Barack Obama

Has Obama Cornered Republicans On Contraception?

Sahil Kapur | February 13, 2012, 5:47AM

President Barack Obama and Senior Adviser David Axelrod

Republicans are doubling down in their assault on President Obama's birth control requirement, insisting that his accommodation of religious nonprofits does not address religious concerns. But by attempting to keep the heat on Obama, the GOP might be diving head-first into a culture war over contraception that social conservatives lost long ago in the minds of the public.

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said the House will push to repeal the rule entirely, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Republicans will force a vote on legislation permitting any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plan by claiming a moral or religious objection. "This issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down," McConnell said Sunday on CBS' Face The Nation.

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Chuck Schumer

Schumer: GOP Has Lost Its Obstructionist Mojo

Sahil Kapur | February 3, 2012, 3:16PM

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Does the Senate's passage of the STOCK bill suggest the Republicans have lost their obstructionist mojo? Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seems to think so.

The third-ranked Senate Democrat made the taunt hours before the chamber's overwhelming 96-3 approval of the President Obama-backed STOCK Act Thursday, which aims to crack down on congressional insider trading. He accused GOP lawmakers of inelegantly dragging their feet on STOCK as well as the payroll tax cut in an effort to sink the measures.

"Haven't they learned the lesson?" Schumer told reporters. "Their obstruction, which they did more artfully last year, is now becoming clear to the public. Their idea of blocking bills with no fingerprints on them is gone. Everyone sees loud and clear what they're doing."

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Defense Spending

Bait And Switch: GOP Leaders Renege On Debt Limit Deal Defense Cuts

Brian Beutler | February 3, 2012, 5:57AM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

Republican leaders in Congress have all but reneged on a key agreement they reached with the White House last summer rather than reconsider their unwavering stance against new tax revenue.

Relations between the Obama administration and the congressional GOP were already just about as bad as can be. But even so, this sets a precedent future Congresses and White Houses will remember when partisan mismatches force them to strike deals and govern.

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Republicans

In SOTU Rebuttal, Gov. Mitch Daniels Calls Obama's Policies 'Pro-Poverty'

Igor Bobic | January 24, 2012, 10:46PM

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels gives the Republican response to the State of the Union.

Presenting the Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union address, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) attacked President Barack Obama, saying his administration's extreme and divisive policies have held back economic recovery. He said the country must instead be righted by a pro-growth agenda, a simpler tax system, and a balancing of deficits.

"No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said.

Following a decision by the administration to delay construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, the Indiana governor said Obama's policies would put America in poverty.

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Minnesota

'Behind The Eight Ball': Terrible Times For The Minnesota Republican Party

David Taintor | January 13, 2012, 12:58PM

Minnesota State Capitol Building

The Minnesota Republican Party is having a hard time.

This week, the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the FEC that alleges the party and its now-former chairman, Tony Sutton, violated the Federal Election Campaign Act.

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Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett: I'll Pay Up If Republicans Do The Same

David Taintor | January 11, 2012, 5:45PM

It has been a few months since billionaire Warren Buffett called on President Obama to "stop coddling the super-rich" and raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

His "Buffett Rule" sparked some backlash, especially from Republicans, who suggested that Buffett should cut the U.S. government a check if he's so eager to pay his fair share of the nation's debts. Well, Buffett tells TIME magazine that he's willing to do just that. He's willing to match one-for-one any donation by a Republican member of Congress -- except for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, he gets three for one.

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Debt Ceiling

Debt Limit Hike Causes Behind The Scenes Commotion On Capitol Hill

Brian Beutler | December 27, 2011, 3:40PM

President Barack Obama

We're trying to sniff out exactly how this happened and what's being done to sort it out. But the Obama administration's announcement that it will certify this week its intent to raise the debt limit didn't sit well on Capitol Hill.

The key issue is the 15-day deadline Congress has to vote on a resolution of disapproval of the President's request to raise the debt ceiling. The timing of the administration's planned certification implies that the 15 days would be up before Congress returns in January from its holiday recess. Whether this was an accident or not, we're told that the calendar issue created a behind-the-scenes mess -- with Republicans threatening to return early from recess -- and that the administration is trying to figure out a way to keep it from spilling out into the public.

I've reached out to the administration for further guidance on both questions. It's still unclear whether this was a hardball political move, a dumb mistake, or just a misunderstanding -- or what, if anything, can be done to avoid a public clash with the GOP over the timing.

Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi Puts The Kibosh On GOP Payroll Tax Cut Strategy

Brian Beutler | December 2, 2011, 5:15PM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says Republicans can forget about using the looming expiration of a year-long payroll tax holiday for workers to squeeze a host of unrelated conservative priorities through Congress, and projected confidently that her party has the GOP cornered on the issue.

In an exclusive interview Friday with TPM, Pelosi sketched out the Democrats' strategy for renewing (and possibly expanding) the payroll tax cut, which most economists say would promote job creation next year -- when persistent unemployment will be at the center of the election debate.

"It is really a stalling tactic," Pelosi said of recent reports that Republicans want to use the lapsing tax cut as leverage to pass key GOP priorities, including construction of a major oil pipeline from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, and rolling back Obama's health care law. "It's unworthy of the needs of the American people for them to go all around the mulberry bush with this stuff. If they want to do something for the American people -- to remove the uncertainty as to whether these payroll tax cuts will be extended, whether [unemployment insurance] will be extended ... let's just get about doing it."

"They know that this stuff isn't going to fly, that the President's not going to sign it -- so why are they doing this," Pelosi says. "It's about votes at the end of the day, and some of their people are never going to vote for anything, so they're going to need our votes, we're going to have to work together, and they're going to need the President's signature -- and they're going to need it to pass the Senate."

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Occupy Wall Street

Republicans Learn How To Spin Occupy Wall Street

Igor Bobic | December 1, 2011, 10:09AM

Yahoo News' Chris Moody knocks it out of the ball park with his latest report from Orlando, Florida, where the Republican Governors Association met with top GOP message-man-turned-Yoda Frank Luntz. The crux of their meeting? Learning how to wiggle out of uncomfortable moments whenever questioned about the politically inconvenient Occupy Wall Street movement.

Staring down a crazed youth angry about inequality? Don't panic, says Luntz. Instead, follow this handy-dandy guide guaranteed to help pacify your subject, explain that things actually aren't all that bad, and that Republican policies can make it better.

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Super Committee

CHART: The More Congress 'Fails' The More The Deficit Goes Down

Brian Beutler | November 21, 2011, 12:11PM

shutterstock/ gary718

The Super Committee is poised to fail after markets close on Monday -- which is to say the 12 members weren't able to agree on a package of new revenues and lower spending to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. That was their charge, and insofar as they didn't do what they set out to do, they "failed."

But if Republicans and Democrats keep failing to agree on this stuff for the next year and change, the result will be an extraordinary decrease in federal deficits -- many multiples of what the Super Committee was tasked with finding.

We've been over this before, but the point is actually stronger now than it was earlier this year, because of the outcome of the debt limit fight. Between the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts and other temporary tax provisions ($4.8 trillion), a large, scheduled drop in Medicare physician reimbursement rates ($300 billion), the soon-to-be triggered penalties for Super Committee failure ($1.2 trillion), and the resulting savings on servicing the national debt ($900 billion), deficits are set to drop by over $7 trillion automatically, unless Congress affirmatively stops it. That's on top of the $1 trillion-plus dollars Congress banked in the debt ceiling fight.

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Haley Barbour

Flat Tax-Mentum! Barbour Backs Flat Tax, Privatized Social Security

Brian Beutler | October 25, 2011, 11:21AM

Haley Barbour (R)

The flat tax is becoming a litmus test for Republican presidential candidates, and on Tuesday it won a key endorsement from the former chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

At an event sponsored by the American Action Forum, at the National Press Club in Washington, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour argued in favor of key elements of Rick Perry's freshly released budget plan, which includes the option of a single income and corporate tax rate, unspecified spending cuts, a spending cap, and private savings accounts for workers as an alternative to Social Security.

"Is a flat tax good tax policy? Yes. It's not the only good tax policy. But it's certainly can be very good tax policy, particularly if you eliminate a lot of deductions so that it increases the appropriate amount of revenue," Barbour said.

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Barack Obama

Next Act In DC's Kabuki Theater: House GOP Lays Trap For Obama On Jobs Plan

Brian Beutler | October 25, 2011, 5:00AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

The House GOP has hit upon a way to undercut President Obama's attacks on them and advance conservative policy goals all at once. This week, they'll pass legislation that includes perhaps the least stimulative measure in President Obama's jobs bill and pay for it with perhaps the most regressive measure in a recent package of deficit reducing proposals he submitted to the joint deficit super committee.

