The Republican Party agenda on taxation is conflicted: Republicans are in favor of slashing taxes … unless the tax cut benefits people who are not wealthy, and is proposed by Barack Obama. The President has asked Congress to cut every workers payroll tax bill in half, from 6.2% to 3.1%. His proposal also reduces the employers’ share of the tax by 50% on the first $5 million of a company’s total payroll. Are the Republicans rejoicing? No, they are fighting the initiative because it would [...]

Romney’s Absurd Proposal One of the planks in Republican Presidential Mitt Romney’s deficit reduction platform is to conform government salaries to those in private business. While he is probably referring to the salaries of those he calls “faceless bureaucrats,” take an absurd look at this absurd policy proposal by starting at the top of the ladder:  the President of the United States is paid $400,000, with $50,000 for expenses. The average pay for a Fortune 500 CEO is $10.7 million. The median pay for a [...]

The Republican majority in the House is again threatening a government shut down. The appropriations bills coming out of the Republican-controlled committees are filled with riders designed to change the face of American government. These riders would, among other things, block implementation of the Affordable Care Act, restrict a woman’s right to choose, and scuttle clean air and water regulations. Democrats in the House are fighting back and have sent the following letter to Speaker John Boehner(R-OH). Check the list attached to the letter and [...]

Who Are the Class Warriors? The Republican Majority Leader in the House, Representative Eric Cantor, criticized President Barack Obama as “fueled by efforts to incite class warfare” because of the President’s proposal to let tax cuts for the ultra rich expire in at the end of 2012. Cantor accused Obama as one seeking “to drive a wedge” between those making more than $200,000 and the rest of the nation. Under that logic, slashing funds for education makes the Republicans anti-children; cutting Medicare makes them anti-elderly; [...]

  Same Words, Different Meaning Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, spoke out on CNBC, ominously warning all of us that “How we resolve our national debt will set the fate of the nation”… and will determine “what kind of people we will be.” With less “Left-Behind” apocalyptic hyperbole, I agree with those words. But I suspect that my view of what they mean is quite different from Ryan’s. Ryan is a disciple of the late novelist and self-appointed philosopher [...]