It didn't take long before the new GOP House began passing a series of deficit-hiking tax cuts that will primarily help the rich at the expense of everybody else. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee (which writes tax legislation), wants to make some previous tax breaks permanent — arguing that Congress has previously extended certain tax breaks before.

Noah Smith (at Bloomberg) recently wrote: "A plurality of Americans still consider themselves middle-class.” (A plurality meaning, more than any other, but not an absolute majority.) But he linked to The Guardian to make his case, which appears to be saying something completely different:

There are those (like Stephen Moore at the Heritage Foundation) who have persistently been saying for years that the U.S. should lower it's corporate tax rate to be more globally "competitive". They have repeatedly said that America has the highest [statutory] corporate tax rate in the entire world — although, in reality, American multi-national corporations usually have a much lower "effective" tax rate, because of all the Congressionally approved "loopholes" in our tax code.

The continued meme from the political right suggests that monthly disability benefits encourages people to have disabilities; Social Security checks are creating a generation of old lazy people; food stamps inspire poor people to quit their job (or not look for one) so they can eat steak and lobster for free; welfare checks seduces young unmarried women to lay on the couch all day long eating Bonbons while having multiple babies --- just as life insurance causes people to die prematurely; auto insurance recklessly leads to car accidents; home insurance rewards hard-working people to burn do

A national political operation, organized by the multi-billionaire Koch brothers, is committing nearly a billion dollars ($889 million) to the looming 2016 presidential race in an unprecedented effort to help boost conservative/libertarian/Tea Party candidates. What You Want is a Koch.