Another Titanic cartoon. Hey, we only get the centennial of the sinking once. The Ryan budget, now the official budget of the Republican Party and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, is certainly bold. It’s also radical. Over time, it would essentially limit the federal government’s spending to defense, Medicare and Social Security, and it would drastically [...]

March 20, 2012–Republicans today unveiled their budget plan, which laid out a vision of this country’s economic future in stark contrast to the budget proposed by President Obama. Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee and chief architect of the GOP plan, said, “This is about putting an end to empty promises from [...]

I’ve noticed that as the primaries heat up, all the Republicans are channeling the sainted Ronald Reagan. In the last debate before the South Carolina vote, Mitt Romney used the famous “shining city on a hill” line, and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels repeated it in his rebuttal to Obama’s State of the Union address. Somehow, [...]

I watched enough of the debates leading up to Iowa to conclude that the Republican candidates for president seem to live on a different planet than the rest of us, one where the only problem this country has is named Obama. Unemployment at 9 percent? Millions of homes foreclosed? The erosion of the middle class? [...]

Interesting story yesterday about how wide the economic gulf has become between members of Congress and their constituents.  According to the New York Times, the median net worth of the folks in Congress grew 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, while the public saw its net worth drop 8 percent. Senators and representatives have always [...]

I couldn’t resist this one. After seeing ads for expensive new cars with big gift bows on top, diamond necklaces and fancy winter vacations, I started wondering what the average American will be getting from Santa this year. With so many unemployed, so many forced out of their homes, so many desperate, and so much [...]

My kids were fortunate–we managed to get them through college without racking up enormous loans. Many of their friends, though, weren’t so lucky. With the job market stuck in neutral, and the cost of college going through the roof, graduation these days means long-term penury for many, even if they somehow manage to find work [...]

A day after Europe agreed on a bailout plan for Greece, the Greek government, reeling from the unpopularity at home of the deep austerity moves the deal imposes, decided to put the whole thing to a referendum of the voters. The outcome, if the vote is allowed to happen, is pre-ordained, and will throw world [...]

The deficit reduction supercommittee is apparently bogged down in the usual partisan squabbles. Big surprise. The Democrats won’t accept a package of cuts only, and the Republicans balk at any tax increases. Will the threat of the nasty automatic cuts that will happen if there’s no agreement be enough to move anyone off dead center? [...]

I was working my way across the radio dial on my way home the other night, delighted to hear the right-wing blathersphere ablaze with denunciations of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, a sure sign that they’re starting to have an impact. Oh, those commies, those hippies, those radicals, those anarchists, those evil revolutionaries and their [...]