Republicans on the fiscal super committee — which is tasked with coming up with a $1.5 trillion deficit reduction package by the end of the month — today made an offer that is supposedly a “concession” on their part, agreeing to $300 billion in new revenue, when they had previously ruled any new revenue off the table:

Congressional Republicans have offered to increase tax revenue by nearly $300 billion over the next decade through an overhaul of the tax code, a significant concession aimed at breaking a long-standing impasse in negotiations over the federal debt.

The offer envisions a tax code rewrite that would lower rates for everyone while raising overall tax collections by $250 billion, mainly by limiting the value of itemized deductions such as write-offs for home mortgage interest, state and local taxes and other expenses.

As a symbol of how far this debate has shifted, over the summer Speaker of the House John Boehner proposed a plan that included $800 billion in new revenue. The GOP now wants to raise less than 0.2 percent of GDP in revenue, which is less than the Democrats have offered in Medicaid cuts.

Plus, there is a huge catch: in order to agree to raising revenue, Republicans want to not only make all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, but according to the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, they also want to lower the top income tax rate from its current 35 percent to 28 percent:

The highest tax rate would be reduced from 35 percent to 28 percent under the emerging GOP tax code overhaul proposal, the senior Democratic aide tells me. And the reduction would actually be even bigger than this. After all, if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire, as they’re set to do, the high end rate would go up to at least 39 percent. In other words, the aide says, under the proposal Republicans are pushing, the drop down to 28 percent would be at least 10 percentage points from what it would be if the cuts are allowed to expire.

According to Center for American Progress Director for Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden, the reduction in the top tax rate alone costs $670 billion, which exclusively benefits the wealthy. Meanwhile, limiting itemized deduction in the way that the GOP suggested to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore would, according to Linden, raise $560 billion from the wealthy. So the rich are still getting a tax cut.

The rest of the revenue that the GOP has to raise to net $300 billion, therefore, must come from middle- and low-income households. Let’s emphasize that again: the GOP’s big “concession” when it comes to deficit reduction is paltry amount of revenue that will come from many middle-class households, paired with a huge tax cut for the rich.

Simply put, the GOP’s plan is not a concession, but a joke meant to make them look reasonable as they continue to push for lowering tax rates on the most well-off Americans. As one Democrat said, “they either think we’re morons or desperate.”

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) erupts at a constituent who asked about the bank lobby

Freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is known for his anti-Obama rhetoric on cable television and his inability to pay his child support payments. But during a recent meeting with constituents in his Chicago-area suburban district, Walsh lost his cool when several attendees asked about why banks have so much power in government. At one point, Walsh even threatened to eject a man who asked Walsh about the revolving door of bank lobbyists infiltrating Congress and financial regulatory agencies.

Walsh at one point screamed, “don’t blame the banks … this pisses me off!” After several constituents accurately pointed out that bank lobbyists occupy key positions within Congress, the SEC, and other oversight bodies that are supposed to supervise bank practices, Walsh began sticking his finger close to his constituent’s faces, yelling, “quiet for a minute or I’ll have to ask you to leave.” The constituent, who had calmly asked his question before being cut-off midway through his sentence, obliged:

WALSH: Thats not the problem! The problem is you’ve got to be consistent. And I dont want government meddling in the marketplace. Yeah, they move from Goldman Sachs to the White House, I understand all of that. But you gotta’ be consistent. And it’s not the private marketplace that created this mess. What created mess was your government, which has demanded for years that everybody be in a home. And we’ve made it easy as possible for people to be in homes. [...] Don’t blame banks, and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now! I am tired of hearing that crap! This pisses me off! Too many people don’t listen. [...]

WALSH: Quiet for a minute! Quiet for a minute!

CONSTITUENT: Joe, what did I say–

WALSH: Quiet for a minute or I’m going to ask you to leave. You need to listen, or I’m going to ask you to leave.

Watch it:

The conversation moved from talking about influence of the bank lobby to larger structural problems in government. Walsh absurdly claimed that worker unions have more power and money than corporations in America. But he was quickly rebutted by his constituent, who said that in any case, unions serve worker interests while corporate lobbies push for private, selfish interests. The video of the exchange, which occurred during Walsh’s “Cup of Joe with Joe Walsh” event on Sunday in the town of Gurnee, Illinois, was posted on YouTube last night by Gene Taylor’s District116.org blog.

Several of the GOP’s 2012 presidential hopefuls have called — loudly and often — for the repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which is aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. But with the possible exception of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), no one has been more adamantly in favor of ditching Dodd-Frank than Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich claims that Dodd-Frank is “killing the banking industry,” and says that job creation will be sparked by simply repealing the bill and letting Wall Street go right back to the same shenanigans that led the nation into the Great Recession. But during an interview today with ABC News’ Jake Tapper, Gingrich admitted that the 1990s repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act — the firewall between commercial and investment banks — was “probably a mistake”:

TAPPER: One question I want to ask has to do with your call to repeal the Wall Street reforms, Dodd-Frank. I don’t think a lot of Americans would understand why anyone would want to repeal regulations that happened after this calamity on Wall Street. If you disagree with those regulations that were imposed, do you agree at least that there should be some new reforms or regulations?

