Taxes

Update : Full transcript added. At the top of Tuesday's NBC "Today," co-host Ann Curry feigned shock as she excitedly proclaimed: "Say what?...A retired executive throws President Obama a rather surprising question during a town hall forum..." A clip was played of retired Google executive Doug Edwards teeing up the President by asking: "Would you please raise my taxes?" [Audio available here…

There isn't much about dysfunctional government that shocks me anymore, but this story did. According to a report by the Office of Personnel Management and reported in Ed O'Keefe's "The Federal Eye" column in the Washington Post, our government has been sending checks to dead people. "In the last five years," O'Keefe writes, "the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million…

CNN's Jessica Yellin, reporting on President Obama's virtual townhall Monday afternoon, noted two wealthy persons who wish to pay higher taxes – but didn't mention the small businessman who during the townhall complained to the President about regulations and taxes. Yellin focused her brief report on a member of the audience who claimed to be a wealthy retiree and asked for higher taxes. CNN…

"Greece has got a 45 percent income tax, a 23 percent value-added tax on top of that, so Greece should be in fine shape according to this economic theory," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on Friday, reacting to a clip of CNN's Christine Romans insisting that "serious economists" all agree that taxes must be raised on America's highest income earners. "This is a…

Following his high-profile speech to the United Nations Wednesday concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it appears Barack Obama has Jews on the brain. Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gala Saturday evening, the President had a little slip of the tongue saying, "If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew -- as a janitor makes me a warrior for the…

Former Congresswoman Jane Harman called out Bill Maher Friday evening for saying Fox News's Megyn Kelly was a "blonde twink" who's "not bright." Appearing on HBO's "Real Time," Harman responded by noting that Maher had just minutes before discussed with author Ron Suskind the sexist treatment of women in the Obama White House, and then said, "I want to point out that the last time I was on…

The lengths Paul Krugman will go to further the lie that the rich don't pay their "fair share" of taxes knows no bounds. In his New York Times column Friday, the Nobel laureate in economics claimed, "[T]he federal tax burden has fallen for all income classes":

It is clear from the way President Barack Obama has been talking about the federal budget recently, and about taxation since he came to office, that all the money that Americans earn belongs to the federal government. The key words in this conversation are "tax expenditures." Obama has lost a lot in tax expenditures, and he wants more of those tax expenditures back. He can spend that money, he…

Interviewing former Vice President Dick Cheney at the Reagan library, CNN’s John King recalled how former President George H.W. Bush “made an incredibly tough personal and political choice” to raise taxes. King touted how Bush “had the courage knowing it might cost him re-election.” As he and Cheney sat overlooking the Air Force One Pavilion, King pointed to Bush as a model for Republicans…

Bruce Siceloff at the Raleigh News & Observer had the task on Tuesday of writing up the results of his newspaper's follow-up investigation into the safety of bridges in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area after Barack Obama's visit there last week. In a speech there, the President asserted that "In North Carolina alone, there are 153 structurally deficient bridges that need to be…

For most Americans, the 2012 presidential campaign will be experienced on television, and voters will evaluate the candidates based on their performances at televised debates, daily news coverage, and in long-form interviews. Even with all of the changes in the media landscape over past several years, the most-watched regular forums for candidate interviews are the broadcast network morning…

UPDATE: BizzyBlog commenter "Rich in Iowa" notes that what the AP is criticizing is "a clearinghouse for employers and job seekers hosted by the State of Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and  this site pre-dates Walker’s Governorship by, oh, maybe a decade." Boy, Scott Bauer and the Associated Press have really, really nailed Scott Walker this time -- not. Bauer found that some…

While most of the media continue to obsess about millionaires supposedly not paying their "fair share" of taxes, the liberal Brookings Institution has let the cat out of the bag concerning just how absurd this whole thing is. According to the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, he discussed this issue with Brookings' William Gale, and disclosed his findings to Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball…

MSNBC daytime anchor Craig Melvin took minor detours in interviews this afternoon with director Ron Howard and actress Jane Lynch to ask both celebrities to weigh in on President Obama's push for higher taxes on upper income earners. Both of them are liberals who support Obama and have given to Democrats in the past, so their answers were hardly surprising. [Video courtesy of MRCTV editor…