Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) last week unveiled a supposedly “middle class tax cut.” “”Our middle class tax cut is a down payment on my goal of reducing the tax burden in our state every year I’m in office. I want to cut taxes over and over and over again until we are leading the country in economic recovery,” Walker said.

But according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Walker’s definition of middle class is a bit off. In fact, his tax cut plan would deliver the majority of its benefits to the top fifth of Wisconsin earners.

Meanwhile, “the lowest 20% of tax filers would receive a tax cut of just $2 a year.” People in the middle fifth would receive a whopping $43 dollars per year in tax relief. Meanwhile, those in the richest fifth would receive nearly $300:

As the Wisconsin Budget Project noted, “The estimated cost of the tax cut is $342 million over the two year budget period. To put that amount in context, that is more than the state plans to spend on the entire Wisconsin technical college system over that period.”

There is no evidence that a financial transactions tax, if instituted by the world’s largest financial centers at a modest rate, would have a negative impact on economic growth, according to Christopher Leslie, a member of the British Parliament. That such a tax would limit growth and investment is a common claim of its detractors, but the effect would actually be “quite the opposite” if instituted smartly, Leslie said after an event about the institution of a transactions tax at the Center for American Progress:

LESLIE: I don’t see any evidence that there would be a negative effect on economic growth. In fact, quite the opposite. I think if you did have a global financial transactions tax where all of the global financial centers were involved and it was also set at a rate that is pretty modest, it wasn’t going to have a distorting negative consequence, then you could raise revenues that would actually help promote growth and invest in job creation. And I think ultimately that’s one of the main arguments in favor of a financial transactions tax.

Watch it:

The United Kingdom already taxes stock, equity, and bond trades at a small rate, but it does not tax derivatives and swaps. Leslie said that the British Labour Party, of which he is a member, is interested in expanding the tax to derivatives and swaps but only if the United States does so as well. Eleven European countries announced plans to institute a financial transactions tax in January.

A plan introduced in Congress by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) would tax derivatives, stocks, and bond trades at a 0.03 percent rate, raising roughly $350 billion over the next decade. A plan outlined by the Center for American Progress’ Adam Hersh and Jennifer Erickson today would raise $50 billion a year through similarly modest rates. The tax would also add stability to financial markets while promoting investment that is better for growth and the economy, Hersh and Erickson argued.

Such a tax has been supported by business and financial leaders, including a high-frequency trading pioneer who has admitted that such trading, which would be greatly limited by a transactions tax, has “absolutely no social value.”

CNN business correspondent Ali Velshi slammed Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) for likening the federal budget to family spending and suggesting that the Obama administration should not spend more than the government takes in.

“Every family has to balance their budget, isn’t allowed to spend more than they need, every business is more efficient, tighten their belt. The reality is it can be done,” Jindal said in remarks outside of the White House on Monday, following a meeting between the National Governor’s Association and President Obama. He added that the administration can implement the automatic across-the-borad sequestration cuts that are likely to go into effect on March 1 “without jeopardizing the economy” or “critical services” by focusing on “wasteful spending.”

Velshi rejected Jindal’s comparison as “misleading” “nonsense” and pointed out that businesses and families routinely borrow money to invest in their futures, reasoning that an investment made today in college education or a new equipment can lead to greater returns down the road:

VELSHI: It’s 3% of a small part of the federal budget which makes it a very big part of some major agencies. It’s misleading stuff Bobby Jindal is saying, number one. Number two when he says families understand they have to live within their budget. I don’t know a lot of families who buy a house with cash. Buying a house on a mortgage, is that living within your budget or not living within your budget? You would have to be 80 years old to be able to buy a house with cash. We have an understanding in our society, it may be flawed, that we borrow money based on our future earnings potential. All people do that, companies do that and governments do that. There’s a point at which you can say, we’ve gone too far with that or we’re too much of a risk of not paying back so we’ll end up paying a higher interest rate. When you borrow too much money, your personal interest rate goes up, credit cards go up. But to suggest within your means and balanced budget nonsense is just misleading. That is not how families live. It’s not how businesses conduct themselves. It is certainly not since the history of time the way governments run themselves. Bobby Jindal is a smart guy. He runs a state. He needs to not talk like this and it’s become common to hear this stuff coming out in these press conferences.

