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Yeah, I know I'm supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy about the fact that Democrats and Republicans didn't play this out to the 11th hour, like they do with every other dispute these days. We're supposed to cheer because the system worked and it produced a bipartisan result in a year that will see precious few of them. Too bad that it sucks money out of an already-ailing trust fund while delivering none of the economic impact promised when we tried it last year:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Congressional negotiators resolved all differences on an agreement to extend...

When it spawns a new tax. Remember last December when our public "servants" in Washington "gave" working folk tax relief in the form of a payroll tax holiday? Yay! An early Christmas! Thank you Santa! Well, they needed to "pay" for this generosity somehow, so our dear Congresscritters and president devised a brand new tax--sorry, fee--on home mortgages originating from Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, or about 90% of all new mortgages. Let's look at some of the salient features of this political sleight-of-hand: •The fee is not broken out as a separate line item in the loan paperwork, it's...

This latest reversal (and surrender) by Boehner in the house isn’t a surprise to me. It has been clear to me that while Obama is planning and executing a re-election strategy that depends on making you congressional Republicans look incompetent at best and evil-minded at worst, you seem to plod aimlessly along with absolutely no plan just assuming you will win automatically while helping Obama’s re-election campaign. How can you Republicans turn this around and put Democrats and Obama on the defensive? First, accept that you can’t sell the idea that the FICA/SS tax cuts must be paid for now....

The House passed a two-month renewal of payroll tax cuts for 160 million workers and unemployment benefits for millions of jobless on Friday, giving President Barack Obama a resounding victory over Republicans who control the House. The Senate approved the bill earlier. The measure was passed by voice vote in a virtually empty House chamber despite lingering grumbling from Tea Party Republicans. It buys time for negotiations early next year on how to cover the costs of a yearlong extension of the two percentage point payroll tax cut, the centerpiece of Obama's fall jobs agenda.

Politics: Lost in Beltway wrangling over a payroll tax cut, an ugly reality lurks: Our politicians are plotting yet another raid on the Social Security "trust fund," which is already near insolvency. When will this madness stop? President Obama and his congressional Democrats know well how bad their spendthrift reputation is among voters as election day approaches. With Obama at sub-50% approval numbers and Gallup reporting Congress clocking in at a record-low 11%, they expect a bloodbath at the polls in November — and maybe another slashed debt rating, too. What then could be better for Democrats than to be...

The anti-tax Club for Growth is rising to Herman Cain's defense amid growing scrutiny of - and questions about - his "9-9-9" economic plan: “Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is both pro-growth and a good starting point on the way to a flat or fair tax,” said Club president Chris Chocola. “Eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends and combining that with huge rate cuts in both corporate and income taxes would create an unparalleled economic boom. 9-9-9 also eliminates the regulatory and compliance costs from the current tax code that suck billions out of the economy each year. It is...

If you had to guess whether President George W. Bush or President Barack Obama cut taxes more in his first term, which one would you choose? Probably President Bush, right? After all, the “the Bush tax cuts” were massive. And President Obama is the one calling for the expiration of some of those tax cuts. He’s also pushing for more revenue as we try to address our long-term fiscal imbalance. Given all that, you could be forgiven for guessing that President Bush is the bigger tax cutter. But you’d actually be wrong. By the end of his first term, President...

"I don't pay any attention to freshmen," said Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, on the day he and his fellow House members began voting on proposals that would slice more than $20 billion from the current budget and the 2012-2013 spending plan. Normally, the good-natured disdain expressed by the House veteran of two decades is universal, but not this session. Because of their numbers - 37 new members, 31 of them Republicans - and because of the cost-cutting, anti-tax zeal that got so many of them elected during last fall's GOP avalanche, House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts,...

CONCORD, N.H. – Bucking a national trend of raising cigarette taxes, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island have considered reducing theirs, hoping to draw smokers from other states and increase revenue. Supporters argue reducing the tax by a dime would make New Hampshire more competitive with Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, while opponents say that even if the state experienced higher sales as a result it still would lose millions of dollars in revenue. It's very unusual for states to lower the tax, University of Illinois at Chicago economics professor Frank Chaloupka says. The increase in sales isn't enough to...

