This afternoon, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest look at the Affordable Care Act – the health care law. This report affirms that repealing the health care law would deny tax credits for millions of middle class families and result in higher deficits and fewer Americans with insurance. Once again, the Congressional Budget…
Senate Republican Plan Raises Far More People’s Taxes than the Senate Democratic Plan
Senate Republicans would raise taxes on millions of families at the end of this year. In fact, based on our analysis, the Senate Republicans’ plan would likely raise taxes on more than 20 million families—about 10 times as many people who would see higher taxes next year under the Senate Democrats’ plan offered by Majority…
Republican Jobs Bills Won’t Actually Create Jobs, Say Economists
The GOP jobs package, which currently includes 32 bills, represents Republicans’ hallmark legislative accomplishment over the past two years. In the months ahead of the election, they will lean on it as proof of two things: that they are not the do-nothing obstructionists that Democrats paint them as, and that they are working hard to…
Greenland Ice Melt, Measured By NASA Satellites, Reaches Unprecedented Level
Unprecedented melting of Greenland’s ice sheet this month has stunned NASA scientists and has highlighted broader concerns that the region is losing a remarkable amount of ice overall. According to a NASA press release, about half of Greenland’s surface ice sheet naturally melts during an average summer. But the data from three independent satellites this…
Fox And Friends To Little Girls: Did The Government Help You Start Lemonade Stand? VIDEO
On Tuesday, “Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade turned to four-year old Eliza and seven-year old Clara Sutton to ask if they had government help when they founded their lemonade stand. “Who helped you start this business?” Kilmeade wanted to know. Later, he asked, “Clara, how do you feel about the President saying that you…
STUDY: Super-Rich Hiding At Least $21 Trillion In Tax Havens
According to a new study, the world’s super-rich are shielding at least $21 trillion in secret offshore tax havens. Using data from the Bank of International Settlements, IMF, World Bank, and national governments, the Tax Justice Network found that an astonishing 100,000 people worldwide hold nearly $10 trillion of offshore wealth, equivalent to the size…
Health Providers Support Medicaid Expansion As Govs Draw Line In The Sand
Even as state executives such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Florida Gov. Rick Scott remain firm in their opposition to the health law’s Medicaid expansion, health providers such as Cleveland Clinic CEO and President Tony Cosgrove express their support for it. The Associated Press: Working Poor Stand At Center Of Medicaid Debate Families like…
Our Broken Political System
Elected politicians would, at least theoretically, be expected to either represent such views or at least respond to them. But you can forget about that. On occasion, democratic pressure can build on representatives to either change a position or lose their jobs, making life sufficiently uncomfortable for them. But this is rarer than a red…
The debate we should be having over ‘you didn’t build that’
Let’s try to extract the smart conversation from the contretemps over President Obama’s comments on the debt entrepreneurs owe to society. There are two questions worth thinking about here: 1) What do entrepreneurs owe the society that created the conditions necessary for their success? 2) What level of public investment is consistent with the maximum…
Chart: 6 Walmart Heirs Hold More Wealth Than 42% of Americans Combined
The recession has devastated the finances of many Americans, but it has been very good to the Walton family. Since 2007, Walmart stores have been flooded with millions of folks who’ve lost their shirts in the housing bust, stock market crash, and stalled job market—people who can no longer afford to buy anything that isn’t…
Web Quiz Tells You Which Presidential Candidate Best Fits Your Worldview
Take one guy with an abiding interest in politics, another guy with website-building skills and throw in the shared desire to get people more engaged in the political process, and you have the ingredients for an interactive site called ISideWith.com. The site’s purpose is to show you which presidential candidate’s views most align with yours…
MN GOP Evasiveness On Voter Photo ID Leads To Court Challenge
Several groups will tell the Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday that language for a proposed constitutional amendment voters will see on the ballot in November is misleading. An UpTake video review of how Republicans drafted and answered questions about the “voter photo ID” amendment indicates they did not want the ballot language to be very detailed…
Music publisher uses DMCA to take down Romney ad of Obama crooning
A YouTube video produced by the Romney for President campaign got hit by a takedown request on Monday, highlighting the challenges that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act can pose for free speech. For days, President Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney have been trading barbs over Romney’s role in layoffs initiated by Bain Capital…
Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital Timeline
Since his first run for office in 1994, Mitt Romney has been dogged by charges that the private equity firm he founded profited from outsourcing and shuttered companies. But over the last two weeks, new documents emerged to call into question the GOP presidential candidate’s narrative about his time at the company. At issue are…
Mitt Romneys painfully bad week
Thursday morning, the Obama campaign released a tough ad attacking the record of downsizing and outsourcing at Romney’s old firm, Bain Capital. The Romney campaign reacted with outrage. That same day, it announced a multimillion-dollar purchase of airtime for an ad that bluntly accused President Obama of lying. In support of the ad, Romney’s team…
Romney – “Not a felon”
Where have we heard that before? Today on CNN Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said that Mitt Romney had to respond because of the accusations over Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, “to make sure people understood that he’s not a felon.” Not a felon, not a crook, or not a witch, something about Romney’s story just…
Administration Warns States Not To Roll Back Medicaid Eligibility
The nation’s top health official signaled Tuesday that states should not try to use the Supreme Court’s ruling on President Obama’s health care law to make it more difficult for low-income people to qualify for Medicaid. While the Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the health law in its landmark ruling last month, the justices…
Under Obama, Taxes Hit A 30-Year Low
To hear conservatives and Tea Partiers tell it, President Obama is a serial tax-raiser who has increased taxes on “millions of Americans.” But according to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office, tax rates under Obama hit a 30-year low in 2009, in part because of the tax cuts he implemented in response to…
Obama Offers Health Insurance To Seasonal Firefighters
After visiting Colorado Springs, one of the towns most devastated by ongoing wildfires, President Obama instructed officials to offer federal health insurance to seasonal firefighters, the Denver Post reports. Hundreds of seasonal firefighters—a force comprised mostly of young people and college students—have been battling especially severe wildfires in Colorado and other Western states, risking both…
Romneys Top Six I Know I Am But So Are You Moments
Mitt Romney has a way of deflecting criticism that is uniquely his. Where most politicians tend to pivot to another topic if they don’t like what someone is accusing them of, Romney takes an I’m-rubber-you’re-glue approach to attacks, accepting them as true but then simultaneously making the same accusation of his opponent. Just today, the…