Bennet to Support Obama-GOP Tax Plan

The Eerily Prescient Mr. Brooks
The NY Times is now front-paging the notion that David Brooks floated (as a trial balloon on behalf of the White House?) last week - Obama is considering a re-branding as a champion of tax simplification and reform. I thought, and think, that the idea is absurd, as explained in my earlier post.  Still, here was Brooks imagining a bold declaration from Obama: We will extend the Bush rates for everybody for one year, along with Unemployment Benefits. But during that year we will enact a co...

Progressives Keeping Heat on Obama
One progressive group sure doesn’t mind using President Obama’s words against him. In a new television advertisement, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is using a Speech Mr. Obama gave on the stump in 2008 to criticize the recent Compromise over the Bush Tax Cuts. In the spot, Mr. Obama calls out Senator John McCain, the Republican Candidate for president in 2008, for supporting tax cuts for the wealthy after previously opposing them. “Well, they may have stopped offending John

More on the Tax Deal
Thu Dec. 9, 2010 6:37 PM PST This is going to be unbearably wonky, so I apologize in advance. But I was thinking some more about Paul Krugman's contention that Obama's tax Compromise plan might hurt his Reelection chances rather than help them. He bases this on two things. First, Mark Zandi's economic forecast suggests that the tax plan will improve GDP growth in 2011 but reduce it in 2012 (compared to a baseline forecast). Second, Larry Bartels has shown that voters are myopic: they pay far mo...

Let's discuss the "failed economicy policies of President George W. Bush
Are you better off today under the leadership of President Barack Hussein Obama than you were during the two terms of President George W. Bush? Let's not even go near the issue of feeling safer from the acts of Jihadists and the embarassment the current President showed during his international bowing tour appologizing to the world for America's greatness. Polls released today by Bloomberg indicate more than 50% of Americans say they are worse off now than they were two years ago when Presiden...

Ritter backs Obama on tax cuts just as U.S. House bucks president on the plan
Gov. Bill Ritter weighed in today on the battle in Washington over keeping Bush-era Tax Cuts. He’s backing the president, despite the U.S. House having just rejected the deal with Republicans. “As a Governor, I have seen first hand what this economic downturn - the worst since the Great Depression - has done to Colorado families, Small Business, ranches and farms, and especially to those who have lost their jobs,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “This is no

Why Are U.S. Interest Rates Finally Going Up?
Ryan Avent: American Deficits: The deal, and the yields | The Economist: [Y]ields that rise because the government's solvency is in question are very different from yields that rise because the Private Sector is competing for the private savings government has lately gobbled up. Which kind of rise in yields are we seeing now?... Over the whole of the past week, yields have been generally flat, even as it became clear that a deal on the Bush Tax Cuts was likely. And most of the Budget impact in...

Obama skips debt commission meeting
WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Obama did not attend a White House meeting Thursday with members of his own Debt commission, irking some of the Democrats on the panel who were expecting a high-level push from the commander-in-chief to show that its comprehensive Deficit reduction plan is being taken seriously by the White House. "He should have at least dropped by," one Democratic member of the Debt commission told CNN, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he wanted to speak mor...

Carl Pope: The Untold Story of the Tax Deal
Washington, D.C. -- The Senate Democrats actually had the votes they needed to pass Unemployment extenders and middle-class Tax Cuts -- if they had used the Senate rules as if they wanted to win. Tax and spending changes like these are immune to Filibusters as long as the Senate, by a majority vote, chooses to use the Budget Reconciliation process. That's how the Bush Tax Cuts were enacted in the first place -- because Bush didn't have 60 votes for them in the Senate, either. Indeed, getting ...

House Democrats revolt, reject unemployment compromise
The Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House voted this afternoon to reject the Compromise deal negotiated between President Obama and the Republican leadership to extend both federal Unemployment Benefits and the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The House Democratic Caucus voted to oppose President Barack Obama’s tax plan, throwing into flux weeks of negotiations on an issue that has turned many congressional Democrats against the White House. Oregon Rep. Peter Defazio offered a res...

The Obama-George H.W. Bush Comparison
In today’s New York Times, Jon Meacham, who is writing a biography of former president George H.W. Bush, points out the historical parallels between Obama’s economic negotiations today and the ones that were going on in 1990: It was in 1990 that Mr. Bush broke one of the most celebrated promises in modern American politics —“Read my lips: no new taxes,” as he put it in 1988 — in order to control federal spending. In the same way that Mr. Obama struck his dea...

Dems irked by flood of e-mails
By CAROL E. LEE Politico.com 12/09/10 12:43 Members of Congress don’t really need another reason to be angry at President Obama, but the barrage of e-mails from the White House this week announcing support for the Tax Cuts deal he cut with Republicans is starting to irk Democrats on the Hill. “Where the hell was this operation when we were trying to pass Health Care?” said one senior Democratic leadership aide. Some Democrats, already seething over their losses in the Nov. 2 election an

Bennet will vote yes on Obamas tax cuts for all
Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet oft waxed on the Campaign Trail of finding a Compromise on extending former President Bush’s Tax Cuts. His Republican opponent supported extending all of them. Colorado’s House Democrats only wanted to keep cuts in place that would affect middle-income earners. Bennet said Wednesday he would support the deal in the interest of getting something accomplished, though he wishes the cuts — particularly those for the wealthy — were only extended ...

