t do it on their own, says the award-winning political economist Robert Reich. (more)
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 White House / Pete Souza
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — You can’t accuse a big capitalist of “class warfare.” That’s why the right wing despises Warren Buffett and is trying so hard to shut him up.
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 Flickr / epSos.de
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If you’re tuned into your social surroundings, you’re likely to hear people arguing over whether raising taxes on the rich would be a good thing or a bad thing for Americans. With election season on its way, the noise and volume are bound to rise. (more)
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Taylor Jones, Cagle Cartoons, Politicalcartoons.com —
Posted on Sep 22, 2011
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 White House / Pete Souza
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By Eugene Robinson — The GOP and its upper-crust patrons have been waging an undeclared but devastating war against middle-class, working-class and poor Americans for decades. Now they scream bloody murder at the notion that long-suffering victims might finally hit back.
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 AP / Evan Vucci
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President Obama rolled out a plan on Monday to reduce the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade by combining cuts to benefit rights and war savings with tax increases. (more)
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 White House / Pete Souza
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On Monday, President Obama is expected to call for a new minimum tax rate for Americans making more than $1 million a year. The proposal will be called the “Buffett Rule,” after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has complained that rich Americans are not paying their fair share in taxes. (more)
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 Gulfstream
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White House Budget Director Jack Lew revealed Monday that the administration plans to raise $467 billion in tax revenue from people making more than $200,000 a year, investment fund managers, the oil and gas industry and owners of corporate jets. (more)
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 Flickr / Pink Sherbet Photography
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American video game developers are benefiting from an odd combination of tax breaks many analysts say are intended to encourage industries that serve the public good by providing broadly valuable social services. (more)
Posted on Sep 11, 2011
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 White House / Pete Souza
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By Peter Z. Scheer — By far the most stirring line in the president’s jobs speech Thursday was his acknowledgment that “the next election is 14 months away and the people who sent us here—the people who hired us to work for them—they don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months.”
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 Flickr / thisisbossi (CC-BY-SA)
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California legislators cut a tentative deal with Amazon.com Wednesday night that would allow the online retail giant to postpone collecting sales taxes from Californians until September 2012. (more)
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RJ Matson, Cagle Cartoons, The St. Louis Post Dispatch —
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