JP Morgan Chase, the largest American bank, announced record third-quarter profits today of $5.7 billion. Those billions were made even as the bank is still working out the multi-billion dollar “London Whale” trading debacle.

But to hear JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon tell it, regulations are killing his bank. During an appearance in Washington this week, Dimon opined that new regulations — both on the international level and due to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law here in the U.S. — will cost JP Morgan $1 billion per year (compared to quarterly profits of nearly $6 billion). As McClatchy’s Kevin Hall reported:

Dimon said he understands the need for regulation in the wake of crisis.

“But I think government should think twice before it punishes businesses every time something goes wrong,” he said, looking past the scale of what went wrong in the run up to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Dimon repeated that he supports much of what’s in the Dodd-Frank Act, the sweeping 2010 revamp of financial regulation that was a response to the crisis, but he took issue with some of its most important provisions. One is regulatory requirements to keep more capital on hand to respond to future crises, which he argued crimps lending and investment.

JP Morgan Chase and Dimon are certainly not alone. The nation’s six biggest banks are enjoying their highest profits since 2006, but that hasn’t stopped bankers from moaning about new regulations, even as the country still recovers from a financial crisis that was largely the result of Wall Street malfeasance.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn’t the only GOP candidate characterizing a plan to slash taxes for the rich and corporations as a tax cut for the middle class. Linda McMahon, the former pro wrestling executive who is running (again) for Connecticut’s open Senate seat, has proposed a plan that would provide a windfall in tax breaks to the rich and corporations, even as she pitches it as a big tax cut for the middle class.

At a debate with her opponent, state Rep. Chris Murphy (D), last night, McMahon claimed that Murphy had misrepresented her plan by describing it as a tax cut for the rich:

MCMAHON: My plan, which you’ve not characterized correctly, calls for keeping all of the tax levels the same except cutting taxes for the middle class.

Watch a news report about the debate, via Connecticut’s WTNH:

There are numerous problems with how McMahon pitches her tax cut for the middle class. McMahon’s plan would cut only one tax rate, from 25 percent to 15 percent, that primarily affects middle class taxpayers. McMahon claims that will save middle-class taxpayers as much as $500 a month. This is misleading at best: as the Hartford Courant explained, the $500 amount comes from a household income of $125,000, well above the typical family’s income. And savings even for that family only reach $500 if McMahon assumes the full expiration of the Bush tax cuts, including those for the middle class. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that those tax cuts should be maintained, so using that baseline makes little sense.

The typical Connecticut family, the Courant found, would actually save roughly $82 a month, a far cry from the $500 a month McMahon promises.

McMahon’s plan, however, would provide a huge tax cut for the rich and corporations. Like Romney’s plan, it eliminates the estate tax, a $10.6-billion cut that would benefit only the wealthiest Americans, according to the Tax Policy Center. It also lowers the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent (just like Romney’s plan), a proposal that would cost $900 billion over the next decade. And, again like Romney’s plan, it would shift the corporate tax code to a territorial tax system, a plan that would cost another $130 billion, encourage the outsourcing of jobs and the offshoring of profits, and, according to one study, lead to the elimination of 800,000 American jobs.

The fact that Mitt Romney’s tax plan is mathematically impossible was reinforced again on Friday, when Mark Zandi, a former John McCain campaign adviser and Chief Economist at Moody’s Economy, admitted as much.

Speaking on CNN’s “Starting Point,” Zandi acknowledged a study by the Tax Policy Center that shows Romney’s plan to lower taxes by 20 percent across the board, while making up those losses in government revenue by closing loopholes on the wealthy, doesn’t add up. Zandi even went so far as to say that “the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now”:

ZANDI: Yeah, I think the Tax Policy Center study is the definitive study. They’re non-partisan, they’re very good. They say given the numbers that they’ve been provided by the Romney campaign, no, it will not add up. Now, the Romney campaign could adjust their plan. They could say okay I’m not going to lower tax rates as much as I’m saying right now and they could make the arithmetic work. But under the current plan, with the current numbers, no it doesn’t. I’ll say one other thing, though. I think it is important that we do focus on the so-called tax expenditures in the tax code. Those are the deductions, and credits, and loopholes in the code. We need to reduce those, because if we do we’re going to make the tax system fairer, easier to understand and ultimately lead to stronger growth. So that’s the right place to focus. But, no, the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now.

