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OK, Since it is the Christmas season and miracles happen, here is my hope for the Congress in February after this 2 month fiasco is over. They will put a message around the fact that if "payroll tax cuts/holidays" are good for the economy, how much better would across the board tax cuts work. They have two months to get their act together (again, this is the season of miracles) and take the fight forward through November. Quite frankly you could see this coming, they should have been smart enough to wait until tomorrow afternoon the 23rd and let it...

Republicans offered a debt reduction blueprint that includes meaningful tax reform, needed spending cuts, and at least $300 Billion in increased federal revenue -- the piece of the puzzle the Left relentlessly focuses on. Yet Democrats just aren't interested:

GOP May Block Payroll Tax Cut Extension That Obama Claims Could Save Up To 1 Million Jobs Zeke Miller Aug. 22, 2011, 9:32 AM The Associated Press reports that congressional Republicans are considering allowing the payroll tax cut to expire at the end of the year — a move President Barack Obama says could cost up to 1 million jobs. The tax, which funds Social Security, now stands at 4.2 percent for employees for 2011 — down from 6.2 percent — and GOP lawmakers, worried by rising deficits and the nation's booming debt, are gearing up to block extending the...

I have been reading about fiscal policy under Ronald Reagan in my father's splendid book, Presidential Economics. What I have learned or re-learned is that Reagan was confronted with a giant problem in his 1980 campaign. The problem was budget deficits from the Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Carter years along with high inflation and a stubbornly high unemployment rate. The conventional economic advice called for raising taxes or monetary restraint to lower the inflation. But the problem there was that those measures would almost surely also generate higher unemployment. Along came what my father calls "the economics of joy," which was supply-side economics. This...

EXETER, N.H. - Texas Governor Rick Perry has telephoned influential Republicans in early-voting New Hampshire and Iowa in recent days as he weighs whether to enter the race for the GOP presidential nomination. “He was looking for my thoughts in terms of what the presidential field looked like and what might happen if someone came in and shook things up a little bit,’’ New Hampshire Senate President Peter Bragdon said yesterday.... The conservative Texan also called several GOP leaders in Iowa, which will hold the first contest in next year’s GOP presidential race. Among those contacted, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds.......

"HERETIC!!!" That is what leftwingers will be screaming at their computer monitors when they read The New Republic article by Ruy Teixeira in which he praises President Barack Obama for agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts which are so hated by liberals. Even worse, he claims that the Bush tax cuts extension will improve the economy to the extent that they could improve Obama's re-election chances. Well, there are a lot of other factors at play which will serve to keep the economy in its current doldrums but what Teixeira specifically says about the Bush tax cuts are enough...

Democrats in the House have little relevance in the 112th Session of Congress. The Republicans have a large enough majority to pass any bill they desire, as long as it passes muster within their caucus. Other than using a discharge petition, Democrats can’t even get a bill to the floor without GOP cooperation, and once there, can’t get one passed without significant Republican support. Boehner has allowed Democrats to bring a few bills to the floor already just to make a point about their irrelevance by seeing their proposals go down in flames in full floor votes.However, there is functional...

It's kind of fun to watch former MSM "reporters" turn into totally-out, liberal partisans once they leave their "reporting" gigs. Take Bob Franken. For years a big-time national correspondent for CNN, the network let him go in 2007. Franken is now free to let his liberal freak flag fly. Witness Bob on MSNBC this evening. Commenting on Tim Pawlenty's tax-cut proposal, Franken fulminated that the former Minnesota governor is planning nothing less [cue spooky music] than to lead an "oligarchy" in which the rich would be "buying back the government." Franken also took a scatalogical shot at "trickle-down" economics. View...

One Michigan public school superintendent questioned whether Gov. Snyder’s business tax cut will improve the economy. Charlie Glaes, superintendent of Vicksburg Community Schools made the statement last week in the Kalamazoo Gazette in a story about the cuts to public schools proposed by the governor. “The governor says we must make decisions based on data. What data is he using?” Glaes said in the Kalamazoo Gazette. “Tax cuts under Gov. Engler didn’t work.” Under Engler there were cuts to the income tax and the state’s main business income tax in 1993, 1994 and 1999. And during the era, a key...

