Now that President Obama has officially declared he wants to let the tax rates for those making more than $250,000 per year go back up to pre-2001 levels the flood of faux facts has begun. Chief among them is this one amply explained in a New York Post editorial on Thursday:
“Many of the folks who report $250,000 or more in income are hardly fat cats: They’re hard-working small-business owners who pay taxes on their revenues via their personal income-tax returns. In fact, in the top two income-tax brackets – the …

Forget the performance critiques of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s Republican response to Barack Obama’s State-of-the-Union-in-name-only speech Tuesday night. Plenty of Democrats sucked in the same role following the far less gifted orator George W Bush (remember Tim Kaine in 2006 or Harry Reid in 2005? Lordy they were bad!). Jindal’s problem wasn’t performance, it was substance and it reaffirms our diagnosis that the Republican Party is in critical condition.
Many Republicans leaders, egged on by right-wing radio hosts like Rush and Hannity, have charted a course of total opposition to the …

As much as we love to reward those who own up to their mistakes it’s a little hard to take Rupert Murdoch’s mea culpa over the NY Post Chimp-Obama cartoon at face value. Here’s what he wrote in an item place in a small box at the bottom of Page 2 in Tuesday’s Post.
“As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me. Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many …

Last week the media formed a now-normal closed loop regurgitating the “news” that Americans were “deeply split” (NY Post) on Obama and his housing plan.
The cable nets went full-tilt especially after a CNBC reporter checked his credibility at the door of the Chicago Board of Trade and went on a stream-of-consciousness rant about how Obama’s housing plan reminded him of nothing more than Cuba under Castro.
By Sunday when the nets rolled out their gabfests it was no longer a question. The debates were over how bad Americans hated the housing …

Do we need a “millionaire’s tax” to solve New York’s budget crisis? Advocates of the tax say we do because New York doesn’t make the rich pay their fair share.
Opponents say that is not true and counter that hiking taxes on the very wealthy will only cause them to move out of state, depriving Albany of hundreds of millions, if not billions in tax revenue.

So who’s right? Get Real cuts through the crap and tells the truth:

New York State taxes are too regressive meaning the rich don’t pay their fair …

It’s nice to be Mike. Bloomberg that is. And not only because he’s (still) worth multiple billions of dollars.
The new Marist Poll out Friday shows why it’s virtually impossible to see how Mike Bloomberg is stopped from winning a third term as Mayor later this year.
Despite the “Blues for Bloomberg?” headline a quick peak into the numbers shows that Bloomberg is broadly popular among New Yorkers and actually in a better position than he was at this time in 2005. And he’s ready to spend even more than the $80 …

For the better part of a year people on all sides of the political and economic theory spectrum have been saying the economic meltdown cannot be fixed until the mortgage mess is cleared up. Now Barack Obama is taking action to do just that. But is it enough?
That’s been the question asked of every action the previous and current administrations have taken trying to respond to the recession and it’s entirely appropriate this time. Obama’s plan could cost $275 billion over time and will help a maximum of around nine …

Sean Delonas is no stranger to ire. Indeed if his years-long roster of incendiary cartoons for the New York Post are any indication, he lives for it.
There was Freddy Ferrer kissing Al Sharpton’s butt in 2001. The sheep all dressed up for a wedding after same-sex marriage passed in New Jersey. The Muslim terrorists cheering for the Democratic midterm wins in 2006.
Delonas has penned so many apparently anti-gay cartoons that he’s become practiced at denying he’s a homophobe (homophobe? He’s far more likely a homo-something-else considering how obsessed he is …

 
Amidst the more than half a billion Federal dollars to be spent as stimulus (and another $287 million in tax breaks), there is great news for Amtrak but maybe not so great news for the people who ride it most — those in the Northeast Corridor.
The final stimulus bill will give Amtrak $850 million for capital projects — tracks, trains, stations — with an emphasis on projects that can be started quickly thereby putting people to work. But there’s one final proviso: No more than 50% can be spent on projects …

 
Mea Culpa! Apparently after all those years of a President who couldn’t think of a single mistake he’d made and corporate executives who couldn’t find a failure they wouldn’t reward, mea culpa’s are back.
 
Earlier this week New York City’s Independent Budget Office released it’s annual “how we would fix this screwy city budget if we could” report (Budget Options for New York City). It contained dozens of ideas for how the city could save hundreds of millions by changing some big and small things about the way the city does …