The Tax Deal Is Nothing Short Of Ronald Reagan's Notorious "Starve The Beast" Strategy Robert Reich | Dec. 16, 2010, 2:46 PM | 1,659 | comment 50 More than thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan came to Washington intent on reducing taxes on the wealthy and shrinking every aspect of government except defense. The new tax deal embodies the essence of Reaganomics. It will not stimulate the economy. A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are...

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat? At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as...

EXCERPTS "I'm against tax cuts for the rich too...but this is absolutely over the top to blame this on President Obama," Sharpton told the Daily News. "The goal is to take care of working class people, not to attack the President." (snip) "There will be pushback," Sharpton vowed, likening the attacks to "blaming the ransom" and "not the kidnapper." ...

Every time I hear a Republican complain about government spending on helping those in need, extending unemployment benefits and protecting unions, I wonder why they are silent about government subsidies for the big corporations and the wealthy? How is it that Republicans can hold the unemployed hostage to extend huge tax breaks to the rich and super rich earning more than $250,000? They do it because America is a polarized country. Democrats think they can reason with the fanatics, but there is no compromising with the GOP extremists. They can do it because President Barack Obama has surrendered to the...

With perfectly flexible wages, it doesn't matter whether tax law says "employees pay" or "employers pay."  Tax incidence depends on supply and demand elasticity, not legislative intent. If wages are nominally rigid, however, the law matters.  If you cut a tax on employers, this reduces labor costs, increases the quantity of labor demanded, and reduces surplus labor.  If you cut a tax on employees, in contrast, this increases worker compensation, increases the quantity of labor supplied, and increases surplus labor. In both cases, admittedly, a tax cut might directly increase demand and, with nominal wage rigidity, increase employment.  But...

Note: This post was written before last night's agreement. That agreement does nothing to change the facts discussed in this piece or the conclusions drawn by the author. I want to make my priorities clear from the start. One: middle class families need permanent tax relief. And two: I believe we can’t afford to borrow and spend another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. That is a line from President Obama’s weekly radio address last week. He’s referring to the coming tax hikes as the Bush Tax Cuts are due to sunset on December 31st....

Moody's Worried US Tax Cuts Could Become Permanent Tuesday, 07 Dec 2010 01:37 PM Moody's Investors Service is worried the extension of U.S. tax cuts agreed by President Barack Obama and Republican leaders could become permanent, hurting U.S. finances and its credit ratings in the long run. Steven Hess, Moody's lead sovereign analyst for the United States, said on Tuesday doesn't foresee any change in the U.S. AAA ratings in the next 18 months to two years. He is, however, concerned about "what's going to happen in two years," when the extensions are set to expire again. "The timing two...

The scene is Big City, USA – might be Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C.… A street gang has rounded up a hundred people, chained them to a fence so they’re defenseless. One by one, they rob every victim – taking their purses and wallets. They beat – and rape – every victim, kicking, punching and cutting them until they’re black and blue… and red. And then they leave them there on the sidewalk to recuperate as best they can, still chained, in a weakened state. The gang returns the next day, to do it all again (a brazen...

During the panel discussion on Special Report, Steve Hayes schooled Juan Williams on Tax-Cuts, and why the Democrats can not win the argument on raising everyones taxes during a recession. Steve Hayes comments even left Charles Krauthammer speechless. Jaun had absolutely no response at all when Steve finished with him.

Connecticut GOP Senate hopeful Linda McMahon is refusing to remove a Web ad that uses archive footage of John F. Kennedy talking about the importance of tax cuts. The 30-second spot, titled "A Good Idea Then and Now," uses 1963 footage of the late president arguing that tax cuts would serve as an economic stimulus. It's a message meant to bolster McMahon's position that the so-called Bush tax cuts, set to expire later this year, should be extended. Edward Kennedy Jr., the late president's nephew, sent a letter to McMahon this week asking the GOP candidate to pull the ad,...