Watch it:

The federal economy is fundamentally different from household budgets and economic data and history suggest that the government should be spending more, not less given the current economic circumstances. After all, overall government spending has plateaued under Obama after rising sharply under George W. Bush and the resulting fiscal contraction has resulted in a lower recovery.

Nearly three million Americans missed work last month, and many of them did so without having access to paid sick leave. About 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers don’t receive a single paid sick day from their employers, forcing them into choosing between their health (or the health of a child or relative) and their paycheck, or even their job.

Democrats have introduced measures to change that, in the process ending America’s tenure as the only developed country that doesn’t require some form of paid leave. But the top Republican on the Senate Labor Committee is having none of it:

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the labor committee, contends such a requirement “would only make a bad unemployment problem worse” by increasing hiring costs.

A favorite Republican claim is that any new business requirement will cause job losses. In the case of paid sick leave, though, the research shows nothing of the sort. Study after study has shown that paid sick leave has no effect on job creation. In fact, San Francisco business expansion picked up after the city required employers to provide paid sick days. The same pattern has held true in early evaluations of Connecticut’s new paid sick leave law.

Republicans, business leaders, and the Chamber of Commerce constantly gripe about paid sick day laws. But the evidence hasn’t borne out their warnings, instead showing that fair labor policy is good for both workers and employers.

Last week, the United Kingdom received its first ever credit downgrade, as continued austerity has dragged down the country’s economic growth. Britain’s conservative government, however, is forging ahead. Finance Minister George Osborne yesterday called for the UK to “stick to its course.”

The UK, though, is a prime example for why austerity should be avoided in a weak economy. As this chart from Reuters’ shows, the U.S., which embraced stimulus after the 2008 financial crisis, is in much better shape than the European countries that went for austerity:

As this chart shows, the UK has not at all lived up to the projections for economic growth that were made in 2010:

Austerity has actually had the opposite of its intended effect in the UK, killing growth while not bringing down debt. And that’s held true across Europe, as this chart from economists Paul De Grauwe and Yuemei Ji shows:

A duo of Democratic lawmakers have spent the years since the financial crisis calling for a financial transactions tax, a small fee on individual trades that would slow down markets and make them safer for investors and the country as a whole. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced legislation that would institute the financial transactions tax again this year, after 11 European countries announced that they would adopt such a tax.

The Center for American Progress’ Adam Hersh and Jennifer Erickson published a new paper today outlining five reasons why the United States should move to adopt one immediately:

1. It would bring in revenue. Even a small financial transactions tax would bring in substantial amounts of revenue. Taxing stock trades at 0.117 percent, bonds at 0.002 percent, and derivatives and swaps at 0.005 percent would raise $50 billion a year, according to Hersh and Erickson. That’s enough to cover the costs of veteran’s health benefits, or enough to cover more than half of sequestration.

2. It stabilizes financial markets. The explosion of high-frequency trading, in which trades are made by computer algorithms by the millisecond, has made markets more volatile. Even the creator of high-frequency trading has said it has “absolutely no social value.” A financial transactions tax would disincentivize such trading by charging a fee on each trade, quickly making it unprofitable and stabilizing financial markets.

3. It incentivizes investment that drives growth. The tax would make investors more likely to hold their investments in stock portfolios for longer periods of time, creating a longer-term outlook on stocks that would translate into “more investment, more jobs, and higher productivity in the real economy—all of which drives growth,” Hersh and Erickson write. “A tax on financial trading will shift behavior toward investment for the long term, which is better for financing businesses and for stable sustained economic growth.”

4. Other countries already have it. Last month, 11 European Union countries, including Germany and France, announced that they would institute a financial transactions tax, bringing the global total to 23 countries. That mitigates that argument opponents make that such a tax would make American markets less competitive.

