The July jobs report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the U.S. economy lost more employees than it gained for the second month in a row. The report's findings underscore the need for Congress and the White House to keep the Bush Tax Cuts in place.

Despite the message coming from people like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the Bush Tax Cuts didn't only benefit the wealthy. Small businesses, the lifeblood of the American work force, were among its beneficiaries, as were every tax-paying American household with a child. Before the Bush Tax Cuts, taxpayers with dependents could claim only $600. Under the Bush administration's tax structure, the child tax credit rose to $1,000 -- its current rate. In fact, every single tax bracket in America would see its levels rise to 1 percent above the ones imposed before the Bush Tax Cuts were put in place -- which averages out to 3 percentage points above the current American tax rates. That number increases to 5 percentage points for those lucky enough to fall into the 10 percent tax rate category. If the cuts expire, the 10 percent tax bracket would be eliminated completely, and married couples who saw their low tax rate being applied to more of their taxable income, now would see all of their taxable income taxed at 15 percent.

Since the Bush Tax cuts bear the name of his predecessor, President Barack Obama has found it very easy to demonize them as part of his long-standing practice of blaming former President George W. Bush for everything that ails the American voter. According to the Obama administration, the Bush Tax Cuts are wrong simply because they are the Bush Tax Cuts.

The reality, however, is that the elimination of the Bush Tax Cuts may very well result in a double-dip recession, and the upside for Democrats is that by simply doing nothing, they get to raise taxes. Later, they can blame the tax cuts for ruining the economy -- not because they made sense from a financial perspective (which they do), but because they included a mechanism that allowed them to expire.

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Jobs Report Underscores Need to Retain Bush Tax Cuts originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 15:53:12.

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Invoking the visage of former President George W. Bush as he stood aboard an aircraft-carrier in 2003, President Barack Obama stood in Atlanta on Monday and proudly announced that "major combat operations" in Iraq will be over by Aug. 31.

Although he didn't wear a flight suit or otherwise engage in banal theatrics, President Obama -- just like his predecessor -- made his announcement before a group of men and women who had served their country. Obama told a group of disabled American veterans that U.S. military strategy in the war-torn nation was changing from "a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats."

The president boasted that by the end of the month, he will have brought home more than 90,000 troops from Iraq, enough to fulfill his campaign pledge to end the war in Iraq by August 2010.

"That is exactly what we're doing," he said, "as promised and on schedule."

With violence in Iraq "the lowest it's been in years," Obama said he would be keeping "a transitional force" in the country to continue training local military and police forces on counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency techniques.

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Obama's New Military "Shift" in Iraq originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Monday, August 2nd, 2010 at 13:42:55.

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Although it was clearly not the outcome for which lawmakers in the state of Arizona had hoped, the ruling Wednesday by Federal District Court Judge Susan Bolton striking down the major portions of SB 1070 (the state's new illegal immigration enforcement law) was merely a formality in what will undoubtedly be a long and divisive road to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The law went into effect at 12 a.m. this morning without the requirement directing police to question people about their immigration status if they suspect they are in the country illegally. That provision, as well as a couple others, was stripped out of the law thanks to the decision by Bolton (a Clinton appointee) in response to an injunction request filed by the Justice Department on behalf of the Barack Obama administration.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who supported and signed the law and has made its success a cornerstone of her re-election campaign, vowed to file an appeal today and said she will ask the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite its review. Although it is exceedingly likely that the highly liberal appellate court will side with the lower court, there is no question that eventually an appeals court will have no choice but to overturn Bolton's decision.

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SB 1070 Faces Long Road to Supreme Court originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 16:43:36.

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The RightOnline 2010 conference was held over the weekend in Las Vegas and reportedly drew 1,100 conservatives from all across the nation.

Now before all you liberals out there begin howling about RightOnline being a racist organization, relax. It didn't originate in reaction to the highly progressive policies of President Barack Obama (although that wouldn't necessarily qualify it for such a designation even if it had).

RightOnline was started in 2008 by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a grassroots organization dedicated to mobilizing activists who embrace the principles of limited government and free enterprise. According to the RightOnline web site, the two-day conference is aimed at inspiring and training conservative-minded activists to "more effectively impact public policy in favor of limited government and free enterprise."

The conference was originally aimed to counter the National Netroots Nation Convention (formerly known as the YearlyKos Convention), but, according to its site, it has developed into a fully-fledged political activist workshop.

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Share Your Experience from the 2010 RightOnline Conference! originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 19:01:31.

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Although the ethics charges brought against New York House Rep. Charlie Rangel haven't officially been released by the ethics panel that announced he would be facing them, the Associated Press released its version of the charges on Thursday.

Most of the charges seem rather mundane (although unquestionably wrong if they are true), but the common theme running through most of them is a carefully, almost premeditated, skirting of U.S. tax law and the use of his position in the House of Representatives to benefit himself and his pet projects. Rangel, who stepped down in March as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee after it was announcd he was under investigation, has pledged to fight the allegations, but there is no doubt that if he does, the saga will continue deep into the midterm election campaign, and that's a scenario none of his fellow House Democrats want. The last thing they need is one of their own facing ethics charges from a bipartisan House investigative body at such a critical time.

Rangel Brought Up on Ethics Charges, But is He So Unusual? originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 18:58:38.

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Forget for just a moment that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is related to those other Bushes.

When you separate him from his presidential brother and father, Jeb Bush has all the makings of a winning presidential candidate. Especially in these difficult economic times.

Consider this: Bush is the only Republican to have ever won a second term as Florida governor. He was as popular when he left office in 2007 as he was when he was first elected in 1998. He has been able to maintain excellent relationships with Florida's Hispanic and African American communities despite an educational initiative he adopted in 2001 that virtually ended affirmative action programs throughout the state's university system. Nevertheless, the accusations of racial discrimination that dogged President George W. Bush after the Katrina hurricane in 2005 would be tough to lodge against the former president's younger brother.

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Jeb Bush: Could He Be Our Next President? originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 13:07:58.

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