The Iowa caucus officially takes place tonight, followed by the New Hampshire primary next week, the first two steps in the GOP’s selection of a presidential candidate. While the Republican candidates have been trying to outdo each other on the amount of government that they would cut — with several of them advocating the elimination of entire cabinet agencies — it’s worth noting how much government aid the citizens of those states receive, in everything from federal infrastructure money to Pell Grants. The National Priorities Project laid it out:

On average, every New Hampshire resident received $4,850 in direct assistance from federal programs in 2010 — that’s everything from the Medicare prescription drug benefit to Pell grants. According to a 2011 Census Bureau report, federal money also accounted for 30 cents of every dollar of New Hampshire state revenue in fiscal 2009, the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available. Federal money helps states pay for building roads and fixing bridges, among numerous other kinds of projects. [...]

Iowa received more federal money than New Hampshire in 2009. Thirty-three percent ($5.4 billion) of state revenue came from federal sources in that year…In addition to the billions of federal dollars that helped finance the state’s government, Iowa residents received substantial direct federal assistance. On average in 2010, residents of the state each received $5,400 from all federal programs. Iowans paid on average $5,175 in federal taxes that year — that includes income taxes as well as excise and other kinds of taxes, but excludes corporate incomes taxes. On balance, that means Iowans collected more federal benefits than they paid in federal taxes.

The slash and burn budgeting advocated by the GOP field would mean an end to many of the programs upon which Americans all across the country — including in Iowa and New Hampshire — depend. Of course, Iowa’s own budget priorities have been a bit out of whack recently, as they’ve cut business taxes while reducing pre-school funding and attempting to close unemployment offices.

A favorite line of Republicans in the 2012 GOP presidential primary has been to claim that President Obama is devaluing the American dollar. The surging former Sen. Rick Santorum, for instance, ranted that Obama “has devalued our currency,” while Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has said that, “in the last two years of the Obama administration, if you pull a dollar out of your pocket, you have lost 14 percent of the value of that dollar…A dollar in 2011 should be the same as a dollar in 1911. A dollar should be worth a dollar.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) claimed in a debate that “it is a travesty that young people in America are seeing their dollars devalued.” Mitt Romney also chimed in to say that “people will not invest in this country and create jobs in this country for the American people if they don’t have belief in our currency.” But there’s one big problem with this storyline — it isn’t true:

Moves by the Federal Reserve to flood the world with dollars are doing little to dent the currency’s value, bolstering the appeal of U.S. assets at a time when the government needs the support of foreign investors the most.

The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has appreciated 13 percent from a record low in March 2008 even as the Fed kept interest rates at about zero and printed cash to buy $2.3 trillion (FARBAST) of Treasury and mortgage-related bonds, and is little changed since 1991. The International Monetary Fund said Dec. 30 that the greenback’s share of global foreign-exchange reserves rose in the third quarter by the most since 2008.

In fact, it was the George W. Bush administration that “was associated with a large and persistent fall in the value of the dollar.” As the Big Picture’s Barry Ritholz put it, “A fall [in the dollar index] from 121.02 in July 2001 to 70.69 in March 2008 — Now THATS a dollar collapse.” Of course, no Republicans were making headlines screaming about devaluing the currency then.

It’s not only those seeking the presidency that are using this line. As Bloomberg News noted, the dollar’s performance “counters officials in China, Germany and Brazil who said that the Fed’s policies were weakening the dollar. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and three other Republicans sent Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke a letter in 2010 expressing ‘deep concerns’ about the central bank’s plan to print money to buy bonds, saying it risked weakening the dollar.”

Claiming that he devalued the currency is just one more lie in a host of lies the candidates are propagating regarding Obama’s economic record. But it bears so little resemblance to reality that no candidate who uses it should be taken seriously when it comes to economic policy.

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been trying to pull off an upset in the Iowa caucus, but he’s drawing criticism ahead of tonight’s contest for racially charged remarks he recently made about welfare recipients:

At a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa on Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum singled out blacks as being recipients of assistance through federal benefit programs, telling a mostly-white audience he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.” [...]