Kind of disappointing--nothing about Republicans head-butting widows or knocking the crutches from the arms of the disabled. Even so, let's give Damon Silvers credit: the union boss did claim that Republicans "literally deny clothing to foster kids to give rich people tax cuts." AFL-CIO honcho Damon Silvers made the hysterically hyperbolic claim on Cenk Uygur's MSNBC show this evening. View video here.

Among sentences I do not like to write: Andrew Leonard is mostly right about this one. Tax cuts do not generally increase revenue, and Republicans should stop saying otherwise. But he’s not quite right to treat all these statements as equivalent: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here’s Rep. Joe Walsh, (R-Ill.) the self-styled “conservative Tea Party activist” who upset Democrat Melissa Bean in the 2010 midterms, on ABC’s “This Week.” “In the ’80s, federal revenues went up,” said Walsh. “We didn’t cut spending. Revenues went up in the ’80s. Every time we’ve cut taxes, revenues have gone up. The economy has grown.” Walsh may...

I was born in Sweden 41 years ago and since 1988 I work there. Compared to when I begun my career, wages are much higher, prices have not gone up much and taxes are way lower. Recently, our economy has displayed GDP growth figures of 7.3%. Do we Scandinavians set an example for other nations? I think we do. Germany has recently begun listening to what Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden have to say in the area of economic policy and national budget discipline. One fine day, France, Italy, Britain, Japan and the US perhaps will too.. The article: "The...

Your average poorly informed lefty (but I repeat myself) will reliably tell you that our current fiscal straits are the result of three things: 1. Bush’s wars; 2. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich; 3. Bush’s bank bailouts. That is not true, of course: The main bank bailouts (odious as they were) have been paid back, often at a profit. The money-losing parts (and the likely money-losing parts) are the ones insisted upon by Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues: the foreclosure-prevention programs, the endless maintenance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc. The Iraq War, in its most expensive...

During a pre-recorded commentary aired on CBS’s Sunday Morning show, right-leaning actor and economist Ben Stein - also a CBS contributor - blamed "excessive tax cuts" enacted by former President Bush and congressional Republicans for "starting the problem" of the current federal budget deficit, and advocated raising taxes on the wealthy in addition to "major spending cuts" and changes in Medicare and Social Security to get the deficit under control. Stein: "The Republicans who started the problem with excessive tax cuts in the Bush years will have to agree to raise taxes at least upon the truly rich of whom...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie held fast to his national reputation for fiscal discipline amid the widespread financial crisis that's hit U.S. states, unveiling a $29.4 billion state budget Tuesday that calls for heftier contributions from state workers for pension and health care benefits. Christie proposes paying $500 million into the state's severely underfunded pension system — the minimum required under a new state law to get the state to quit skipping its payments. But Christie, who's burnished national credentials as a take-no-prisoners fiscal conservative, says he'll make the payment only if the Democratic Legislature agrees...

New Jersey business advocacy groups cheered Gov. Chris Christie’s state budget Tuesday, expressing satisfaction with his strategy for creating "a better environment to start and grow a business." While the governor may have ruffled some feathers in other aspects of his budget, the business community embraced his proposal to phase in cuts for corporate, income, sales and estate taxes, totaling nearly $200 million in the coming year, and $690 million in 2016. "For the first time in my lifetime, we have a governor and a legislature that care about paying the bills," said trucking business owner Matt Wright, during an...

Please do your part!!!

INDIANAPOLIS -- Legislators are moving ahead with a plan to cut Indiana's corporate income tax by about 40 percent while holding off on phasing out the state inheritance tax. The state Senate tax committee on Tuesday heard testimony that Indiana's corporate tax rate of 8.5 percent is among the nation's highest. Supporters of cutting it to 5 percent said the higher rate discourages businesses from moving into Indiana.

"We are going to once again attempt to repeal the unnecessary $700-billion tax cut for people who make the top two percent," Vice President Joe Biden told Yahoo! News.

