Taxes

If your income tax rate stays the same next year, would you consider that a “tax cut”? ABC anchor Diane Sawyer sure seems to think so. Adopting the Obama/Democratic spin as fact, that maintaining the same income tax rates in place since 2003 constitutes a “tax cut,” even though taxpayers would pay the same amount on the same income, she led Wednesday's ABC World News: It will be the big battle to…

On Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith touted President Obama's economic proposals and portrayed Republicans as obstructionist: "Obama's new plan. The President proposes to spend $50 billion on roads, airports, and railways and offers businesses a $200 billion tax cut. But the GOP says not so fast."Later, Smith introduced a report by senior White House correspondent Bill Plante: "With…

With the rise of the Tea Party, their push for constitutional limits on government power and admiration for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, I thought I’d use this last holiday of the summer as an opportunity to post an item from the MRC’s archive which exposed how a major cable network once tried to discredit George Washington’s moral authority in history, and thus the legitimacy of the…

National Review's Rich Lowry on Sunday had a classic debate with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about whether or not the tax cuts implemented by former President George W. Bush should be allowed to expire.Dionne agrees with President Obama that they should only be extended for folks making less than $250,000 a year; Lowry thinks that raising anyone's taxes right now could send the country…

Filling in for Bob Schieffer as host of Face the Nation, Early Show co-host Harry Smith brought his liberal sensibilities to the Sunday show, pressing his economic panel to agree the Bush tax cuts should not be extended, the stimulus was too small and so another would be wise – even suggesting a return to an FDR-era government make-work jobs program: “What about, say, something like a new WPA?” …

Doing his best in a desperate bid to become relevant, the ever-classy Ed Schultz said this on his radio show yesterday about Republicans and taxes (link here to audio) --They have nothing on the table for the middle class. They have no development whatsoever for the country other than they orgasm over these tax cuts that they just have to have! That's their whole thing! That's their whole…

Can you imagine what would happen to the economy if top wage earners were taxed at 70 to 90 percent?Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich can, and he thinks it's a great idea.To be sure, many Americans were concerned that giving Democrats control of the executive and legislative branches of our government during an economic crisis could usher back in socialist tendencies first seen in this…

Despite unemployment at 9.5 percent and millions of people having lost their jobs since Barack Obama was elected, Chris Matthews just doesn't understand why anyone would miss George W. Bush.Without naming this week's PPP poll finding Ohioans would vote for Bush over Obama by the tally of 50 to 42 percent if a presidential election was held today, Matthews in the first segment of "Hardball" asked…

Yesterday the Gallup organization released a poll showing that Americans trust Republicans over Democrats on most major issues heading into the general election season. Today the same polling outfit released a poll that found a large number of Americans blame George W. Bush for the faltering economy. Guess which one Gallup partner USA Today hyped?Here's how USA Today staffer Susan Page began her…

An amazing thing happened on the set of ABC's "This Week" Sunday: a liberal tried to extol the benefits of President Obama's unrestrained federal spending only to get completely smacked down by the entire panel.Host Christiane Amanpour began the Roundtable segment of the program by showing some of last week's horrendous economic numbers, and opened the debate about what can be done to improve the…

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's first full day as the only person in the whole wide world with any kind of influence over what happens in the economy didn't go too badly. That's the impression one might get from consuming two Friday Associated dispatches and a related AP Video. Bernanke apparently took full charge of anything and everything having to do with the economy on Thursday evening. As…

On Friday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann either showed his ignorance of conservative ideology, or he made his latest deliberate distortion to attack conservatives as he suggested that a Republican candidate for Oklahoma governor expressed a negative attitude toward the poor, referred to by Olbermann as "screw the poor," when, in reality, she was making the case that the wealthy are…

On the same day the Commerce Department dramatically revised down second quarter Gross Domestic Product estimates, New York Times columnist David Brooks published a stinging rebuke of Obama economic policies."The American stimulus package was supposed to create a 'summer of recovery,' according to Obama administration officials," wrote Brooks. "Job growth was supposed to be surging at up to 500,…

The New York Times on Tuesday declared what most conservatives knew would happen if Democrats took control of both Congress and the White House: "more Americans - and not just the rich - are going to have to pay more taxes."In its editorial comically titled "A Real Debate on Taxes," the Times predictably argued for a total elimination of the Bush tax cuts, although it favored some partial delay…