It's a case study in the perils of offering concessions to your opponents before negotiations have begun. And it will force Democrats in both chambers, but particularly in the Senate, to decide whether to pass a proposal comprised of measures Obama's backed in the past, even though they've been cherry picked to essentially constitute a Republican piece of legislation. If Senate Dems block the measure, Republicans will accuse them of wanting to pick political fights instead of passing Obama jobs legislation. If Dems pass the measure, and Obama signs it, the GOP can cite it as evidence that they're not simply standing in the way of action on the economy.

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Reid Ribble

Ribble's Office: 'Downplaying' Our Boss' Role In The Job Fair He Left Early 'Is Completely Uncalled For'

Evan McMorris-Santoro | October 24, 2011, 6:06PM

Staff for Rep. Reid Ribble (WI) -- the freshman Republican last seen on the pages of TPM explaining how he can be a "distraction" to employers trying to connect with the unemployed -- are pushing back hard on the notion that their boss cares more about the optics of a jobs fair than actually helping people find jobs.

Ribble held a jobs fair on Saturday, double-booking it with a $1000/host fundraiser 45 minutes away. But his staff say the fact that he left early doesn't mean Ribble cares more about raising bucks for his own campaign than helping his down-on-their luck constituents, as Democrats suggest.

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Jobs

Reid Tees Up Key Test Vote On Teacher, Firefighter Jobs Bill

Brian Beutler | October 19, 2011, 3:49PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will tee up a Friday test vote on a piece of President Obama's jobs bill that would provide states money to retain or rehire teachers and emergency first responders.

"We are going to make sure there is a vote on our bill this week," Reid told a crowd of fire fighters and teachers at a rally on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

The $35 billion legislation would be paid for with a 0.5 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year -- a tiny new marginal bump that Republicans unanimously oppose. Some analyses suggest the legislation would save or create 400,000 jobs.

"The Republicans who work in the Senate suit up every day and come down and play their game in the Senate by following the lead of their leader -- and that is, whatever they do, to make sure they do everything they can to make Barack Obama [lose]," Reid said.

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9-9-9

GOP Senators Dance, Dance, Dance Around 9-9-9

Brian Beutler | October 18, 2011, 3:41PM

Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain

As Herman Cain has climbed in the polls, lawmakers and other GOP presidential candidates have had to contend more seriously with his ideas. One of the main attacks his opponents have leveled against his 9-9-9 tax plan is that it won't fly in Congress.

True story. Today's GOP leaders aren't willing to embrace the plan, which would wipe out the current tax code and replace it with a nine percent tax on individual income, a nine percent tax on corporate income, and a nine percent sales tax.

As noted here, here, and here, the plan has a lot of problems. It's deeply regressive. As businesses passed on the cost of their share of the tax to consumers, it would hit low and middle income earners exceptionally hard at a time when the economy desperately needs more, not less, consumption. And part of it's probably unconstitutional, at least as Cain envisions it.

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Jobs

Reid To GOP: Don't Try To Delay The Next Jobs Vote

Brian Beutler | October 17, 2011, 3:03PM

On a Monday conference call with reporters, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) officially announced that he'll move ahead with the first stand-alone piece of President Obama's jobs bill this week -- a $35 billion state aid measure to prevent layoffs of teachers and emergency fist responders. But he's prepared for Republicans to stand in the way.

"I'll bring this bill for a vote as soon as possible," Reid told reporters, noting that the entire cost will be offset with a small fraction of the millionaire surtax Dems proposed to pay for the entire Obama jobs bill.

"As soon as possible" could be a while, if Republicans want to gum things up. The current business on the Senate floor is a so-called "minibus" appropriations bill, to fund the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, Agriculture and other departments that will run out of money in November. For procedural and Constitutional reasons, Reid can't force a vote on the teacher and firefighter aid plan as an amendment to this approps bill -- so he's planning to move directly to it after the minibus has cleared the Senate, ideally by weeks end.

"There is no reason we cannot finish the appropriations bills before the end of the week, and have a vote on this jobs bill," Reid said. "I am happy to keep the Senate in session as long as needed to make sure we get a vote on this jobs bill."

