Steve Benen

The question of the day: is it better to ignore the latest nonsense from Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell or mock it? I’ve gone back and forth on this, but I’m leaning towards the latter, primarily out of concern that some well-intentioned news consumers may not immediately recognize them. Schoen and Caddell have a shtick […]

It is now a standard belief among Republican presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, that the Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed. Not some of the health care law, or even most of the law, but every word of every page needs to be scrapped. To call for anything less is to […]

After the Senate approved a two-month extension of the payroll tax break, 89 to 10, the upper chamber not only assumed the House would be responsible, it also announced it’s done until January. This morning, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that won’t do — the Senate, he said, has to come back, get ready for […]

A small business owner in Michigan wrote an interesting piece for his local newspaper the other day, noting how tax credits from the Affordable Care Act are making a real difference, and even helping create jobs. That’s good to hear. The piece comes, by the way, on the heels of reports that the health care […]

I generally find Steven Pearlstein’s columns worthwhile, but his piece yesterday left me scratching my head, wondering if he’s watching the same Washington policymakers I am. There was, for example, this lazy both-sides-are-always-to-blame observation that’s at odds with reality. These days, Washington is stuck in a nasty Nash equilibrium. The two dominant parties — the […]

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * His poll support notwithstanding, Newt Gingrich is still scrambling to qualify for the Republican primary ballot in key states like Virginia. This is what a poor campaign organization looks like. * […]

For a presidential candidate who wants to dismantle much of the government, slash much of the public-sector workforce, and eliminate many public-sector benefits, this should be a fairly significant political problem. Rick Perry has done something his opponents have been hoping he’d do for years: retire. But it’s not what the governor’s detractors had in […]

We know a fair amount about Mitt Romney’s tenure at his private-equity firm, Bain Capital, where he was a successful vulture capitalist, breaking up companies and laying off American workers. By all appearances, Romney had considerable success orchestrating leveraged buyouts, seeking taxpayer subsidies, flipping companies quickly for large profits, and making money for investors “even […]

The Senate was able to make some temporary progress on tax policy over the weekend. The chamber had far less success on filling lingering vacancies. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Saturday afternoon blocked more than 50 judicial and executive branch nominees, demanding assurances that President Obama not make recess appointments during Christmas break. […]

Mitt Romney appeared on “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, the former governor’s first Sunday show appearance in nearly two years, and Chris Wallace brought up an interesting subject: Romney’s tax plan. From the transcript: WALLACE: You talk about helping the middle class but your plan that would eliminate the tax on capital gains and dividends doesn’t […]