Citizens for Tax Justice evaluates the Republican House budget proposal, and finds it wanting. Key problems: their budget proposal repeals the Medicare tax expansion enacted in the Affordable Care Act and the Alternative Minimum Tax, though doing so would give a windfall to wealthy Americans, and allows the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit to expire, though doing so would put the hit on working families. It really is like Republicans are trying to do everything wrong.
Then again, two far-right Republicans stun an audience of scientists and activists by insisting that our federal government desperately needs to fund cancer research more than it does. "I think I can go to my 16-month old daughter and I can say, 'I borrowed money in your name to cure cancer' and she would thank me," Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) said, and I only wish the rest of his party had a similar perspective -- instead, the House budget will almost certainly require cuts in NIH spending, because DEFICITZ!!!!
Two Oklahoma Congressdolts suggest that Chipotle's work in keeping animal abuse out of its supply chain justifies letting corporations do whatever they like because of their "religious conscience." "We must not fall prey to the hypocrisy of defending the freedom of operating a business on convictions of sustainability, but reject that same freedom when the convictions are based in faith," they write. Lousy parallel construction aside, we must reject codifying "convictions...based in faith" that run roughshod over other people's rights. Next up on Fox News: did Chipotle violate the rights of a pork supplier by cutting ties with them? It's a serious question!
Ho hum, Gov. Walker (E-WI) extolls the virtues of rural health care-related programs that his brand new budget just so happens to cut completely. And at least one of those programs -- the one helping doctors do residencies in rural areas -- started under his Democratic predecessor. Given the evasiveness of his spokeshack, Gov. Walker seems to think ignoring this little problem will make it go away -- an explicable calculation, given the "liberal" media's laziness. But if, say, Jeb Bush notices the problem, then the "liberal" media will have to cover it. Come to think of it, Scott Walker's never won a competitive primary, has he?
Fox News talking head, addressing President Obama's statements about mandatory voting, says "Do we really want everybody voting? I don’t think so!" I find it stupefying that anyone would say that -- if you think everyone around you is stupid, the problem is you, and if you're worried about stupid people voting, you train them up, as we say at work. Of course, in my experience, people who go on about "stupid people voting" are really worried those people won't vote the same way they do.
Finally, long-time media producer and News Dissector blogger Danny Schechter has died at the age of 72. It would be difficult to underestimate his influence on our work here, especially in this blog's early days. While I never saw his most famous Bush Mobb-era film, WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, I do highly recommend his 2006 film In Debt We Trust, made in the immediate aftermath of that nefarious bankruptcy "reform" law and in the climate of the housing bubble that gave banksters the ammunition they needed to bring down our economy.
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