Nobody who reads this blog will be the least bit surprised by this turn of events: A growing chorus of Republicans is urging House leaders to abandon their staunch opposition to higher tax rates for the wealthy with the aim of clearing the way for a broad deal that would also rein in the cost [...]

The Republican Party has a message for the American people: Meet the new deal, same as the old deal. The GOP “counter-offer” to the President’s fiscal-cliff proposal isn’t really an offer at all: It’s a rehash of the tired and extremist right-wing economic warfare which the American people soundly rejected last month. But a political [...]

Pressure for a deal to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of the year is building. Even minor tremors in the stock market are treated as auguries of the panic that will attend a failure to act. A multi-million dollar campaign funded by Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson and Corporate CEOs demands action to “fix the debt.”

The president has put forth a comprehensive $4 trillion-dollar plan, including ending the Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent, $400 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years, as well as extension of the payroll tax cut, and creation of an infrastructure bank to help sustain the economy. House Speaker John Boehner scorns this, arguing that the price of defusing the austerity bomb is a deal that combines far more significant cuts in “entitlements” — that is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — with smaller amounts of revenue coming from lowering top rates and closing loopholes. As the end of the year approaches, the hysteria will build.

Easily lost in the tumult is simple common sense. No deal is a far better alternative than a bad deal — and the grand bargain now being discussed is a very bad deal. Here are the reasons citizens should be skeptical about the rush to agree.

Here’s a CNBC celebrity having a fit when Raul Grijalva suggests that Medicare shouldn’t be cut: She seemed to be having a very hard time controlling herself. Meanwhile, let’s have a little fact check, shall we? The Medicare cuts they are anticipating would likely affect people younger than the current crop of allegedly wealthy baby [...]

Billy Koehler died on March 7, 2009, for lack of health insurance. Mitt Romney said on Oct.

In a famous “Laugh In” sketch, Lily Tomlin, playing arrogant operator Ernestine, telephones a customer to demand payment of $23.64 for three calls to Topeka and threatens to send a burly serviceman to the customer’s house to rip his phone out of the wall if he doesn’t pay.

Ernestine was the face of smug and uncaring Bell Te

‘Tis the season of resolutions. With the new year comes pledges to quit smoking, get out of debt and spend more time with family. Gym memberships jump. Weight Watchers’ profits fatten.

This also happens to be the season of political resolutions. It’s that every-fourth-year event featuring presidential candidates in a contest of campaign promise one-upmanship.

Robin Hood, the guy who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, wore a short frock and tights. From the get-go, the guy serving the disadvantaged while sporting gay attire would fail the entrance exam required to become a card-carrying Republican. The GOP is, after all, the anti-gay marriage, anti-repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell [...]

Getting health care reform done in 2009 might not have saved the life of Melanie Shouse, who died of breast cancer last month at the age of 41. But what we do know is that the lives of thousands of other women like her are at risk because, one year after Congress and the Obama [...]

Third Way, an organization of so-called centrist Democrats, is promoting what it calls a “hybrid” proposal for a health insurance public plan option that it says progressives should be able to support. No, we shouldn’t. It’s an unacceptable attempt by people too wedded to the status quo to protect the tail ends of the health [...]