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows." -- George Orwell, Ninteen Eighty-Four -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok. Fine. You asked for it, George. THE TAX DEAL HAMMERED OUT BY MITCH MCCONNELL AND JOHN BOEHNER WITH CHAIRMAN OBAMA SUCKS. I THINK MCCONNELL AND BOEHNER SHOULD BE STRIPPED OF THEIR LEADERSHIP POSITIONS. There are many reasons why I left the Republican Panty. The first nail in the coffin was John McPain being named the Republican nominee for the '08 Popularity Contest. The second nail in the coffin was George Bush's ugly baby, TARP....

Q: The law Congress passed in December should only affect the taxes for 2011, which will be filed in 2012. Why is the IRS blaming Congress for this problem when its actions should not have affected the processing of 2010 returns? A: You are correct about the Bush-era income-tax rate cuts. However, several other popular tax breaks expired at the end of 2009, and Congress didn't resurrect them until mid-December of 2010. As a result, the IRS says it needs time to "reprogram its processing systems." That, in turn, means millions of people will have to wait to file their...

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has indicated that his government is ready to push ahead with further tax cuts assuming public finances continue to improve. Reinfeldt told Sveriges Television (SVT) on Sunday that he’s open to moving ahead with the fifth stage in the centre-right government’s in-work tax credit programme (jobbskatteavdraget). According to Reinfeldt, the tax reductions could come as soon as January 1st, 2012 as long as the four parties of the centre-right Alliance government can come to an agreement on the issue. “But we believe on the best way to stimulated part time workers and low-wage earners to...

A New Year approaches. Along with it comes a brand new Congress. There are many things Congress needs to do next year. However, I believe there are five that are of the utmost importance; things that the new Congress should make New Years Resolutions.

Next time Barack Obama is looking for character references, here's one person he can count on: Savannah Guthrie . . . On Morning Joe today, the NBC White House correspondent personally vouched for PBO, saying "I know the president looks at [middle-class tax cuts] as a moral issue." View video after the jump.

The Bush Tax Cuts: The Final Word and Beyond For how many years have Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats been telling America that Bush cut taxes only for the rich? If so, where did all those middle class tax cuts come from that everyone is now talking about extending? The Republicans are holding the middle class tax cuts hostage? It was the Republicans who enacted the middle class tax cuts, nearly 10 years ago now. That would be $3 trillion in middle class tax cuts over the next 10 years. Obama and Pelosi are talking as if these...

Herman discusses the lame duck session, the economy, his cancer survival, and more with David Asman. VIDEO

The federal tax bill passed by Congress yesterday includes some extras for the middle class and lots of goodies for the wealthy. But individuals making less than $20,000 and households making less than $40,000 a year will actually get less tax relief in 2011 than they got in 2010 and 2009. That's because the Making Work Pay credit, a temporary tax credit that's been in effect for the past two years, is going away as of January 1. That credit provides up to $400 per individual, $800 per household, for all eligible workers. And it adds more to the pockets...

The House late Thursday gave final approval, 277-148, to a temporary extension of the George W. Bush-era tax rates, delivering a significant but politically bruising victory to President Obama. The $858 billion legislation now heads to the president’s desk for his signature. It extends the Bush tax cuts across the board for two years, slashes the employee payroll tax by 2 percent for one year, renews the estate tax and extends unemployment insurance benefits for 13 months. The president argued the deal was the best he could get from Republicans who refused to budge on extending tax cuts for the...

Today, the Senate voted on the DeMint amendment to the tax deal (H.R. 4853).  This amendment would have extended all of the Bush tax forever and would have permanently eliminated the death tax.  The amendment was forced through a suspension motion which required 67 votes because Harry Reid has once again filled the amendment tree.  The motion only garnered 37 votes.  Ben Nelson was the only Democrat to support DeMint, but 5 Republicans opposed him: Scott Brown Susan Collins Mark Kirk Olympia Snowe George Voinivich Thank you Scott Brown for stabbing those who elected you in the back.  There is...

The battle over the extension of the Bush tax cuts rages on. We hear about it in the Congress, from the White House, on the news and even at the water cooler. Everyone is taking sides. If these cuts do not continue, the United States will experience one of the highest tax increases in US history and the continued attack on job creation. Furthermore, we will likely move to the top spot of highest taxed countries in the industrialized world. In a world where capital can easily take flight, this spells dire consequences for an economy that is the worst...