President Obama was facing a mutiny within his own Democrat Party tonight over his pledge to deliver tax cuts for America’s struggling middle class. A group of 31 rebel Democrat congressmen and women have broken ranks to demand that all income levels are given tax breaks, including the wealthy. Mr Obama insists he is targeting Americans earning less than £160,000-a-year. But the breakaway Democrats fear that increasing taxes, even for the rich, could jeopardise the party’s chances in the looming mid-term elections.

The Tax-Cut Racket By PAUL KRUGMAN “Nice middle class you got here,” said Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. “It would be a shame if something happened to it.” O.K., he didn’t actually say that. But he might as well have, because that’s what the current confrontation over taxes amounts to. Mr. McConnell, who was self-righteously denouncing the budget deficit just the other day, now wants to blow that deficit up with big tax cuts for the rich. But he doesn’t have the votes. So he’s trying to get what he wants by pointing a gun at the heads of...

Sorry: Obama Flatly Rejects Bush Tax Cut Extension For The Rich Joe Weisenthal Sep. 7, 2010, 8:34 PM So much for the idea that Peter Orszag's piece in the NYT today was some sort of "trial balloon" on the part of the administration, to see if it might reverse itself on the matter of the Bush tax cuts. Turns out The White House is now directly going against the prescription put forth by its former CBO head (not to mention many others), as the NYT reports that Obama will flatly reject any calls to extend the Bush tax cuts. The...

Obama's $200 Billion Tax Cut Just Light A Fuse Under The Market? Joe Weisenthal Sept. 6, 2010, 9:22 PM Futures have shot straight higher in the last hour. It seems possible that markets are reacting to the Obama's new $200 billion business bailout.[snip]

The debate rages over whether our country can afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Progressives argue that the ballooning Federal debt is a legacy of these tax cuts. There is one unreported flaw in this argument. As data from the IRS show, George Bush did not cut income taxes. He increased them. In fact, Bush increased income taxes not only for the rich but for at least half of all tax filers. Only the poor paid less income tax under George Bush than under Bill Clinton. WHAT? Go to the IRS website and add up the...

Trump Urges Obama to Extend Bush Era Tax Cuts for All Wednesday, 28 Jul 2010 07:46 AM By: Dan Weil Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and reality TV star, opposes President Barack Obama’s effort to deny an extension of the Bush era tax cuts for people with income of more than $200,000 a year. “He’s taking away a lot of incentives from a lot of people that produce a lot of taxes,” Trump told Fox News. The cuts, enacted in 2001 and 2003, will be revoked next year for all income brackets if Congress does nothing. Obama wants Congress...

Following comments from Senate Democrats expressing willingness to extend Bush tax cuts, the White House dispatched Tim Geithner to kill the buzz. Tim just announced Obama's plans to let the tax cuts expire for wealthy Americans in January, according to WSJ. Which is what people expected all along. WSJ: Mr. Geithner said there is "still some uncertainty about how strong the recovery is going to be," which may be impacting spending decisions by businesses and individuals. But he discounted that as a reason to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for top earners, saying most private forecasts show moderate economic growth...

<p>Just when you thought Congress was spent -- literally -- and done for the year they'll turn around and surprise you. No money left to do anything? United Republican opposition? Democrats are planning to take on the great white whale of spending: extending President Bush's middle class tax cuts. The cost is estimated from $1.6 trillion to extend them to as much as $2.7 trillion to make them permanent. According to Senate Democratic sources, the latter is what they're going to go for -- and they're planning to do it before the midterm elections.</p>

Two more Senate Democrats called for extending tax cuts for all earners—including those with the highest incomes—in what appears to be a breakdown of the party's consensus on the how to handle the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts. Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) said in an interview Wednesday that Congress shouldn't allow taxes on the wealthy to rise until the economy is on a sounder footing. Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) said through a spokesman that he also supported extending all the expiring tax cuts for now, adding that he wanted to offset the impact on federal deficits as much...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke dropped a major bombshell on Democrats seeking massive new revenues to narrow the deficit, announcing Thursday that he favors preserving the Bush administration tax cuts in order to help a faltering U.S. economy. “In the short term I would believe that we ought to maintain a reasonable degree of fiscal support, stimulus for the economy,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. “There are many ways to do that. This is one way.” Bernanke's statement put him directly at odds with White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who favors raising taxes on...

