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Republican tax plans raise taxes on the middle class to pay for tax cuts on the rich. They just voted against tax cuts for people making under $250,000, and for tax cuts for people making more than that. Last month they filibustered the bill ending tax breaks for shipping our jobs out of the country.

Ed Kilgore is righteously irked about the latest idiotic right wing contretemps over the fact that Olympic athletes have to pay taxes on their medals:

The nub of Bill Keller's recent essay on why Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid must be cut is a graph – taken from a report by a group called Third Way – that compares federal “investments” with “entitlements,” showing that one is in decline and the other is on the rise. As a baby

Is a little-known bureaucrat named Edward DeMarco an unreasonable, ideological obstructionist who's blocking badly-needed homeowner relief? The White House says he is. So does Paul Krugman. Some of us having been harping on the subject for months.

Everybody's all excited because Huckleberry Graham is being a grown-up:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday urged Mitt Romney to embrace revenues as part of a plan to stave off the automatic spending cuts set to take effect next year.

Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games.

Let me start by stating for the record that, while it would have been extremely entertaining to have a government shutdown a month before the 2012 election, the deal for a six-month continuing resolution kind of/sort of announced yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and blessed later in the day by the White House is a good thing for the economy, financial markets, investors, business, and the country as a whole.

It may not be good for the tea party, but I'm more that okay with that.

Having said that, there are several points that need to be raised.

Today the House is expected to vote on what to do about the expiring Bush tax cuts.