Subsidies: As with the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase, the majority leader of the Senate seeks to buy votes for a bill, this time the tax-cut compromise with support for ethanol credits for the rich. With the tax-cut compromise having made it through the Senate, the Democrats have once again reminded us why the voters threw a good portion of the rascals out in 2010. They continue to act as if the populist revolt against tax-and-spend big government never happened. To sweeten the deal made between President Obama and Republicans regarding extending all the decade-old Bush tax rates, including...

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is reported to be "irked" that President Obama didn't take his advice and use the tax bill to "corner Republicans into defending millionaires and billionaires."  In fact, Schumer's not just irked -- he's "deeply disappointed and convinced Obama had missed a major opportunity."  You'll remember that Schumer's plan was to continue the Bush tax cuts for everyone except those earning more than $1 million a year. Presumably, Chuck is upset about income trends showing the income share of the very richest rising in recent years.  Here is data from the IRS showing that the top...

<p>Japan's government announced it would cut the country's hefty corporate tax rate by 5 percentage points, in a bid to stimulate the economy and help Japanese businesses stay competitive.</p> <p>The step announced late Monday is aimed at promoting investment, employment and salary increases at home so that Japan can exit deflation, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.</p>

Dem. Rep Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) appeared on Face the Nation and referred to the GOP as ‘gangsters’ and said “don’t submit to their ‘blackmail” while referring to the tax cuts. This accusation by Nadler comes on the heels of Obama claiming he saved America from the GOP “hostage takers” after it was announced a compromise had come about.

Somewhere, George Bush is laughing . . . That was the image in Joe Scarborough's mind this morning. The Morning Joe host repeatedly made the point that whereas Dems continue to control the White House and massive congressional majorities, they now are looking at the Bush tax cuts, which for years they vilified, as their last best hope. When it comes to Republican and Dem support for the tax cut deal, Joe--concerned about the $1 trillion being added to the deficit--has been in pox-on-both-their-houses mode. He seems to side with opponents of the bill including Jim DeMint, Rand Paul. ....

LEXINGTON, Ky. – If your attention is diverted for the briefest of moments as you walk along North Mill Street’s red-brick sidewalk, you easily could miss the former law office of Henry Clay. Barely 20 feet wide and closed to the public, the office is notable only for a historical marker hidden to its left, pointing out the modest headquarters of a young frontier lawyer who went on to become a revered statesmen known as “The Great Compromiser.” Clay earned that title in the 1820s when he temporarily pacified the U.S. government’s conflict with South Carolina, which was on the...

I recently broke a rule I made for myself to not get into fights with liberals on Twitter. Engaging in Twitter fights reminds me too much of what it must've been like to be a supporter of Obama in 2008:It's too hard to think in complete sentences, when it's over you have this overwhelming feeling of guilt and regret and a longing to have that time back, and actual literacy is optional. One of the canards I had to deal with in my debate with them was this notion that the tax cuts "didn't work" and therefore it was...

Remember all of those special interest tax breaks in the 2008 TARP bill? - Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)- American Samoa (Sec. 309)- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)- Railroads (Sec. 316)- Auto Racing Tracks (317)- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)- Wool Research (Sec. 325) Many of them are back. Although I'm not sure yet whether the "research credit" is for "wool research." -Research credit.-Indian...

Does this mean … no impeachment? Because I’ve got to tell you, after this morning’s unpleasantness, my expectations were sky high. The AP’s vague on the precise terms — and cost — of the bargain, but it sounds like that righteous liberal rage over the new estate tax rate magically dissipated after it was sprinkled with a few ethanol subsidies. Let’s call this “The Cornhusker Kickback — part two”: The White House and key lawmakers cleared the way Thursday night for swift Senate action to avert a Jan. 1 spike in income taxes for nearly all Americans, agreeing to extend...