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Taxes

CHART OF THE DAY: These Are The 47 Percent

Brian Beutler | October 14, 2011, 5:45AM

1971yes / Shutterstock

If the left and the right are proxies in a class war, then they're currently fighting to win a battle of public perception. Each side wants the public to see them as on the side of the beleaguered many against the powerful few.

Democrats are vying for victory by supporting tax increases on millionaires and the "Buffett Rule," which posits that all millionaires should pay at least the same effective tax rates as the middle class. The Occupy Wall Street protesters have turned "We Are The 99 Percent" into a rallying cry.

How do you argue against that? By obscuring what the fight's really about, and perpetuating the sense that hundreds of millions of people are gaming the system. To do this, conservatives and Republican elected officials are citing recent data to create the impression that a small majority of people in the country pay all the taxes, and nearly half (a large minority) pay nothing at all. It's a false impression, and when you break down who comprises this now-famous "47 percent" -- the poor, the disabled, and the elderly -- it makes you wonder why anybody thought it was a good idea to pick a public fight with them.

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Democratic Governors Association

16 Dem Govs. Pressure Dem Senators Ahead Of Jobs Vote

Susan Crabtree | October 11, 2011, 5:29PM

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-MD)

With President Obama's jobs package facing a handful of Democratic defections in the Senate, the White House released a letter from 16 Democratic governors who are standing squarely behind the bill in a last-ditch lobbying blitz before the Tuesday night vote.

The jobs bill faces almost certain defeat Tuesday night on a procedural motion requiring 60 votes to stop a GOP filibuster. All Republicans are expected to oppose it-- and even a handful of Democratic senators are poised to vote no.

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Government Shutdown

Dems Fuming Over GOP Threats To Planned Parenthood, Health Care Law

Brian Beutler | September 29, 2011, 4:58PM

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

House Republicans are attaching controversial cuts and policy measures to legislation required to run the biggest domestic department in the federal government, and if they don't back off there will likely be, you guessed it, another government shutdown fight.

Already, Democrats in both chambers are saying a draft of the House's Labor/Health and Human Services appropriations bill is dead on arrival, because it contains deep cuts to heating assistance for the poor, requires the repeal of a major provision of the health care law that will help provide assistance for disabled people, halts implementation of the entire law until the Supreme Court determines the constitutionality of its individual insurance mandate, and slashes Planned Parenthood and public broadcasting. Just for starters.

A Senate Dem aide familiar with appropriations issues weighs in with the following statement.

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Deficit

No Confidence Men: 62 Percent Have Little Or No Confidence In GOP Leaders On Debt

Kyle Leighton | September 26, 2011, 6:28PM

House Speaker John Boehner said that he got 98 percent of what he wanted in the final debt ceiling deal this summer. But the percentage of Americans that trust the GOP to do what's right on the deficit is significantly lower than that -- nearly three times lower.

As Americans' stomachs turn at the possibility of a government shutdown over yet another spending battle, everyone seems to be at fault. On Monday morning Gallup released the news that more people are dissatisfied with the way government is being run than they were after Watergate, a very high (or low) bar that Washington has hit a few times during the last decade or so. Later on Monday the Pew Research Center released some delineations about that sentiment.

Pew conducted a survey on how Americans feel about political leaders' ability to handle the deficit, an issue that has been eclipsed as the highest priority by jobs, but is still a major concern. The data showed that only 35 percent of Americans have confidence that GOP congressional leaders will do the right thing on the deficit, 43 percent thought the same about congressional Democrats, but a majority of 52 percent felt that President Obama will do the right thing on the issue.

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Government Shutdown

Republicans Hold Disaster Aid Hostage As Government Shutdown Looms

Brian Beutler | September 26, 2011, 5:50AM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Republican and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were supposed to spend the weekend breaking an impasse over emergency disaster assistance that threatens not just to cripple FEMA but also to shut down the entire government.

According to a top congressional source, they've gotten nowhere, with both parties unwilling to cave. But one eventually must.

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Government Shutdown

Republicans To Go It Alone On Government Funding, Disaster Aid Offsets

Brian Beutler | September 22, 2011, 4:10PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Looks like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will try to close GOP ranks around existing legislation to fund the government rather than scrap a controversial requirement that disaster relief funds be offset with an unrelated budget cut. And that means they'll be moving ahead without Democratic support -- a risky gamble that could lead to a government shutdown if it fails.

