A Hollow Victory

Putting the TARP Band Back Together
Opinions are varied and divided over whether the tax Compromise plan is worthwhile. Some see it as the best the GOP can hope to get. Others see it as the GOP settling for keeping current Income Tax rates while voting to raise other taxes and increase spending on Unemployment Benefits, a program that has become a general welfare program. Whether you are for it or against it, I do think it is worth pointing out this morning that with few exceptions, those parties advocating the tax Compromise ar...

Obama comment sparks liberal group launch of Hostage Prevention Initiative (Daily Caller)
President Barack Obama’s decision to call Republicans “hostage-takers” in the Bush Tax Cut extension debate caused the liberal group Coalition on Human Needs to launch the “Hostage Prevention Initiative.” The Coalition’s president, Deborah Weinstein, told The Daily Caller the initiative is meant to push politicians to help out lower-income people around the country instead of cutting taxes for upper-income people. “We are urging people to sign up if th...

The Obama/Republican Tax Compromise: Should Conservative Support It?
Liberals are furious that Obama has cut a deal with the GOP on taxes. However, some Conservatives aren't happy about it either. Jim DeMint and the Club for Growth for example, aren't fans: Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) says he will oppose the tax deal President Obama made with the Republican leadership. He’ll join the likes of liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in filibustering it. “Most of us who ran this election said we weren’t going to vote for anything that increased the defic...

The Obama/Republican Tax Compromise: Should Conservative Support It?
Liberals are furious that Obama has cut a deal with the GOP on taxes. However, some Conservatives aren't happy about it either. Jim DeMint and the Club for Growth for example, aren't fans: Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) says he will oppose the tax deal President Obama made with the Republican leadership. He’ll join the likes of liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in filibustering it. “Most of us who ran this election said we weren’t going to vote for anything that increased the defic...

HuffPost TV: Arianna Debates Tax Cut Deal On 'Lawrence O'Donnell' (VIDEO)
Arianna appeared on "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" to debate the deal between the White House and Republicans to extend the Bush Tax Cuts by two years in exchange for a one-year extension of Unemployment Benefits. "The main problem with the deal is that it doesn't create jobs," she said. She went on to criticize Larry Summers for his comments that failing to reach a Compromise would send us into a Double-Dip Recession, saying, "Today he fear-mongered...it reminds me of the fear-monge...

Where Obama stands
With this week's proceedings around the Tax Cuts extension, President Obama has become a target of both sides of the political aisle; especially those on the left. Obama campaigned against extending the Tax Cuts for the top 2%. He rallied for that at various points during his campaign and during his presidency. Even during the compromised deal and its aftermath, he did not want to extend those tax cuts, but took what looked like the best Compromise to ensure that the Middle Class was not negativ...

While His Base Rages, Obama Faces Tax-cut Reality
Reality strikes. Barack Obama spurned the advice of columnists Paul Krugman and Katrina vanden Heuvel and agreed with Republicans to extend the current Income Tax rates -- the so-called Bush Tax Cuts -- for another two years. He got a few things in return, primarily extended Unemployment Benefits for another 13 months, and agreed as well to a 2 percent cut in the Social Security Payroll Tax. But he recognized the reality that in order to prevent a Tax Increase on those with incomes under $250,...

Dubyas Ghost
The “Bush Tax Cuts” have been the law of the land since 2001-2003 (depending upon your reckoning). While regular Conservatives may mumble about prescription drug care benefits for seniors, Liberal Democrats simply hate the fact that any post-Clinton tax cuts exist at all, apparently ignorant of - or willfully blind to - the fact that for the better part of Bush’s eight year reign The Economy hummed along fairly nicely. Apart, of course, from the Recession he inherit...

Deficit hawks hammer at Obama-GOP deal on tax cuts
CHEYENNE — The Compromise plan to extend Tax Cuts for everyone is "heartbreaking" and does nothing to solve the cancerlike problem that will drive the United States off a cliff, two of the country's foremost experts on the National Debt said Wednesday. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson last month doled out 57 pages of tough recommendations for eliminating almost $4 Trillion in Debt, but those recommendations likely won't see the l...

GOP Senator DeMint Opposes Current Tax Compromise
Thursday, December 09, 2010 Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (CNSNews.com) - Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) opposes the Tax Rate and Unemployment Benefits deal negotiated between Republican lawmakers and the White House “as currently structured,” spokesman Wesley Denton told CNSNews.com. “Senator DeMint does not support the deal as currently structured as it includes huge new Deficit spending and death tax hikes on small businesses that would kill hundreds of th

Senate leaders set to begin debate on tax cuts
By Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, December 8, 2010 Senate leaders planning to begin debate as soon as Thursday on a far-reaching tax package as rank-and-file Democrats warm to an agreement between the White House and Republicans to extend a host of expiring Tax Cuts and pump fresh cash into The Economy. Democrats were still angry Wednesday about what they viewed as President Obama's capitulation to GOP demands to preserve cuts for the wealthiest Am...

Bennet to Support Obama-GOP Tax Plan
In a move that will no doubt cause a stir among the newly elected Senator's supporters as well as his vocal detractors, The Ft. Collins Coloradoan's Bob Moore reports: Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet will support a tax-cut Compromise put together by President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders, even though he said the package was flawed. "The bottom line is simple and straightforward. These Tax Cuts will expire in less than four weeks," Bennet said in a statement Wednesday. "If we ...

