Speaking to small audience of Democrats Thursday night, Obama acknowledged the jitters on his side, and jokingly reminded his audience of just how improbable their conversation was in the first place. “Now, I know that, over the last couple of months, there have been Democrats who voiced concerns and nervousness about, well, in…
Author: TRP
Perry Brags About Texas’ Tax System That Charges The Poor Four Times As Much As The Rich
As Matt Yglesias has noted, in reality Perry’s tax system “has done a great job of soaking the poor.” In fact, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, someone in the poorest 20 percent of Texans can expect to face a tax rate four times as high as a Texan in…
US Rep: Copyright has actually been an “impediment” to rightsholders
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has a rejoinder to those who argue copyright laws must be further strengthened: “I think if we were to do nothing on copyright law, we would be getting it just about right.” Lofgren, who represents Silicon Valley, spoke this week at a meeting of the Intellectual Property Breakfast Club in Washington,…
House OKs ban on schools automatically deducting union dues from pay
The Michigan House today narrowly passed a bill that would prohibit school districts from automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. The bill passed on a 55-53 vote in the Republican-controlled House. It now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate. House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, praised the vote, saying school employees “should be able to ask…
Judge blocks Fla. law restricting doctor gun talk
A federal judge Wednesday blocked a Florida gun law that restricted doctors from asking patients about firearms. Judge Marcia G. Cooke said doctors had a First Amendment right to ask about firearms, and she rapped the state’s lawyers for failing to provide more than anecdotal evidence to show the law was needed. “The State has…
A Potential Superhero For The Supercommittee
At one point, Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl suggested that the government might raise money by tackling Medicare fraud or by selling public lands. “I’m not against our working with you on any issue that you want us to work with you on,” Elmendorf said. “But there’s no evidence that suggests that this…
GOP Makes Last Ditch Effort To Postpone Repeal Of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
In a last ditch effort to prolong Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who chairs the Military Personnel subcommittee, have written a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Pannetta asking the Pentagon to postpone the scheduled repeal of the ban against open…
GOP Jobs Plan: More Snakes?
GOP members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today called attention to a proposed regulation that would restrict the transportation and importation of nine types of snakes, including the Burmese Python. In a new report entitled “Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President Obama’s Promise of Regulatory Reform,” GOP…
Why libertarianism fails in health care
And though it sounds nice to say that charities will pick up the slack, any hospital system in America will tell you that even with Medicare and Medicaid assuming much of the burden for the most intractable and expensive cases, charities are not capable of or interested in fully compensating the medical system…
Wonkbook: The ‘supercommittee’ is not really super
So pity the poor members of the supercommittee, who are being asked to be all things to all people, and who are inevitably going to fail. Some of them, in fact, are already trying to prepare the rest of Washington to be disappointed. In today’s edition of The Hill, Alexander Bolton reports that…
Making It In The U.S.: More Than Just Hard Work
Study after study shows that white families are more likely than blacks and Hispanics to enjoy certain economic advantages — even when their incomes are similar. Often it’s the subtle things: help from Mom and Dad with a down payment on a home or college tuition, or a tax break on money passed from one…
FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’
The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.” At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents…
Statistically, You Have a Better Chance of Being Executed by Rick Perry Than Dying in an Airplane Crash
OK, maybe not you — you may well live in a state other than Texas. And if you do live in the Lone Star State but you’re white, that’ll also decrease your odds of taking the needle. But in terms of overall population, Texans are more likely to have their execution order signed by Rick Perry…
Blue Dogs Cool To Obama Jobs Vision
Blue Dog Democrats are pushing members of the joint deficit Super Committee to reduce the deficit significantly more than they’ve been tasked with. But they don’t want to talk about President Obama’s jobs plan. And beneath the surface its clear that there are major differences between the White House and conservative members of…
The Great Recession in five charts
How brutal has the recession been to U.S. households? Americans are earning even less than they did 13 years ago. That’s according to new Census data released Tuesday, which found that real median income fell to $49,445 in 2010, the lowest number since 1997, and the largest decline in income in a single…
Chart of the day: America’s surprisingly tiny small-business sector
The one thing every American politician can agree on is that small businesses are a crucial driver of the U.S. economy. So it’s somewhat surprising to discover that, as John Schmitt of the Center on Economic and Policy Research points out, the United States actually has the smallest small-business sector among wealthy countries….
9/11 flight: Housewife handcuffed, strip-searched
Shoshana Hebshi will never forget where she was on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11. She and two other airline passengers were handcuffed and strip-searched after flying into Detroit on Sunday. No charges were filed against Hebshi, a self-described “half-Arab, half-Jewish housewife living in suburban Ohio,” or the two men sitting next to her, who…