At a time when the United States is the most powerful military in the world by orders of magnitude over anyone else, it takes some serious distortions to make anyone think that any cuts to defense spending will hurt national security. But Rick Santorum gives it his best shot.
Category Archive: Budget and Taxes
Jan 03 2013
This Chart Speaks Volumes
This is a chart from Andrew Sullivan’s blog (I’m not sure where it originally came from) that shows why the claim that cuts to defense spending will hurt our ability to defend ourselves (and against whom, exactly? The last time this nation was attacked was in 1941):
Jan 01 2013
Understanding the Federal Debt
The National Memo has an article from ProPublica (the very best of the non-profit news organizations, winning two consecutive Pulitzer prizes and deserving them very much) that explains the federal debt, what the inputs are to it and some of the historical context behind it. First, how did it come to grow so much in …
Dec 31 2012
Defense Industry Fears Tiny Budget Cuts
While both parties in Congress scramble to do the bidding of the defense industry and put off some or all of even the modest cuts to defense spending in the sequestration deal, the Pentagon and the defense industry is preparing for a little less gravy on the train in coming years.
Dec 31 2012
Phillips: Romney ‘Worst Candidate Ever’
Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips, who can’t seem to go more than a few minutes without saying something astonishingly stupid, actually gets one right when he says that Mitt Romney was a terrible candidate for the Republicans to nominate, but still manages to contradict himself in the process:
Dec 31 2012
Why the GOP Will Lose the Fiscal Cliff Battle
Watching the Republican party’s self-destructive pursuit of purity over the fiscal cliff negotiations over the last few weeks gives real meaning to the cliche “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Because as Phillip Klein points out, if the Bush tax cuts do expire, Obama inevitably wins:
Dec 25 2012
Boehner’s Embarrassing Night
I’m a little late with this; you might have noticed I’ve been a bit busy. But even through a haze of morphine, it was fascinating watching Rep. John Boehner’s thoroughly humiliating attempt to pass a bill that would raise tax rates only for those who make more than a million dollars a year.
Dec 19 2012
More Lobbying = Lower Taxes
Joseph Rotella and Dennis Van Roekel have an article at U.S. News and World Report that details more than $220 billion in tax subsidies given to some of the largest corporations in the world, allowing them to pay very low taxes even while earning record-breaking profits. And it’s hardly a coincidence that many of them …
Dec 11 2012
Chicago Churches Demand Free Water
After losing more than $20 million by giving water to churches and other non-profits for free, the cash-strapped city of Chicago decided this year to charge them for 40% of the water they use, which everyone else has to pay. And the churches are threatening to take their ball and go home:
Dec 04 2012
Orrin Hatch: Pick a Horse and Ride It
ThinkProgress catches Sen. Orrin Hatch doing an amusing flip flop. In response to President Obama’s new spending proposal, which would include $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and other social programs in exchange for a tax increase on the top 2%, Hatch calls this a “classic bait and switch” because “I don’t recall him asking …
Nov 29 2012
The Importance of Upgrading the Electrical Grid
James Surowieki has a column in the New Yorker talking about the crucial need to upgrade our national infrastructure, especially the electric grid, as well as making New York and other coastal cities safer from the inevitable effects of global warming. I’m going to focus on the electric grid:
Nov 28 2012
Levin Does His Job
Sen. Carl Levin may be a Democrat, but as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he also knows which side of his bread contains the butter — and who is paying for it, too. Like Leon Panetta, he is trying to stir up fear over even the tiny cuts in defense spending in …
Oct 19 2012
Romney’s Not-So-Bold Economic Predictions
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have told everyone who asked, and many who didn’t, that their economic plan will create 12 million jobs if they are elected. Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post notes that there are multiple economic models that predict almost exactly that increase in jobs over the next four years no matter …
Oct 18 2012
Republican Blows Whistle on Bain Cannibal, errr, Capital
Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, I remember David Stockman well. He came from very near where I lived at the time in Southwest Michigan, was our local congressman, and when he was named budget director for Ronald Reagan, he came in promising a supply side revolution. After four years on the …
Oct 16 2012
Taxing the Church in Italy
The government of Italy was getting ready to issue a new policy subjecting the Catholic Church to property taxes, but now a court in that country has ruled that they cannot do so. Under pressure from the European Union, Italy’s new regulations were to go into effect on January 1, 2013. The EU says they …
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