GINGRICH: Sure, there should be very decisive reforms. I think, in retrospect, repealing the Glass-Steagall Act was probably a mistake. We should probably reestablish dividing up the big banks into a banking function and an investment function and separating them out again.

Watch it:

The repeal of Glass-Steagall led to the creation of mega-banks like Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase that combine traditional lending with risky investment banking. Many economists believe that the repeal led to the financial crisis of 2008. “As a result [of the repeal], the culture of investment banks was conveyed to commercial banks and everyone got involved in the high-risk gambling mentality. That mentality was core to the problem that we’re facing now,” said Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Though he had resigned by the time the final blow was dealt to Glass-Steagall in 1999, Gingrich was instrumental in picking it apart. In fact, the New York Times noted in 1998 that, during a failed attempt to repeal Glass-Steagall, Gingrich “scurried through the afternoon to line up the necessary votes” in favor of repeal.

Reinstating Glass-Steagall would require breaking up the biggest banks, a step much further than Dodd-Frank embraced and something to which the Obama administration was never open (to its detriment). But Gingrich is not the only Republican to advocate such a step; both former Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-UT) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) have called for a return to Glass-Steagall, as did former Citigroup CEO John Reed, who was instrumental in having the regulation repealed.

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain has been in hot water in recent weeks over allegations that he sexually harassed or assaulted at least four women in his employ. But it’s not just Cain’s personal behavior that’s hurting women. According to analysis and expert interviews by the American Independent, the tax plans offered by both Cain and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) disproportionately disadvantage women:

Thus far, only Cain and Perry have revealed the most detailed plans, and because women are disproportionately likely to be single parents and to have lower wages, smaller pensions and more medical problems, they are expected to fare worse under these plans than their male counterparts. [...]

Cain’s plan would eliminate the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which is a refundable credit designed to offset federal payroll and income taxes for low- and moderate-income working people…[F]amilies mostly use this tax credit to pay for necessities, home and vehicle repairs and, sometimes, additional education. Cain would also kill the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which helps working families pay for child care costs. [...]

[B]ecause Perry would eliminate the EITC, lower- and middle-income earners would still pay more under his plan than they do now…To pay for the plan, Perry has suggested cuts in education and nutritional programs for poor children.

As ThinkProgress has reported, Cain’s 999 plan is horribly regressive, hiking taxes on lower- and middle class Americans to pay for massive tax cuts for the rich. According to experts, Cain’s plan would affect women worse than the other candidates’ proposals because of its drastic tax hikes on the poor. The American Independent points out that under 999, millionaires would have a 17.9 percent tax rate while a single mother earning between $20,000 and $30,000 would pay a 24.9 percent tax rate.

Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, described Cain’s plan as “punishing women who sometimes work two jobs full-time, minimum-wage jobs, just to pay for food and rent.” Joan Entmacher of the National Women’s Law Center added that “the Perry plan is particularly hard on single heads of households. They do worse than the working poor.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared at the Center for American Progress today to lay out a purported middle-ground plan for deficit reduction, as the congressional super committee tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit savings seems headed for deadlock. Bloomberg’s plan, which distances itself from both Democrats and Republicans, embraces the cuts laid out in the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission’s plan, plus a significant amount of new revenue, for a ratio of revenue to spending cuts of roughly one to one.

To be sure, there is much to disagree with in Bloomberg’s remarks. For instance, there is no reason to embrace the Simpson-Bowles proposal to raise the retirement age for Social Security. And contrary to Bloomberg’s suggestion, the U.S. does not, in fact, resemble Greece at all. Moreover, uncertainty is not actually holding back job creation and calling for the rich to pay their share is not “class warfare.”

However, Bloomberg’s embrace of a one-to-one spending cut to revenue ratio places him significantly to the left of just about anyone in Washington. Even the Democrat’s offer to the super committee has a ratio of $6 in spending cuts for every dollar in revenue. And the largest chunk comes from his suggestion that all of the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire:

All of us should help carry the load – and there is actually a very straightforward and achievable way to do that: Allow the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012, not just for high-income earners, as the President has proposed, but for all tax brackets. [...]

Opponents will yell and scream about taxes and cuts destroying the economy. But the same people said the same thing in 1993, when President Clinton and Congress adopted those rates as part of a major deficit reduction plan. And I think everyone would agree that turned out pretty well.

Income taxes here in the United States are lower than in most of the developed countries we compete with and if we return to the Clinton era rates, they’ll still be lower. So there would be no disincentive for foreign entrepreneurs to come and create businesses and jobs here.

