Mitt Romney explicitly called for an increase in the retirement age in a speech to the Detroit Econmic Club in February 2012, during his campaign for President. He also described “progressive price indexing,” another way to cut benefits. This was all a consistent part of Romney’s views on Social Security during the primary, and it [...]

Yesterday Mitt Romney offered a far more specific method to get out of his tax math hole than ever before, proposing a potential cap on deductions at $17,000 per person. All deductions for individual tax filers, presumably, would remain active; but once you hit $17,000 with any combination of them, you would be done.

With Rick Santorum poised to do well in Iowa today and perhaps play at least a barely-plausible role as an anti-Romney challenger for the GOP nomination, it’s worth looking for a moment at his priorities. Santorum’s tax policy would probably cause less inequality than his rivals. He wouldn’t eliminate the capital gains tax, only reduce [...]

This salvo from a Romney-linked Super PAC includes the charge that Newt Gingrich supported a health insurance mandate they call “the centerpiece of Obamacare.” The fact that it was also the centerpiece of Romneycare doesn’t appear in the advertisement. But Romney, now the underdog for the GOP nomination, has to scrap back by attacking Gingrich [...]

The litany of poison pill riders in the Republican version of payroll tax cut legislation kind of gives the game away. Not only would the Keystone XL pipeline authorization get ripped from the President, not only would the EPA boiler rule get rolled back, not only would money be taken from parts of the Affordable [...]

In a sad day for anyone who likes to laugh, Herman Cain suspended his Presidential campaign after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and extra-marital affairs, quoting Pokemon on the way out the door and shifting his prodigious star-power into a website rife with misspellings. In a long, rambling speech, Cain said that he would suspend [...]

Donald Trump released a statement, the morning of the NBC upfronts which included his Celebrity Apprentice on the fall schedule, that he would not run for President, even though he totally could have won and whipped you slobs into shape: After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the [...]

Newt Gingrich showed why he will never become the Republican nominee for President on his first weekend as a candidate. In a week when Republicans hope to “rebrand” their plan to end Medicare, Gingrich went on Meet the Press and savaged the idea: DAVID GREGORY: Do you think that Republicans ought to buck the public [...]

In a way, you can say that the Tea Party has already garnered its first victory of the next election cycle: Kay Bailey Hutchison will not run for re-election to the U.S. Senate. “I am announcing today that I will not be a candidate for re-election in 2012,” she wrote to supporters. “That should give [...]

The Latino vote increased sharply for Democrats, particularly in the West, helping to determine key Senate races in Colorado, Nevada and California. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that Democrats picked up the Latino vote by 64-34, and remember that includes Cubans in Florida voting for a Latino Republican for US Senate. Even in states like [...]

Last night at the “Gathering of the Egos” event in Minneapolis, Sean Hannity apparently pined for a Palin-Bachmann ticket in 2012. The audience in attendance, which numbered in the thousands, ate it up. And why wouldn’t they? While it’s obviously very early, I’m starting to agree with Chris Bowers that Palin looks destined to be [...]