"The Speaker's seeking more Republican votes," Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who led a House conservative rebellion on Wednesday, told reporters after an impromptu Thursday GOP meeting.

According to other Republicans, Boehner will swap out the existing disaster relief offset -- a hybrid vehicle manufacturing incentive -- with new cuts.

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Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett Gave His Tax Return To Charlie Rose Last Month

Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 22, 2011, 3:14PM

Attention Buffett Birthers on Capitol Hill: Warren Buffett has already made his 2010 tax return public.

Appearing on Charlie Rose last month, the billionaire investor brought his tax return along to prove his point about the Buffett Rule, which has become the centerpiece of President Obama's new plan to raise taxes on the super-rich.

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Warren Buffett

On Capitol Hill, Rise Of The Warren Buffett Birthers (VIDEO)

Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 22, 2011, 1:38PM

Warren Buffett and President Barack Obama

Republicans on Capitol Hill have found a new hidden document conspiracy to push to now that President Obama's long-form birth certificate is a matter of public record. Warren Buffett, they demand, show us the tax return!

The Hill reports big names in Congress are starting to say Buffett "needs to reveal his finances if his views on tax rates are going to serve as the basis for Obama administration policy."

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Global Warming

What Consensus? Poll Shows Misconceptions About Scientific Agreement On Climate Change

David Teich | September 15, 2011, 2:30PM

ribeiroantonio / Shutterstock

While Republican candidates for president champion far right causes to try to capture the tea party vote in the primary, each will have to worry about moving back to the center should they win the nomination. On issues like entitlement reform, this may cause trouble. But when it comes to global warming, they might not have to scramble back to the middle: They may already be there.

According to a poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, while most Americans agree global warming is taking place, many are still badly misinformed about the scientific consensus surrounding its causes. From the study, only 29% of Republicans and 10% of Tea Partiers think most scientists believe global warming is taking place. While Democrats (55%) and independents (46%) do better on the question, they're still way off.

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Kathleen Sebelius

GOP Attacks On Medicare Cuts In Health Care Law Prove False, Says HHS

Brian Beutler | September 15, 2011, 12:07PM

Sec. of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

One of the most persistent GOP attacks on the new health care law is that its Medicare savings, including cuts to Medicare advantage overpayments, would cripple the program.

Not true.

"On average, Medicare Advantage premiums will go down next year and seniors will enjoy more free benefits and cheaper prescription drugs," says HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a statement.

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Congress

Outrage Index: Near Majority Blames GOP For Frustration With Washington

Kyle Leighton | September 15, 2011, 10:00AM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

It seems that the combination of brinkmanship and lukewarm reception to most anything President Obama proposes has caught up with Republicans in Congress.

The debt fight caused Washington's approval ratings to drop to new lows, but new data from a Bloomberg national poll shows that it hit the Congressional GOP the strongest: of the Americans who said they were frustrated with Washington, 45 percent said it was because of the GOP.

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Google

Google, Fox News Team Up For Republican Presidential Debate

David Taintor | September 1, 2011, 1:03PM

Google and Fox News announced on Thursday that they're teaming up to present a Republican presidential debate on Sept. 22.

While the debate itself was already scheduled, Google's partnership adds an interactive element. A YouTube channel launched Thursday offers viewers an opportunity to submit questions to the candidates.

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Republicans

Cantor Jobs Memo Calls For Repeal Of Health, Environment, Labor Rules -- And For More Tax Cuts

Brian Beutler | August 29, 2011, 10:34AM

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) with members of the Republican House leadership

When Congress returns from recess, House Republicans will begin a continuous assault on a series of health, environmental and labor regulations, which they say are hampering job creation. And they'll twin it with two tax cuts for both large and small businesses. One of those cuts will actually be aimed at preventing a scheduled tax increase -- but it's not the payroll tax cut President Obama has asked Congress to extend.

In a memo to members, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) laid out a list of 10 rules, most of which have yet to be implemented, which they'll seek to prevent week by week. These include regulations that would limit the amount of mercury and other toxins boiler and incinerator operators can burn into the atmosphere; that could make it easier for workers to unionize; and that assure that employer insurance policies exempted from new health care law -- so-called "grandfathered" plans -- meet the law's basic requirements and aren't gamed by employers to reduce workers' existing benefits.