For all of you Obama lovers that like to compare him with the late President Kennedy, please watch this video….you might learn something about how to stimulate our failing economy. Heck, you might even switch parties after watching this…

ATLANTA (April 14, 2010) – On the eve of national tax day, the Georgia General Assembly has passed major tax relief, HB 1055 called by some the “Georgia Taxpayer Relief Act of 2010”. The measure eliminates retirement income tax on Georgia seniors and eliminates the state property tax. Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) lead the efforts in the Senate to help add the tax elimination measures to HB 1055. “This was a great day for Georgia as the General Assembly has moved to completely eliminate two separate taxes. The elimination of the state property tax is a true tax...

Fiscal Policy: The latest data show a record number of people with no tax obligation. We also have the highest-earning nontaxpayers ever. With more riding the wagon and fewer pulling, it should soon break down. A record number of the 142 million tax returns filed in 2008 resulted in no taxes owed, according to the Tax Foundation's analysis of the latest IRS data. About 51.6 million returns, or 36.3%, were filed by those whose deductions, exemptions and tax credits wiped out any federal income-tax obligation. These aren't people who have overpaid their taxes or had so much withheld from their...

The jobs legislation would also extend highway and mass transit programs through the end of the year and pump $20 billion into them in time for the construction season. Economists say the tax breaks could create perhaps 250,000 jobs.

For months economists have been warning that the President's economic policies could be driving the US into a "double-dip" recession. A "double-dip" recession, occurs when the economy has a recession, emerges from the recession for a short period of growth, and quickly falls back into recession. The recession of the early 1980s is an example of a W-shaped recession. The economy fell into recession from January 1980 to July 1980, shrinking at an 8 percent annual rate from April to June of 1980. The economy then entered a quick period of growth, and in the first three months of 1981...

constitutional guardian "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson Monday, September 28, 2009 The Kennedy Tax Cuts and Prosperity--Part II Here's one for you. In 1894which prominent newspaper opposed the imposition of an income tax describing it as "...a vicious, inequitable unpopular, impolitic and socialist act?" Hmmm. Another hint: In 1909 they wrote that taxing income would get the government in the habit of "helping themselves to the property of others" a habit they feared would not be easily cured. (From The...

Thursday, September 24, 2009 Kennedy--Tax Cut Champion-Part I Like an old man, history has a tendency to repeat itself. Let's hope it does again. Soon. Especially when it comes to taxes. Our Founder’s fretted over taxes. They rebelled against them. They fought over them, debated them and eventually wrote a Constitution that all but ignored them. In short, taxes worried them. James Madison wrote in Federalist 10: "The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and...

The Laffer Curve is a simple idea: a government can’t raise taxes forever and expect to increase revenue along the way. Eventually you’re taking so much in taxes that people don’t have any reason to earn income. The argument is simple (and correct): if you have zero tax rate you get zero tax revenue. If you raise taxes just a bit, nobody will be discouraged from working, and you will collect some amount of revenue; therefore, the curve of revenue versus tax rate starts at zero and initially rises. But if the tax rate is 100%, nobody has any reason...

JEFFERSON CITY | House Speaker Ron Richard said this afternoon that federal officials have already warned against a plan to use federal stimulus dollars for a tax cut. Richard, a Joplin Republican, made the remarks in an appearance on the Fox News program Your World. "We've got a message from the OMB, the vice president, they don't like it," Richard said in the TV interview. "They say it's illegal and we're going anyway."