Watch it:

Closing all the loopholes and ending all of the deductions currently given to the wealthy does not make up for the losses of giving everyone in the country, particularly the wealthy, another tax break. The only way Romney’s plan will not add to the deficit is if middle class families pay over $2,000 more in taxes annually.

During remarks at a fundraiser outside of Seattle, Republican congressional candidate John Koster derided people who had yet to achieve financial success, saying the government rewarded their “slothfulness and laziness.”

In a video obtained by ThinkProgress from a December 2011 fundraiser in Everett, Washington, Koster spoke frankly about government programs aimed at aiding the poor. Though he declined to single out individual programs, he said the system creates an “addiction” to government assistance by creating a “sense of entitlement.” “It seems to reward the mediocrity — dare I say it, slothfulness and laziness — of those who choose not to do those things,” Koster said:

KOSTER: Reform isn’t just taxing the rich, the very people by the way who create jobs. Our economic system has been the envy of the world for generations, but it seems to get more convoluted and more onerous every year. Under this administration it has become a system that punishes those who dare to dream, those who dare to invest, those who dare to work hard or succeed. It seems to reward the mediocrity — dare I say it, slothfulness and laziness — of those who choose not to do those things. Furthermore, it creates a dependency on government programs, even an addiction I would say, by virtue of the sense of entitlement that it creates. I can tell you, those people aren’t the 99 percent.

Watch it:

Such disdain for the poor has become increasingly common among conservatives, from Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” comments to the world’s richest woman saying people are poor because they’re spending too much time “drinking and smoking,” suggesting instead that they work for $2 per day.

During a fundraiser this summer, Koster expressed excitement for Paul Ryan’s selection for vice president on the Republican ticket, saying, “I love his message.” Ryan’s budget decimates funding for programs to help the poor, cutting services like Medicaid, Pell grants, food stamps, and job training by over $3 trillion.

On multiple occasions during the vice presidential debate on Thursday evening, Rep. Paul Ryan hit the Obama administration for excessive spending by the federal government, saying at one point that “we can’t keep spending money we don’t have.”

But during his time in Congress, Ryan seemed to be far less concerned about spending federal dollars, so long as they were being spent in his Wisconsin district.

A new report from the Associated Press highlights almost 9,000 pages of correspondence between Ryan’s congressional office and dozens of federal agencies and departments in which Ryan repeatedly sought millions of dollars for his own constituents, often culled from programs that Ryan is now campaigning to reduce or eliminate entirely:

For 12 years as a member of Congress, Ryan has sought from the federal government money and benefits that in some cases represent the kinds of largess and specific programs he is now campaigning against.

As Mitt Romney’s running mate, Ryan calls those kinds of handouts big-government overreaching. He tells crowds he supports smaller government and rails against what he calls Obama’s wasteful spending, including the president’s $800 billion stimulus program.

A 2002 letter from Ryan sought funding under the Food Stamps Access Research program for a community center in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In his letter to then-Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, Ryan says that the grant would “increase the enrollment of eligibility individuals in the Food Stamps Program by providing laptop computers with touch screens to community organizations for pre-screening of applicants for food stamp eligibility.” Now, years later, Ryan is campaigning on a budget that would cut federal spending on food stamps by $133 billion and kick an estimated 10 million people out of the program.

Some other requests submitted by Ryan:

–A $550,000 request for stimulus money from the EPA for a town to make utility repairs.

– A request for a $19.7 million loan guarantee from the Department of Agriculture to develop a processing plant for rural Wisconsin farms, including several in his district.

– A request to the EPA for approval of the National School Transportation Association’s grant application for funding to help cut down on diesel emissions from school buses.

Several other news outlets have previously reported on more instances of Ryan’s requests for federal aid. The Nation’s Lee Fang reported last month that Ryan had sent a letter to an administrator in the Department of Health and Human Services to request money made available through the Affordable Care Act, a bill that his own ticket has vowed to repeal on their first day in office. And in August, new reports surfaced that Ryan had submitted several requests for stimulus money to help fund multiple green energy companies in Wisconsin.

Our guest blogger is Katie Wright, a Research Associate with the Half in Ten Campaign at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

According to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), families will be spending more to heat their homes this winter. The EIA projects that families will need to spend, on average, “nearly 20 percent more on heating oil and 15 percent more on natural gas. Households depending on electricity and propane can expect to see average increases of 5 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Those in the Northeast will be hit particularly hard, as they are more likely to heat their homes using oil, which is expected to cost more this winter than it has in any previous winter on record. Heating costs in the Northeast are being driven up by higher than average oil prices, up 6 percent from this time last year. Oil price fluctuation is impossible for the U.S. to control, since prices are set on the world market that is controlled by the OPEC cartel.