5. Business leaders support it. As Hersh and Erickson note, the tax is supported by economists, business leaders, and veterans of the financial industry. Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have both endorsed it, as have mutual-fund titan John Bogle and John Fullerton, a former director at JP Morgan Chase. “A modest financial transaction tax of less than 1 percent would serve as a remarkably efficient tool to achieve needed reform,” Fullerton wrote in 2011.

According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, while Americans may support spending cuts and deficit reduction in the abstract, it’s awfully hard to find any specific cut that can garner majority support. Budget cuts scheduled under the so-called “sequester” are set to go into effect next week, but if the poll is any indication, basically every sequester cut will be unpopular, as this chart shows:

The only area that came close to receiving majority support for cuts was foreign aid, but even then, an equal number of people believe that it should stay the same or be increased as think it should be cut. Even amongst only Republicans, “there are only two possible reductions that draw majority support…foreign aid (70%) and unemployment assistance (56%).” (Republicans seem to have taken the latter to heart, cutting jobless benefits in several states.)

This is certainly not the first poll to show that Americans favor “spending cuts,” but are opposed to any actual spending cuts. Perhaps that’s why Republicans love to talk about spending cuts while failing to provide any specifics.

Allowing sequestration to occur on March 1 will have a devastating impact on states, the White House warned Sunday, when it released state-specific reports detailing the effects of the automatic budget cuts. States will lose funding for education, job training, health care, and a plethora of other services, jeopardizing assistance for low-income and middle class families alike and threatening the economic recovery.

ThinkProgress examined the implications of the budget cuts on the five states represented by Republican leadership in the House and Senate. Those five states would lose a collective $206 million in education funding, jeopardizing nearly 3,000 teaching jobs and allowing them to serve 428,000 fewer students. While the impacts are particularly large for California and Texas, they would be felt across all five states, according to the White House fact sheets:

OHIO: House Speaker John Boehner’s state will lose $25.1 million in education funding, putting 350 teaching jobs at risk and allowing it to serve 34,000 fewer students and 100 fewer schools. 2,500 children will lose Head Start funding, 3,320 will lose assistance to help pay for college, and as many as 800 will lose access to child care. The loss of $1.7 million in job training and assistance funds will mean 57,000 fewer Ohioans get help from those programs. Ohio will also lose $823,000 in funding to help provide meals to seniors.

KENTUCKY: Sequestration will cost Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state $11.8 million in education funding, meaning it could lose 160 teaching jobs and serve 21,000 fewer students. More than 1,700 low-income students will lose assistance to help pay for college, and 1,100 will lose access to Head Start. More than 16,000 Kentuckians will lose job training and placement assistance when the state loses $478,000 in funding for those programs, and it will also receive $677,000 less to help provide meals to seniors.

VIRGINIA: Virginia, the home of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, would lose $14 million in education funding, jeopardizing 190 teaching jobs and cutting funding for 40 schools and 14,000 students. 1,000 students would lose access to Head Start and 2,120 low-income students would lose funding to help finance college. Another 400 low-income children could lose access to child care assistance. The state will lose $348,000 in job search and placement assistance, allowing it to serve 18,390 fewer people. It will also lose $1.2 million in funding to help provide meals to seniors.

TEXAS: The home of Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn would lose $67.8 million in education funding, putting 930 teaching jobs at risk and cutting funding for 280 schools and 172,000 students. Another 4,800 students would lose access to Head Start and 2,300 would lose access to child care assistance. Texas would lose more than $2 million in funds for job search and placement assistance, meaning more than 83,000 people would lose assistance. Texas will also lose $3.5 million in funding to help provide meals to seniors.

CALIFORNIA: House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy’s home state would lose $87.6 million in education funding, jeopardizing 1,210 teaching jobs and affecting funding for 320 schools and 187,000 students. More than 8,000 students would lose funding for Head Start, and 9,600 low-income students would lose funding to help pay for college. Another 2,000 families will lose child care assistance, while the loss of $3.3 million in funding for job search and placement assistance, affecting nearly 130,000 people. The state will also lose $5.4 million in funding to help provide meals to seniors.