Watch it:

It’s certainly not necessary to let the Bush tax cuts for the lowest-income Americans expire, since that would mean tax increases for those who can least afford it, but the revenue ratio Bloomberg is aiming for is laudable. He also came out for closing the carried interest tax loophole, an unforgivable giveaway to the wealthiest hedge fund managers.

While he blamed both parties for the nation’s budget dysfunction, he went on to note that the parties agree on a series of proposals, all of which are conservative proposals that the Democrats have moved right to embrace. The pox on both their houses rhetoric belied the fact that Democrats have made huge concessions to Republicans during deficit negotiations while getting next to nothing in return.

Last year, Bloomberg called for an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts — including those for the richest 2 percent of Americans — saying that the economy needed more time to recover. Now, he has rightly recognized that revenue needs to play a big role in any deficit reduction package. If Republicans in Congress adopted Bloomberg’s approach and came to the table with such a plan, even with all its problematic proposals, it would indicate that they were serious. Instead, they keep playing pretend, suggesting fake revenue and crippling the social safety net.

After fighting to prevent its passage and months of work to get its repeal placed on the ballot for referendum, Ohioans head to the polls today to decide the fate of SB 5, the union-busting law passed by Republicans and signed into law by embattled and hardly-popular Gov. John Kasich (R). The law, on the ballot as Issue 2, is widely expected to fail. But if it doesn’t, it will have horrendous effects on some 350,000 of Ohio’s public workers, restricting their collective bargaining rights, ending their right to strike, and giving elected officials the power to determine labor disputes.

Already, Ohioans have begun to see the ill-effects of Kasich’s union-busting law, and its widespread unpopularity has even led the bill’s backers to deceive voters into believing its repeal would negatively affect police officers, firefighters, teachers, and veterans. Of course, the opposite is true, with some estimates saying 51,000 public employees would lose their jobs under the law. And with polls open and less than 12 hours until the fate of SB5 will ultimately be decided, ThinkProgress compiled examples of how Issue 2 — the ballot name for SB5 — will negatively affect different groups of public employees if it isn’t repealed today:

FIREFIGHTERS: Two-thirds of those 51,000 public employees would be safety workers, like firefighters. “When you reduce staffing you reduce the availability of people to be able to respond to emergencies,” said Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters Jim Carney. “Without the ability to negotiate for staffing levels, we lose firefighters.” Even Republican Mayor David Smith of Lancaster, OH said Senate Bill 5 misses the point. After Smith laid off 16 firefighters, he noted that it was Kasich’s budget cuts, not collective bargaining units, that forced his hand. In one ad, an Ohio grandmother noted that firefighters who saved her granddaughter deserved the rights to negotiate staff levels because “fewer firefighters can mean the difference between life or death.”

POLICE OFFICERS: Thomas Bell, chief of police in Marion, wrote an op-ed against Issue 2 last week, saying his officers had already begun paying 20 percent of their health costs and given back nearly a half-million dollars. His department, he said, couldn’t continue at the current rate without tragic results: “The employees at our department have done their part, giving up more than $480,000 this year alone. That comes in the form of give-backs, furlough days, higher health care contributions and concessions. Our police department is supposed to have 69 officers, and we have only 57. We cannot continue to do more with less without tragic results.”

TEACHERS: Teachers, including a former Ohio Teacher of the Year, lined up in opposition to Kasich’s law. Chillicothe teacher Portia Boulger decried Kasich’s law at a rally in March, saying his assertions that he respected teachers were absurd: “When he says he respects us, it’s a lie. He doesn’t respect me I’m 58 years old. I’ve been working since I was 13 and he wants to take my retirement away from me. Is that respect? Is that respect? No it’s not. He cares nothing about me. He cares about the Koch brothers and the money they put in his pocket. And I’m extremely angry and upset. And I’m not greedy. I am a hard worker and he doesn’t care about me or any of my kind.”

VETERANS: Senate Bill 5 eliminates a long-standing Ohio provision that ensured veterans who became teachers could count their active duty service towards tenure so they don’t fall behind their civilian colleagues while on active duty. That elimination could cost some veterans up to $2,000 in annual salary. In addition to teachers, more than 1,000 Ohio firefighters and paramedics are serving in the military and now face restricted rights upon their return. “We didn’t expect this kind of homecoming when we came back,” said firefighter David Jarvis who served in Operation Desert Storm and the Afghanistan War. Another veteran firefighter John Szymkowiak said, “I never expected to have to fight our own government…to have a voice in my own safety and work conditions.”

These Ohioans are the predominant reason voices on both sides of the aisle have come forth to denounce Kasich’s attack on these workers’ rights and urge a no vote on Issue 2. As retired Republican Ohio Supreme Court Judge Andy Douglas said, “Senate Bill 5 must be rejected” to stop “politicians who would turn back the clock on public safety and on those who protect and serve us.”