It is unclear why Santorum pinpointed blacks specifically as recipients of federal aid. The original questioner asked “how do we get off this crazy train? We’ve got so much foreign influence in this country now,” adding “where do we go from here?”

Watch it:

It’s hard to say which part of the story is stranger — that Santorum spontaneously derided poor black people in response to a question about foreign money or his explanation of why he did it.

When asked about the comments in a CBS interview, Santorum bizarrely referenced a documentary about the education achievement gap, Waiting for Superman, to explain the context. “Yesterday I talked for example about a movie called, um, what was it? ‘Waiting for Superman,’ which was about black children and so I don’t know whether it was in response and I was talking about that,” he said. The movie actually portrays students of several races.

There had originally been some confusion about whether Santorum actually said the word “black,” which he appeared to clear up in the CBS interview by acknowledging that was in fact the statement he made. (The candidate seemed to think better of his words mid-sentence, so the line comes across garbled.)

CBS points out that only nine percent of Iowans on food stamps are black — and 84 percent are white. Nationally, 39 percent of welfare recipients are white, 37 percent are black, and 17 percent are Hispanic. So Santorum’s decision to single out black welfare recipients plays right into insulting — and inaccurate — stereotypes of the kind of people some voters might expect to want a “handout.”

Attacking families who receive government aid has been a theme among many of the Republican candidates. In nearly every speech, Newt Gingrich accuses President Obama of being a “food stamp president” and even said “really poor children” have bad work habits and no knowledge of how to make an income “unless it’s illegal.” (HT: Raw Story)

Facing both plummeting temperatures and evictions from parks in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and elsewhere, Occupy protesters are shifting their actions during the winter season. They are refocusing their energy on protest actions against politicians, creative demonstrations, and tackling the nation’s foreclosure crisis.

Around the country, Occupy protesters have moved homeless families into vacant homes, disrupted foreclosure auctions, and outright stopped foreclosures of families’ homes, forcing banks to renegotiate terms.

One of the most high-profile victories last month was when Occupy Atlanta protesters descended on the home of Iraq war veteran Brigitte Walker. Walker, who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, spent a year and a half trying to make payments to Chase Bank. As the bank moved closer to evicting her from her home, Occupy Atlanta camped out on her property and publicized her case — eventually shaming Chase into working out an agreement to keep Walker in her home. “I know because of them I am still in my home,” Walker told the local press of Occupy Atlanta. “They got everyday people like myself involved. Everyday people contacting Chase and advocating for me, peaceful demonstrations, people calling and writing in.”

A few days later, Occupy Fort Lauderdale saved a family from a foreclosure as well. Meanwhile, other protesters are moving homeless families into vacant homes. Occupy Our Homes worked with a coalition of local groups to move a homeless family into a home in East New York early last month. In Chicago, anti-foreclosure demonstrators and Jewish activists held a special Hannukah celebration inside of a reclaimed home. Yesterday, Occupy Kingston went door-to-door visiting with homeowners on pre-foreclosure lists, counseling them on how to negotiate with banks.

Occupy Our Homes is calling on activists everywhere to help save a family farm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and a home in Maui, Hawaii. You can help in both cases by making phone calls and sending faxes (instructions are at both links).

Republican presidential candidates have attempted to make their 2012 effort to unseat President Obama about the economy, but time and time again, they have proven unwilling to address the major crises threatening the future of America’s economic growth. At multiple debates, the candidates offered little in the way of how they would address the fiscal crisis engulfing Europe and failed to understand the driving factors behind it. They offered no solutions to the American housing crisis, even as millions of homeowners face foreclosure and prices continue to fall. In sum, their policies would warrant a failing grades in an Econ 101 class.

