Taxes

Darlene Superville's Associated Press report earlier this evening on President Obama's visit to North Carolina ("Obama touts jobs bill benefits for small business") had an interesting final paragraph. Concerning Obama's openness to compromise on his "jobs plan" (otherwise known as "spend now, pay for with taxes later"), she wrote: "President Obama has made clear he'd sign a portion of the…

The August Monthly Treasury Statement released by the government today reveals that Uncle Sam ran a $134.2 billion deficit in August. That figure was $44.7 billion, or 48%, higher than the $90.5 billion deficit seen in August 2010. The year-over-year deficit increase occurred because outlays increased by 19% to over $303 billion, while receipts went up by 3% to $169 billion. Gee, that wasn't…

The headline to a New York Times editorial Saturday sounds like a conservative parody of liberal sanctimony: “The Enlightened Want to Be Taxed.” The content is no better, another boost of the paper's favorite multi-billionaire Warren “tax me more” Buffett, whose crusade was launched on the Times opinion page August 15, while offensively crediting the left-wing threat of property destruction as…

CBS's Early Show on Monday devoted two segments and a news brief to the Obama "jobs bill," but in none of the three stories did they allow a single Republican to speak. Correspondent Bill Plante filed a report that was almost all Obama soundbites -- and to make the sound of a sales job complete, it even included a clip of a TV ad from the Democratic National Committee to help push the $447…

Nice to see Rachel Maddow come around on this. Maddow has pontificated lately that tax cuts during wartime are not only ineffective but immoral -- which makes her inexplicable change of heart all the more puzzling. (video after page break)

Are messiahs allowed to fudge the truth? Washington Post's Fact Checker caught the President in a four Pinocchios whopper shockingly writing Wednesday, "Obama’s claim of having passed the 'biggest middle-class tax cut in history' is ridiculous":

America was in a post-stock market bubble bursting recession, had just suffered its worst mainland attack in its history, and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman believes ten years later all would have been made right if the President of the United States on September 12, 2001, had raised taxes. This is what Friedman, in his most recent blame all the troubles of the world on George W. Bush…

Yesterday, at organized labor's traditional Labor Day picnic at Cincinnati's Coney Island amusement park, Vice President Joe Biden gave the keynote address. His key lines, as reported by Carl Weiser at the Cincinnati Enquirer's Politics Extra blog (video is here at MRC-TV): "... this is a different kind of fight. This is a fight for the heart and soul of the labor movement. This is a fight for…

It appears one should never say in Christiane Amanpour's presence Barack Obama isn't ideologically flexible. When former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin did so on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, the host pushed back, "Do you think that’s true that he hasn’t shown flexibility since he's, he’s sort of come completely to the Republican tenor of the debate?" (video follows with…

If it's Sunday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman must be "saying something really stupid or outrageous." On ABC's "This Week," the Nobel laureate told host Christiane Amanpour, "If Obama called for endorsing motherhood, the Republicans in the House would oppose it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing as a guest on Friday's Last Word to discuss Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman's plan to simplify the income tax code, MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe saw extremism in the Tea Party movement as he asserted that Huntsman's plan was "moderate when you compare it to where the Tea Party extremists want to take this." As the discussion turned to the current anemic job…

CNN's Piers Morgan hosted New York Magazine columnist Frank Rich for a conservative-bashing session on Thursday. Morgan took the opportunity to ask his liberal guest if the Tea Party can even govern. "But can they actually govern? Or does the rather intransigent streak that they bring to all that policy-making, is that always going to be the problem?" Morgan asked. Rich responded that the…

Charles Krauthammer on Fox News's "Special Report" Friday offered Republicans a 2012 campaign slogan to defeat Barack Obama. "President Zero: zero economic expansion, zero jobs, zero ideas on how to cure the economy" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Remember "What's The Matter With Kansas?"  That was liberal native Kansan Thomas Frank's extended kvetch over the refusal of average Jayhawkers to engage in class warfare by supporting soak-the-rich policies. The same mindset was on display on Morning Joe today. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein asserted that the failure of many less-than-rich Americans to support tax increases on the rich…