We’ve known for a week that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) would demand a bigger, broader tax cut bill to go along with Democratic demands to expand the child tax credit to the working poor. Yesterday, he named his price: $82 billion in tax cuts, on top of the $350 billion tax cut plan […]
I think many Americans have the impression that Capitol Hill is a cesspool of corruption. Wealthy contributors buying votes, lobbyists handing thick envelopes to lawmakers, secretive committees doing special favors for the rich and powerful, etc. It’s a shame, really, because the process is far cleaner than most Americans realize. There are multiple checks and […]
Several news outlets are reporting that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office now expects a record $400 billion deficit this year, easily eclipsing the old record for the largest deficit in history, which was $290 billion in 1992, the first President Bush’s last year in office. But what some of the stories are leaving out is […]
It was only a matter of time before this happened. When Bill Clinton was president, his economic policies were condemned by conservatives as the worst ideas in the history of bad ideas. When Clinton’s 1993 budget was being considered — a budget that raised taxes on the wealthy and cut government spending — Republicans guaranteed […]
A couple of months ago, I noted that Bill Pryor, former Alabama Attorney General and a Bush nominee for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, represented the worst of all possible nominees. Pryor is not only the single worst judicial nominee Bush has sent to the Senate for consideration, Pryor is the worst judicial nominee […]
Carpetbagger regular Chief Osceola alerted me to an interesting flap in southern California dealing with the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, and a junior high school yearbook. (Thanks, Chief) La Mesa Junior High School, in the Santa Clarita area, publishes a yearbook for the students who range in age from 12 to 15. The yearbook […]
The expanded child tax credit that congressional Republicans dropped for the working poor moved one step closer to reinstatement yesterday as the Bush White House endorsed the Democratic proposal. As you’ll recall, the Senate already passed a measure to allow low-income families to enjoy the tax credit. The House, specifically Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), […]
Considering the work I’ve done researching Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition over the years, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention that the infamous television evangelist got some bad news last week: his business partner, Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, has been charged by the United Nations as a war criminal. Few deserve the […]
Speaking of Iraq’s WMD (see below), I’ve noticed some high-profile media conservatives who have suggested Americans shouldn’t even ask about the administration’s tactics. Their arguments aren’t so much a defense of the Bush administration’s failures as they are a condemnation of those who would have the audacity to question the integrity of the president. First […]
John Dean knows a little something about presidential scandals. As White House Counsel to Richard Nixon during Watergate, Dean has seen a presidency-in-crisis first hand. With that in mind, the ‘net world has been abuzz the last few days over Dean’s use of the “I” word — impeachment — in an online column last week. […]