Don’t be surprised when a reporter for the liberal mainstream media shoves a microphone in your face at your local April 15th Tea Party demonstration and smugly asks, “Are you aware that the Boston Tea Party was actually initiated over a tax cut, not a tax increase?” Smile politely and answer oh-so-sweetly, “Yes, a tax cut for the British.” Confused? That’s the point. The liberal left is out to embarrass you ignorant, backwoods, Bible-thumping, gun-toting, conservative rednecks. Rather than speaking their lies to power, they’re playing cat-and-mouse with the wretched truth this time: The Tea Act of 1773 was actually...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Gail in Lakeside, Arizona, you're on Open Line Friday. Hi. CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for all you do for us. RUSH: Thank you very much. CALLER: I wanted to share quickly what I found out when I had my taxes prepared last week. The man that prepared my taxes for me cautioned me to watch out for my tax cut. He said, and you may want to adjust your withholding to take that back away, because the tax rate tables for next year when preparing taxes are not changing. So I could possibly owe my tax...

I heard on Laura Ingraham today that it's proposed that the "savings" involved in mortgage and charitable tax deductions would be eliminated. Any factual info on that? This is only my second vanity in 10 years (LOL)

President Obama plans to sign his landmark economic recovery package Tuesday, but lawmakers are increasingly concerned that one of the bill's central proposals -- the tax cut for individuals -- will be too small and too temporary to have much effect. The stimulus plan would give a $400 tax cut to individuals and an $800 cut to couples. That boils down to an extra $13 a week for most workers starting in June. It would fall to about $8 extra per week next January.

Sources close to the Democratic leadership today disclosed that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was part of a previously undisclosed experimental program designed to evaluate new economic concepts. The program was testing the concept of the Individual Volunteer Tax Reduction Program, and initial indications have been promising, according to Washington insiders. "It's been a useful program so far," Tim Geithner stated on conditions of anonymity, "It's just a shame that the Republicans have made this program a partisan issue, by refusing to join. On the test committee, there was just Tom and I, and whatever other Democrats are, uh,...

Obama Eyes $310 Billion in Tax Cuts" the headline blares. The Obama team comes to town to start the new year, and the run-up to his inauguration, with this announcement. How sly. This Obama tax cut package is to be part of the broader stimulus package now estimated to cost $775 billion. The problem is that there are tax cuts and there are tax cuts, and there are other things Obama calls tax cuts that are not even tax cuts. The "tax cuts" Obama is proposing for his stimulus package, like the rest of his stimulus package, are not going...

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama, commencing face to face consultations with congressional leaders Monday, is embracing an unexpectedly large tax cut of up to $300 billion. Obama said the country faces an "extraordinary economic challenge." Besides $500 tax cuts for most workers and $1,000 for couples, the Obama proposal includes more than $100 billion for businesses, an Obama transition official said. The total value of the tax cuts would be significantly higher than had been signaled earlier.

Bailing out a leaky boat may be the only way to prevent it from sinking, but bailing out sinking banks with taxpayer dollars is no way to keep our economy from sinking. I was one of the House conservatives who opposed the massive bank bailout last October because I didn’t believe that government was smarter than the stock market. And now that about $350 billion in taxpayers’ money has been spent without much success, I think it should stop right now. That’s why when Congress reconvenes -- presumably Monday -- I’ll introduce legislation to give all Americans a two-month income...

Good conservative congressman http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=20211048&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=638428&rfi=6

Why call it a tax “cut,” when your plan is to just dial back the tax law 9 years? Why, spin, of course. Truth is negligible to a presidential candidate, and downright blasphemy to a president (slash president-elect).

Depends on what the meaning of tax cut "is" By McCainiac Obama has a tax cut calculator on his web site in a not so veiled attempt to buy the votes of everyone making less than $250,000. I actually saw an ad for it on Drudge (see below).  Remember Bill Clinton's tax cut for the middle class? The tax cut he promised the middle class on the campaign trail in 1992? The tax cut that I and everyone else in the middle class never received during Clinton's eight years as President? Remember this... George W. Bush cut taxes for ALL...

$700 Taxpayer Bailout Gives Hollywood $470 Million Tax Cut Tuesday, October 21, 2008 By Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) – A tax break for movie and television producers who agree to film their shows in the United States – a part of the $700 billion economic stabilization package signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 3 – will cost taxpayers $470 million over the next 10 years, according to an Oct. 1 report published by the Joint Committee on Taxation. The tax cut, designed to entice Hollywood and TV producers to shoot their films domestically, will cost taxpayers $358...