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Hurricane Irene

Why Republicans Might Demand Hurricane Relief Be Paid For With More Program Cuts

Brian Beutler | August 29, 2011, 6:15AM

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

When a massive tornado obliterated the town of Joplin, Missouri earlier this year, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) told reporters that if the disaster ultimately required the government to step in and provide aid, it would have to be offset by cutting spending on other federal programs.

"If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental," he said, using the anodyne language of budget policy.

Three months later, when a modest earthquake struck the town of Mineral, Virginia in his own district, and caused minor, but widespread damage along the eastern seaboard, Cantor upheld the standard. Congress, he said, "will find the monies" to help victims, but that "those monies will be offset with appropriate savings or cost-cutting elsewhere."

Now, in the wake of Hurricane Irene -- a much costlier natural disaster -- Cantor may make the same demand, which could touch off a bitter fight on Capitol Hill.

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Russ Feingold

Feingold To Press Dems To Abandon Any Unbalanced Super Committee Deal

Brian Beutler | August 23, 2011, 12:36PM

Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), June 12, 2011.

Former Sen. Russ Feingold and his new group Progressives United are petitioning the six House and Senate Democrats serving on the joint deficit Super Committee to walk away if Republicans don't budge on tax increases, and insist on cutting entitlement benefits.

"If we don't get our policy priorities, Democrats need to be ready to walk away from the deal," Feingold emailed his supporters. "You can guarantee extremists on the other side will continue to push relentlessly to give even more to corporations and put even more of the burden on the middle class. We have to fight harder than they will."

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Jon Huntsman

Jon Huntsman Takes On The GOP Field, And President Obama's Leadership

Kyle Leighton | August 21, 2011, 11:20AM

Jon Huntsman

GOP Presidential nominee Jon Huntsman went after his opponents in the Republican primary on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour Sunday, continuing a trend of positioning himself as the more moderate candidate in the field: "This is a center right country. I am a center right candidate," he said.

In an interview with guest host Jake Tapper, Huntsman assailed his Republican counterparts with specific criticisms. For former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, the dig was on flip-flopping: "You know, if we were to talk about his inconsistencies and his -- the changes on various issues, we'd be here all afternoon."

For Tex. Gov. Rick Perry, it was his extreme political positioning, referring to Perry's comment that should Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke inject more cash into the economy's money supply, Perry would consider it "almost treasonous,": "I'm not sure that the average voter out there is going to hear that treasonous remark and say that sounds like a presidential candidate, that sounds like someone who is serious on the issues."

And when it came to Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) contention that she would get gas prices below $2 a gallon, Huntsman simply let go: "I just don't know what world that comment would come from. You know, we live in the real world."

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Debt Ceiling

Perry Was A Default Doubter (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | August 17, 2011, 9:49AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

As if attacking the Fed chairman and opposing expansionary economic policy wasn't enough to give markets (and perhaps fundraisers) pause, it turns out Rick Perry, like a long list of right wing Republicans, downplayed the risk of allowing the country's borrowing authority to lapse.

"There's still gonna be revenues flowing in, so I think this threat that somehow or another the world is going to come to an end and the threat of, 'We're not going to be able to pay our bills' is a bit of a stretch," Perry told reporters in Houston. "[Americans] want the government to continue to function, they want our military young men and women to be paid on time. They want the programs out there that help the citizens of this country to be taken care of [but] most Americans know this: We've spent too much money. We've gotten our house in bad shape, and we need to stop spending."

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Michele Bachmann

Ron Paul Ad: Romney May Talk Smoothly But Only I Can Bring Peace (Video)

Michael R. Corjulo | August 16, 2011, 3:00PM

New Ron Paul TV Ad, "The One"

A day after The Daily Show's Jon Stewart blasted the national media for ignoring Congressman Ron Paul's (R-TX) presidential campaign, the twelve term congressman and narrow runner up in the recent Ames Straw Poll released a dramatic new ad.

Filmed as a Michael Bay-esque movie trailer, the ad even opens with a disclaimer that "the following preview has been approved for all audiences" and concludes that Ron Paul is "the one who will stop the spending, save the dollar, create jobs, bring peace, the one who will restore liberty."

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Newt Gingrich

Gingrich: Republicans Will Have A Hard Time Saying No To Extending Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | August 16, 2011, 11:41AM

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)

GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says Republicans are going to have a hard time blocking an extension of the payroll tax holiday.

