The Question For Tonight's GOP Presidential Debaters: Why Didn't The Bush Tax Cuts Create Jobs?

Tonight is the first Republican presidential debate with all the top contenders planning to attend. And there is only one question I want to see asked: Why didn't the Bush tax cuts create any jobs? Every candidate on tonight's debate stage not only continues to support the Bush tax cuts, but also proposes additional tax cuts for corporations and individual millionaires. Yet none of them have been directly asked to explain why they support an extension and expansion of, according to the Wall Street Journal, a tax policy that produced "the worst record on record" on job creation? Shouldn't they at least be expected to offer a reason why the Bush tax cuts didn't work? How can we take them seriously if they can't learn a single lesson from recent history? from the Campaign for America's future

The Gang of Six and Other Rogues .... It's a bipartisan attack on your wallet ala Alice Rivlin et al

huffingtonpost.com — If we can just get Congressman Anthony Weiner off the front pages, the Democrats should be enjoying a nice political windfall thanks to the Republicans' blunder on Medicare. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's proposal to end Medicare as a public program is monumentally unpopular. Budget Committee Chairman Ryan's plan also has the added benefit of dividing Republicans, and usefully contributed to Newt Gingrich's self-immolation. But watch for the bipartisan Gang of Six, and their conservative allies at Tim Geithner's Treasury Department, to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. In the most likely budget compromise that saves the country from defaulting on the national debt, the differences between the parties will collapse in a largely conservative direction. If the current script is followed, Republicans will be the big winners. They will win on gutting social spending, aborting a fragile recovery, humbling the president, and undercutting his re-election chances. Heckuva job, Gang of Six. By the way, the great Alice is on these so called bipartisan commissions to deal with the deficit. So get ready to see 1. Any company or government paid portion of your health insurance taxed at regular income tax rates and 2. Elimination of the mortgage deduction on your 1040. Of course, there's no talk about raising capital gains or dividend rates which were 28% under the great Reagan and got lowered by W to today's 15% in the 2001-3 tax cuts. So is it any surprise the top 400 oligarchs of old money pay taxes at 16.6% that is much lower than your rate. The richest American Warren Buffet pays taxes at 13%! It's only fair since under voodoo economics all the money these folks don't pay in taxes trickles down onto the pee-ons, right?