Taxes

Silly me. I really thought that every state's lottery operation was walled off from the rest of its finances. They collect bets, pay out winnings and administrative costs, and turn over the profits to general fund. End of discussion. No muss, no fuss. Right? In Illinois, based on recent developments, we know that's obviously not the case — leading me to wonder how many other states potentially…

Wednesday night on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter claimed that Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge “has helped to wreck the United States." The discussion centered around New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s decision to sign the pledge, and Jeb Bush’s refusal to do so. The Newsweek veteran declared the pledge was “about the worst kind of public policy…

In his MSNBC show The Last Word Tuesday evening, Lawrence O’Donnell dedicated a segment to describing his opinion of what “good and bad socialism” looks like. Naturally his example of “good” socialism included the man and policies Bernie Sanders. It also included a 6 year old cover from Newsweek magazine that proclaimed “We Are All Socialists now,” which detailed how it's becoming normal (and…

Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. In anticipation of the New Deal-era program's 80th anniversary, the Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher presented as facts several unfortunately widely believed distortions. His worst offense against common sense was an item in his list of "modest changes" which could "save" the actuarially…

In a Wednesday column, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman extended his odd obsession with raising the gas tax into the 2016 Republican presidential debate. But Friedman will have a hard time convincing Republicans to listen if he keeps throwing around insults, like describing the party's donors and supporters as embracing the "angry anti-science, anti-tax, anti-government, anti-minorities,…

On Tuesday and Wednesday, CNN's New Day aired pre-recorded segments in which co-anchor Chris Cuomo spoke with six New Hampshire voters about the presidential race. Although the group was supposedly balanced by including two Republicans, two Democrats, and two independents, four of the six participants -- including one of the Republicans -- seemed more aligned with Democrats in their interests…

In addition to his usual tired historical revisionism, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger, in his report on May's budget deficit of $82 billion, failed to mention that the nation is once again operating at the legal limit of its authorized debt. Additionally, he mailed in his final five paragraphs, virtually copying what he wrote on May 12 in covering April's surplus. The nation's debt…

Will Deener, who has been a business reporter since at least before the turn of the century, considers his most unforgettable experience on the job to be "Covering the crash of the Internet stocks and Enron in 2000-2002." Sunday evening, the Dallas Morning News columnist moaned about how big U.S. companies engaged in real businesses are avoiding paying billions in taxes because "the nation’s…

When it comes to the word “freedom,” liberals and conservatives long have told each other, in effect, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” Take Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, who in a Tuesday Washington Post column urged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to endorse a “far more expansive” concept of freedom than the right’s “constrained notion” that’…

The business press has gotten really excited about the possibility — some of them are even treating it as a probability — that the first-quarter's recently reported annualized economic contraction of 0.7 percent will go positive if it gets revised for so-called "residual seasonality." "Residual seasonality" is "the manifestation of seasonal patterns in data that have already been seasonally…

Another day, another batch of poll results from the New York Times pushing a liberal issue. Yesterday it was campaign finance. Thursday's front page brought the paper's latest installment of the paper's ongoing obsession with "income inequality," "Inequality Troubles Americans Across Party Lines, a Poll Finds," with special pressure on what it would mean for the Republicans in 2016.

On Wednesday, only CBS This Morning noticed a setback for Democrats proposing a massive tax hike in Connecticut, with co-host Norah O’Donnell reporting: “The Connecticut Post says two major corporations, General Electric and Aetna, forced changes in Connecticut's proposed budget. The companies said they would consider leaving the state over plans to raise business taxes. Democratic lawmakers…

Facts are such inconvenient things. Especially financial facts and figures. On Tuesday, Rebecca Shabad at the Hill composed a 34-paragraph report entitled "Washington is ready to spend." Really? When have Congress or the White House not been ready to spend? Oh, I get it. She really means that they're getting ready to spend more. How much more? Readers will search in vain for anything beyond a…

A recent Gallup poll found that 31 percent of Americans self-identify as social liberals, and that an equal percentage call themselves social conservatives -- the first time since Gallup began conducting such surveys in 1999 that conservatives haven’t outnumbered liberals. On Tuesday, pundit Michael Tomasky seized on this development as an indication that Republicans no longer will be able to use…