"I think it's very hard not to keep the payroll tax cut in this economy," Gingrich said in a presentation at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "I don't know what Republicans are going to say but I think it's very hard to say 'no.' We're going to end up in a position where we're gonna raise taxes on the lowest income Americans the day they go to work and make life harder for small businesses."

He's referring to a stimulative, two percent payroll tax holiday President Obama negotiated when he agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts in December. It's set to expire at the end of the year, and it's one of the economic growth proposals President Obama has called on Congress to pass when they return from August recess.

"I do think that it's a serious challenge to not extend it," Gingrich added.

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Super Committee

GOP Pres Candidates Unanimously Reject Massive Spending Cuts If Paired With Trivial Tax Increases (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | August 12, 2011, 12:01PM

We touched on this in our highlight reel but it's worth considering in isolation since the implications for a coming fight over entitlement cuts and taxes are so enormous.

In last night's debate, each of the eight GOP presidential candidates on stage broke a land-speed record for rejecting a hypothetical, massive, multi-trillion dollar spending cut deal. Why? Because, in the hypothetical, the package would also include tax increases amounting 10 percent of the spending cuts.

None of them even had to stop and think about it. Watch in the clip below how quickly they raise their hands.

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Polls

CNN Poll: Grand Old Party Downgrade

Kyle Leighton | August 9, 2011, 12:58PM

TPM has been reporting for weeks about the effect of the debt debate on individual political leaders and the subsequently low ratings of Congress. But new data from a CNN poll shows that there's been a difference in the minds of many Americans: the Democratic Party is getting a split on approval/disapproval at 47 - 47, but the Republican Party disapproval rating is all the way up to 59%, against a 33% approval.

The GOP approval rating has been going down in the CNN poll since their 2010 victories: in the October 27-30 version, the Republican Party had a small plurality in approval, at 44 - 43. But since last fall's election they've seen a steady downward trend in the survey, to the current low, which is the highest disapproval rating in the CNN poll in the last twenty years.

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Republicans

GOP Seeks To Weaken Defense Cuts In Key Part Of Debt Limit Deal

Brian Beutler | July 31, 2011, 7:02PM

One of the last sticking points in the debt limit fight comes down to how to guarantee future deficit reduction. Democrats and Republicans have agreed broadly that the question should fall to a new Super Committee, but that if Congress does not pass yet another fiscal package in the coming months, spending should be cut across the board, including from the military and Medicare.

In other words, no automatic tax increases -- nothing to really focus Republican minds on compromising with Democrats on deficit reduction.

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Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Dems Pounce On 'The Town' Clip: 'Who Are They Planning To Hurt?'

Igor Bobic | July 27, 2011, 2:58PM

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) strongly chided the GOP today for using a movie clip from the film "The Town," in which two criminals agree to a revenge attack, in order to rally lawmaker support for Speaker Boehner's new debt bill currently being rewritten in the House.

The playing of the clip, organized by members of House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) staff, happened in a closed-door caucus meeting on Tuesday. It features Ben Affleck's character asking for a friend's aid in order to "hurt some people."

"Who are they planning to hurt?" demanded Wasserman Schultz, adding: "Unfortunately that short clip from 'The Town' tells you everything you need to know about their approach to the negotiations over the debt ceiling," she said, after showing the clip to the attending media.

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John Boehner

Boehner's Debt Limit Plan Slashes The Deficit By...$1 Billion Next Year

Brian Beutler | July 26, 2011, 6:06PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

Whelp, Congress' official budget scorekeeper has weighed in on House Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) debt limit plan and if you're a Republican, it's a very mixed review.

The goodish news for conservatives is that relative to projections based on current spending, the Congressional Budget Office estimates Boehner's plan would reduce non-war discretionary spending by $710 billion over 10 years. That's if his discretionary spending caps were to hold in the out years, and future Congresses didn't change the law to allow themselves to appropriate more money. Over the course of a decade, CBO estimates the plan would reduce deficits by $851 billion. Those are big numbers. But they're less than Boehner's $1 trillion in promised cuts, and would thus make it hard for him to stand by his demand for a dollar-for-dollar match between deficit reduction and new borrowing authority. That's a look at the full budget window.

What would it do right away? Not much at all.

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