For years, Democrats have bashed Republicans over tax cuts. Tax cuts supposedly did nothing to encourage work and, thus, when President Bush cut tax rates across the board, it only lined the pockets of the wealthy. This rhetoric repeated over and over for the last decade. But now President Obama's tax rate agreement is creating massive confusion among Democrats and many Senators will cast their vote tonight in contradiction to their previously stated positions. In September 2001, a New York Times editorial summed up the received wisdom of Democrats: "the Bush tax cut wasn't designed to fight a recession." The...

Leadership: A mainstream media guru says the president is channeling Ronald Reagan but risks becoming Jimmy Carter. Reagan's policies worked, Carter's didn't and Obama's haven't. Wake up and smell the tax cuts. Noted journalist Howard Fineman, a former Newsweek icon now plying his thoughts at the Huffington Post, is not happy with President Obama's embrace of fiscal and political reality by striking a deal with a resurgent GOP that extends the Bush tax cuts. Typical of mainstream media angst, Fineman opines that Obama has "just been backed — or backed himself — into a Reaganite corner" and embraced the "essence...

"F--- the President" was uttered by a frustrated DEMOCRATIC lawmaker today, as well as "We can't trust him" (referring the Obama). What gives? Can't Obama get any love for being post-partisan from fellow Democrats? Apparently not. This compromise, at the tail end of a truly depressing and frightening 2 yaers of complete Democratic power, is now ending with a whimper. And that whimper is the sound of the Democratic Party, broken in 2. On one side is Obama, and ostensibly other "pragmatists" or those realistic enough to

“If everybody took out what they didn't like, we would have nothing,” Gibbs said. “And we know the consequences of doing nothing.”

The Obama administration has announced its willingness to compromise on a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts for all income levels. But the Bush tax cuts never went far enough in providing sufficient incentives to promote higher rates of savings and investment. Temporary solutions like this one or the administration's proposed investment tax credit for businesses will not solve our problem of low capital accumulation. What matters is how the income from capital is taxed over its lifetime. Economists agree that a large capital stock is a key ingredient for prosperity, as it expands our productive capacity and raises...

For the last two years, $250,000 in annual income has been an arbitrary line in the sand of a renewed class war. Those above it must have their income taxes raised. Those below it are deemed more virtuous and so deserving of a tax cut. But who exactly are the “rich”? Zillionaires such as Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and George Soros surely are. But these wealthiest individuals have so much money at their disposal that they don’t care much about income-tax rates. Their tax lawyers have found ingenious ways to divert millions of what would be owed to Uncle Sam...

Did the republicans secretly threaten Obama they would raise the eligibility question with him in order to get the Bush tax cuts extended? The president automatically did a about face to his democratic constituents and to the voters who looked up to him to 'Stick It To The Rich' so he could 'Spread The Wealth' as he said he would do on the campaign trail. There is a reason more sinister I feel on why he did this that has the democratic elite in D.C. up in arms. I personally think that the republicans (since they take over the house...

PERIOD: If the Democrats include a bunch of "sweeteners" in the stopping-tax-increase bill: Then the REPUBLICANS NEED TO KILL IT! This bill is already bad enough..we would be better with a "better deal" from "Longshanks" next year, when "we've sacked York"..!

If waning support from Independents wasn’t enough, Obama now has cause for concern with his liberal backing as even Keith Olbermann is becoming visibly upset. During ‘Countdown’, Olbermann stated that Obama may not only get re-elected, “he may not even get re-nominated.” Before a deal on tax cuts were made, Dan Rather predicted if there were an extension of the Bush tax cuts it would be a “political nightmare” for Obama and said he could face a tough primary challenge in the next election.

The DUmmies have given up all hope...and change as you can see by the very title of their THREAD, "We are f*cked." All because of the tax cut compromise proposed by Obama yesterday. What is really interesting about Obama's willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts is that is an admission by his administration that those tax cuts were effective in the first place and are important for the economy. When those tax cuts were first proposed nearly 10 years ago, the Democrats scoffed at them as being insignificant in helping the middle class. However, Obama is now admitting...

"President Obama is pushing a terrible "deal" to extend the Bush tax breaks for the rich. But progressive hero Senator Bernie Sanders has vowed to block it - and he needs help. Tell other progressives to help block the millionaire bailout."