Higher fuel costs could spell disaster for the nearly seven million Americans who receive help paying energy bills from the Low Income Housing Assistance Program (LIHEAP). LIHEAP keeps families, particularly those with members who are children or elderly, safe in all seasons by helping them pay energy bills and weatherize their homes so they can stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Research by Children’s HealthWatch shows that children in families that received LIHEAP were more likely to be at a healthier weights, and were less likely to have growth problems or be hospitalized than those who didn’t receive LIHEAP.

Despite the important role LIHEAP plays in child development and in family well-being, Congress cut funding for LIHEAP by about $1.6 billion, or more than 30 percent between fiscal years 2010 and 2012, from $5.1 billion to $3.47 billion. As a result, more than one million households have lost benefits entirely, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association. For those still receiving benefits, they’ve seen their average benefit decline from $513 in fiscal year 2010 to about $405 in fiscal year 2012.

Poor families facing higher energy costs and diminished LIHEAP benefits will be in trouble this winter as they struggle to pay higher bills with fewer resources. In recognition that this could put families in crisis, a bipartisan group of 40 senators asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius in a letter yesterday to release funds for LIHEAP as quickly and at as high a level as possible.

Oklahoma congressional candidate Markwayne Mullin, the Republican nominee to replace retiring Rep. Dan Boren (D), has openly criticized President Obama’s economic stimulus package throughout his campaign. The stimulus was a “horrible waste of taxpayer dollars,” said Mullin, who will give the GOP’s national address this weekend.

Mullin’s plumbing company, however, received $370,000 in stimulus funding, the Associated Press found last month:

A review of stimulus spending by The Associated Press shows companies owned by Markwayne Mullin received the money under contracts with the Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) nations.

The payments were for plumbing at tribal housing projects and funded through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Mullin responded to the story by asserting that he wasn’t aware that the contracts came from the stimulus, and that “plumbing is plumbing.” Had he known the money came from the stimulus, Mullin said, he probably wouldn’t have submitted a bid to work the project. Documents from the Cherokee Nation, however, revealed that Mullin’s firm was aware that the funding came from the stimulus.

Mullin will give the party’s national address the weekend after the Vice Presidential debate, during which the GOP’s VP candidate, Paul Ryan, faced criticism for requesting stimulus funds for his constituents even as he opposed the bill’s passage and has consistently criticized it since. But Mullin and Ryan aren’t alone: a 2010 ThinkProgress analysis found that 110 GOP lawmakers voted against the stimulus, then returned to their district to tout projects that were funded by it. And even presented with clear evidence of the stimulus’ success, Republicans continue to push the myth that it failed to turn around the economic slide that occurred during the Great Recession.

During last night’s debate, Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan told 24 lies during his 40 minutes of speaking time. But in one instance, he was aided by debate moderator Martha Raddatz, who asserted that Social Security “is going broke”:

RADDATZ: Let’s talk about Medicare and entitlements. Both Medicare and Social Security are going broke and taking a larger share of the budget in the process. Will benefits for Americans under these programs have to change for the programs to survive? Mr. Ryan.

RYAN: Absolutely. Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt. These are indisputable facts.

Watch it:

The media consistently fuel the misconception that Social Security is bankrupt or going broke, whipping itself into a frenzy of doomsday scenarios and asking politicians when they will deal with this supposedly grave threat to the U.S. budget. However, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2037, and nearly full benefits for years after that, even if literally nothing is done to change the program. Reporters would surely be shocked if infrastructure projects, child nutrition programs, or any other federal effort were fully funded for more than two decades, but no credit is given to lawmakers for achieving just that with Social Security.

Furthermore, Social Security is statutorily barred from adding to the deficit: the program can’t add to the gap between revenue and spending. Plus, one very simple tweak — lifting the cap on the payroll tax so that it is applied to more of the wealthiest Americans’ income — would ensure that Social Security can pay full benefits for more than 70 years.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has said, “Social Security has not added a single penny, not a dime, a nickel, a dollar to the budget problems we have. Never has. And for the next 30 years, it won’t do that.” But Ryan consistently raises alarm about the program in an effort to promote his desire to privatize it entirely. In this instance, Raddatz helped him spread his misinformation with her abysmal framing of the question.