Now, with evidence piling up that America’s infrastructure is failing on multiple fronts, the candidates are again offering no long-term plans for the nation’s transportation or infrastructure programs, Politico reports:

Though the words “crumbling infrastructure” have become almost cliché in the American lexicon, candidates’ websites are barren of transportation plans, save for expansion of domestic energy production. Only Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) delves into infrastructure policy at all in his Web platform, proposing to privatize the FAA, abolish TSA and halve the Department of Transportation’s budget. DOT should consider itself lucky it’s not one of the five departments Paul would eliminate as president.

POLITICO reached out to all seven of the Republican 2012 campaigns; none chose to flesh out infrastructure positions.

The GOP may choose to ignore the many problems facing America’s infrastructure, but those problems aren’t going away. Economists estimated in 2011 that the United States would need more than $2 trillion in investments just to bring its infrastructure up to date. Roughly one-quarter of America’s bridges are considered “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete,” the same rating given to the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed and killed 13 in 2007.

The nation’s water infrastructure — perhaps even more important that its transportation infrastructure — is in similarly dire shape, as the Washington Post reported today. The country needs more than $650 billion to update its water and sewer systems, many of which are more than 100 years old. In D.C., the average water pipe is 77 years old (many were built in the 19th century) and emergency crews fix 450 leaks a year. The cost of such problems has been passed on to consumers, whose water bills have grown by 50 percent in just four years.

Intransigence on infrastructure planning is hardly unique to the party’s presidential candidates. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly opposed infrastructure investment plans since Obama took office, including the most recent attempt in the American Jobs Act, even as the problems hit close to home for GOP leadership. In four of five states represented by party leaders, bridge deficiency outpaces the national average. A major bridge closure in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R) home state has gridlocked traffic since early September.

With borrowing costs low and the nation’s unemployment rate high, infrastructure improvement projects can fix the major problems facing our nation’s roads, bridges, and water systems while putting people back to work and reinvigorating the American economy. Unfortunately, the GOP’s presidential candidates have chosen instead to pretend the problems don’t exist.

During a 60 Minutes interview Sunday night, CBS’ Lesley Stahl asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) about the GOP’s intransigence when it comes to raising any new federal revenue, pointing out that Cantor’s hero, Ronald Reagan, raised taxes when the occasion called for it. Before Cantor could even attempt to explain anything, one of his spokesmen, Brad Dayspring, interrupted the interview, taking issue with the notion that Reagan increased taxes:

STAHL: What’s the difference between compromise and cooperate?

CANTOR: Well, I would say cooperate is let’s look to where we can move things forward where we agree. Comprising principles, you don’t want to ask anybody to do that. That’s who they are as their core being.

STAHL: But you know, your idol, as I’ve read anyway, was Ronald Reagan. And he compromised.

CANTOR: He never compromised his principles.

STAHL: Well, he raised taxes and it was one of his principles not to raise taxes.

CANTOR: Well, he– he also cut taxes.

STAHL: But he did compromise–

CANTOR: Well I –

DAYSPRING: That just isn’t true. And I don’t want to let that stand.

Watch it:

Dayspring has had some trouble with the facts regarding taxes before, but the notion that it “just isn’t true” that Reagan raised taxes is absurd. He raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office, including one stretch of four tax increases in just two years. As Paul Krugman put it, “no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people.” Reagan also completely equalized the tax treatment of investment income with that of wage income, a position putting him to the left of many of today’s Democrats, never mind Republicans.

Cantor’s office tried to clarify later that Dayspring’s remark “referred to the cumulative effect of Mr. Reagan’s tax policies, pointing out that he cut taxes more than he raised them, and that Mr. Reagan expressed regret making tax deals with Democrats because the spending cuts they agreed to never materialized.” But the point is, as historian Douglas Brinkley put it, “Ronald Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes. He knew that it was necessary at times. And so there’s a false mythology out there about Reagan as this conservative president who came in and just cut taxes and trimmed federal spending in a dramatic way. It didn’t happen that way. It’s false.” And this is a truth that today’s GOP just hasn’t been able to handle.