As promised in his last State of the Union speech… From Politico: Stepping firmly onto Republican turf, President Barack Obama will announce Friday that he will ask Congress for the power to merge agencies to streamline government and improve efficiency. First up on his list: the elimination of the Commerce Department and the Small Business [...]

And he raised quite a bit in Q4 2011. From The Hill… Mitt Romney followed up an easy victory in the New Hampshire primary by announcing he raised $24 million in the last three months of 2012, further establishing himself as the candidate to defeat in the GOP presidential race. The total is the strongest [...]

After Warren Buffett spoke out about taxing the rich more, the rich were polled and overwhelmingly agreed with the billionaire. Here’s more from Wall Street Journal: A new survey from Spectrem Group found that 68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more) support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more [...]

Not that this is any surprise. Usually when flat tax proposals are put out there, this is the common thread. The rich get a massive tax break and the middle class get the shaft. Here are the numbers… The old system would be replaced by the nines: – A flat 9 percent income tax for [...]

Dylan Ratigan wants to get money COMPLETELY out of politics. Not just corporate money or soft money…ALL money. Pretty bold. But when you consider his stat, which is the title of this post, it’s pretty sobering to consider how much of a vice grip money has on how our political system is shaped. Because it’s [...]

A very sobering piece to write, no doubt, but needed nonetheless. Especially when you consider the revised GDP numbers from 2008. From Frum Forum: Two years ago, Commerce estimated the decline of the US economy at -0.5% in the third quarter of 2008 and -3.8% in the fourth quarter. It now puts the damage at [...]

In an op-ed I HOPE will get picked up across the country, Henry Bloch explains why taxes need to be raised on the rich ASAP. From KC Star: I do not understand some Republicans’ resistance to the idea of tax increases on the wealthy. The argument we have been hearing from some politicians about the [...]

This is one of those times that I don’t know if this is a brilliant political move or absolutely foolish. Wash Post has details… It works like this: The plan “would give the President the ability to request smaller increases in the debt ceiling — coupled with proposed spending cuts of at least $2.5 trillion [...]

You can’t look at today’s news and do anything but wince. 18,000 jobs created and the numbers in April and May were revised downward. Unpacking the numbers a bit, 57,000 private sector jobs were created, while budget cuts pushed 39,000 folks out of work in the public sector. So how are businesses doing? Quite well… [...]

I think David Brooks frames the debate pretty effectively… If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue increases. A normal Republican Party [...]

It was forceful, it was direct and it was very pointed in putting the lie to the Ryan’s budget cuts that don’t include any revenue plans. And let me say this for the record…Ryan’s plans are cruel. He had a chance to lead on this, but he failed. In any event, Obama said that EVERYTHING [...]

It’s pretty basic. Increase revenues and lower expenditures. Here’s more from NY Times: In his remarks, which come after Friday’s bipartisan deal to cut domestic spending by about $38 billion for the remainder of this budget year, Mr. Obama will not offer details but will set deficit-cutting goals, White House officials said. The numbers were [...]

Both Newt and Rick are making presidential rumblings and that means that paying them on a “news” channel is a bad idea…apparently. From New York Times: On Wednesday, the cable news channel suspended two paid contributors, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who are both weighing presidential bids. While the channel’s move seems pre-emptive — Mr. [...]

The liberal blog Open Left suddenly announced today that they’ll stop posting content because… we have gradually run out of money to maintain operations. It is a difficult decision, but we kept going for as long as we could. But… The site will not disappear, and all published content will remain online {…} Wait…what? Open [...]

Actually, let me correct the title. He didn’t just not disclose it…he lied about it. Because there’s no way he simply forgot. From LA Times: Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to [...]

I bet you never thought you’d see those two in the same headline. I’m a bit surprised myself. Bernie should know better. From The Weekly Standard comes the text of the email from Sanders… Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity [...]

Peter Beinart makes a good point about our massive defense budget and undeclared wars… In modern times, conservative presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have tried to reconcile their efforts to rein in federal power with their support for a large military and an interventionist foreign policy. But both times, the latter has [...]

Specter lost his senate seat, but he has some parting shots for Republican appointed judges. From CNN: “Ignoring a massive congressional record and reversing recent decisions, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito repudiated their confirmation testimony given under oath and provided the key votes to permit corporations and unions to secretly pay for political advertising [...]

Take a look… I’m sorry, but I literally can not understand the thought process here. They talk about deficit spending until they’re blue in the face, but they favor massive, unpaid tax cuts for the super rich, while wanting to deny unemployment benefits for the people who need it most. Baffling.

Observing the carving of our currency, as it is sliced by administration fiscal policy and diced by Fed monetary policy.