Ready, Fire, Aim
I'm not going to say "I told you so" -- because I didn't -- but it was pretty easy to predict that once the details of the tax Compromise came out, this would happen:Democrats were still angry Wednesday about what they viewed as President Obama's capitulation to GOP demands to preserve Tax Cuts for the wealthiest Americans, particularly a deal to exempt estates worth as much as $10 million from a revived inheritance tax. But lawmakers said the magnitude of the concessions Obama won came into sh...

Biden schmoozes House Democrats on Obama's tax cut package, but the message is firm: No changes
The full PR panoply of the presidency is on display this week as President Obama attempts to sell his Tax Cut "Compromise" not to voters, nor to Republicans, but to his own Democrats. So many people chuckled over the president labeling his agreement to accept all of the Bush era tax cuts a "Compromise" that the White House changed its terminology. It's now calling the packaged agreement the "Middle Class Tax Cut Framework." (MCTCF) That'll no doubt fool al...

Former President George H.W. Bush Announces Support For START Treaty
thecaucus Former President George H.W. Bush, who signed and won Senate approval of the original Start Arms Control treaty with the Soviet Union in 1991, endorsed the proposed follow-up treaty with Russia on Wednesday , Lending another well-known Republican voice to the White House campaign for approval. “ I urge the United States Senate to ratify the START Treaty,” Mr. Bush said in a one-line statement that offered no elaboration. His spokesman, Jim Appleby, said by telephone that ...

Falling Off the Bandwagon
Dear Answerperson: My boyfriend is a Liberal Democrat and ever since the president announced his tax deal with the Republicans, he has been impossible to live with. First he burned his “Audacity of Hope” sweater. Then he began messing up the cat’s litter box, claiming he needed to draw “lines in the sand.” Now he wants to call off our Wedding because he says that when you put your trust in people, they break your heart. David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between co...

Want to Win? Masquerade as a Conservative
Thursday, December 09, 2010 By Ben Shapiro “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” President Obama told Diane Sawyer of ABC News in January 2010. Liar. President Obama has a pattern when it comes to his political Rhetoric. If he talks about Foreign Policy, he tells the truth; if he talks about Domestic Policy, he lies. That’s because President Obama feels that while the rest of the world deserves honesty, the American People can be ma

Tax deal displays Obama's backbone (Politico)
Bill Clinton had his “Sister Souljah moment,” when he admonished an African-American rap singer, in front of an audience that included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, over lyrics that seemed to countenance race-based killing. President Richard M. Nixon, in the middle of the Cold War, secretly plotted a badly needed rapprochement with Communist China. And President Harry S. Truman faced down the steel industry and striking workers. In each case, their actions were met with howls of Protest, ...

Bam: Pass tax cut or face double-dip
WASHINGTON - Divided Democrats hurled more insults at each other on Wednesday as the White House warned of a possible Double-Dip Recession if the tax deal falls apart. "I don't think that the President should count on Democratic votes to get this deal passed," said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens), a leading critic of the $900 billion back-room Compromise Obama reached with Republicans. Appearing for the first time to be concerned the deal could unravel, the White House shifted its rhet...

Why can't President Obama just accept a "win win"
The President reached a deal with Republicans. Republicans got Tax Cuts, the President got an extension of Unemployment Benefits. Instead of declaring victory, however, the President chose to grouse and call the Republicans “hostage takers”. So much for changing the tone in Washington, unless he meant he would make the tone nastier. The President is trying to appease his Liberal Base, which seems to have developed an almost pathological hatred for people who make more than $250,...

Tax Hax Axe Lax Pax
All right, I admit I don't really understand the urgency about extending the Bush Tax Rates before they expire. I certainly favor (kind of) extending the Tax Cuts; I'm much more in favor of further reductions in the rate, simplification to a single tax rate for everyone (and everything, including corporations), and the complete elimination of the death tax. But why the rush? Come January 3rd, we'll have a much stronger hand, with more Republicans to vote for economically sound taxing and spend...

Euro regains ground against dollar
The euro has regained some ground against The Dollar after falling on worries about Europe's Debt crisis and a tax deal that could boost the U.S. economy. The euro bought $1.3291 in Thursday morning European trading — up from $1.3261 in New York late Wednesday. The British pound was barely changed at $1.5803 and The Dollar slipped to 83.84 Japanese Yen from 84.07 yen. A deal between Republican leaders and the White House foresees extending Tax Cuts on all income groups for two years while ...

As Democrats soften opposition, Senate set to begin debate on tax cuts
WASHINGTON -- Senate leaders plan to begin debate as soon as today on a far-reaching tax package as rank-and-file Democrats warm to an agreement between the White House and Republicans to extend a host of expiring Tax Cuts and pump fresh cash into The Economy. Democrats were still angry Wednesday about what they viewed as President Barack Obama's capitulation to GOP demands to preserve cuts for the wealthiest Americans, particularly a deal to exempt estates worth as much as $10 million from a r...

Can Pragmatism Pay Off?
President Obama's deal with Republicans to temporarily extend the Bush-era Tax Cuts is under withering attack from Liberals. One congressman likened it to "Gettysburg.'' But Democrats have actually won a major battle over public spending: in exchange for Tax Cuts for the rich, they've come away with hundreds of billions of dollars in new stimulus, something that seemed impossible a week ago. Given the general drift of politics since last month's election -- the elevation of the Tea Party, the d...

Tax cut deal cant be changed, Biden tells House Democrats
Vice President Biden told House Democrats on Wednesday that the tax agreement the White House struck with Republicans was essentially final, forcing the divided Caucus to decide whether to press its fight for changes in the package. “It’s up or down,” Biden told the Caucus in a closed-door meeting, according to Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.). “So far as the administration is concerned, it’s take it or leave it,” Rep. Peter Defazio (D-Ore.), one of the most vocal ...