Tax cut highlights
_ Extends, for two years, lower Tax Rates for Taxpayers at every income level, lower taxes on capital gains and dividends, marriage penalty relief, more generous child Tax Credits and education tax credits. Cost: $408 billion. _ A patch that would spare more than 20 million people from a significant Tax Increase from the alternative minimum tax in 2010 and 2011. Cost: $137 billion. _ A lower tax on wealthy estates for two years. Under the provision, the first $5 million of a couple's estate co...

President Clinton to Meet with President Obama Friday
Fox News confirms that former President Bill Clinton will be at the White House for a meeting with President Obama Friday. The meeting comes as Obama is facing a tough fight with his own party over a Compromise he reached with Republicans on the Bush-era Tax Cuts. On top of that, Obama is just a few weeks shy of dealing with a GOP-controlled House, and a Senate that is slightly more red. Obama himself called the historic GOP outcome of the midterms a "shellacking." Clinton has been praised for h...

Rep. DeFazio: Democratic Opposition to Tax Deal Nearly Unanimous
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: House Democrats are in open rebellion against the White House over tax policy, and are threatening to reject the Compromise that President Obama reached with Republicans until or unless negotiations are reopened to reflect their concerns.  On ABC’s “Top Line,” Rep. Peter Defazio - who led the effort to have the Democratic Caucus vote to reject the deal today - told us that opposition to the tax deal is “nearly unanimous”

Rand Paul: Im leaning against the tax compromise
Posted by Jennifer Caballero on Dec 9 2010 Filed under Economy, News & Opinion, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry Is this a sign of things to come? Rand Paul says what he has heard about this tax Compromise among GOP leaders and Obama leaves him worried about the spending attached when it comes to the Estate Tax and a continuation of Unemployment Benefits. He told Wolf Blitzer in an interview, as o...

House Democrats say Obama caved on tax-cut deal. Are they wrong?
By one analysis of the deal on extending the Bush Tax Cuts, Obama got more than the Republicans did. The measures he sought cost three times more than those the GOP sought. But can that help him change the minds of Democrats on Capitol Hill?...

Obama's Tax Deal Is Disastrous ... Compared to What?
If you're just joining us for news about Obama's Compromise on the Bush Tax Cuts, here's how to catch up. -- The plan's outline is here. -- If you don't know what to think, choose from the buffet of reactions here. -- Top Democratic mayors support the plan here. -- House Democrats reject the plan here. -- The Bush Tax Cuts, Unemployment Benefits and Payroll Tax cuts -- three key elements of the plan -- are explained here, here and here. The last point I want to make on the Bush tax cut comp...

Senate Republicans vote against health care for 9/11 responders
Really, The New York Times headline says it all: Republicans Block U.S. Health Aid for 9/11 Workers It seems like only yesterday that Republicans were calling them heroes -- today, not so much: Republican senators blocked Democratic Legislation on Thursday that sought to provide medical care to Rescue Workers and residents of New York City who became ill as a result of breathing in toxic fumes, dust and smoke from Ground Zero. With this defeat, the bill's only chance may be to attach it to th...

Circling the Toilet Bowl
From Michelle Malkin Small-Biz Killers: Who Pays for Jobless Benefits? Today’s column takes a closer look at how small businesses are getting whacked by skyrocketing Unemployment Insurance tax hikes across the country. Friends of mine here in Colorado Springs first alerted me to their massive bills, which have arrived over the past two weeks. Business owners from several other states have written me with similar horror stories — and I’ve included some of their experiences below. It’

Holding Tea And No Tea At The Same Time
And of course to do this, you need to remove the common sense particle inside your own mind. Michele Bachmann did this some time ago as she demonstrates that cutting the Estate Tax costs nothing because Tax Cuts are giving money back to people, but Payroll Tax cuts are unacceptable because they lower government revenue, and she comes up with this in roughly a two minute span. BACHMANN:[W]e’re pleased to see that we’re looking at a two percent reduction in the Payroll tax, what we no...

Foreigners flock to Treasuries
If foreigners have had their fill of Treasuries, they sure have a funny way of showing it. More than 60% of Government Bond issuance in the Third Quarter was sucked up by international investors, the Fed said Thursday in its quarterly flow of funds report. The U.S. government issued $391 billion of Treasuries during the third quarter, according to the data. The "rest of the world" category accounted for $245 billion of purchases, bringing foreign ownership of outstanding U.S. Debt to 47%. The re...

In Dissing Unemployment Insurance Extension, Cavuto And Guest Ignore CBO Analysis Of Its Stimulative Effects
On the December 7, 2010 Your World, Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal spoke about the part of the Tax Cut deal that would extend jobless benefits for another 13 months. Neil Cavuto introduced him as "one of my favorite guests of allll time!" That was after a Fox News Alert announcing that the Labor Department had reported “a surge in job openings.” Cavuto framed the discussion by “asking, “Should Congress simply consider this” before it votes to extend unempl...

How Obama Should Have Sold the Tax Plan
Of all the surprising recent happenings, perhaps most shocking is President Obama’s sudden attack of political laryngitis. The once-gifted orator’s announcement of his tax Compromise with Republicans was painful to watch. Not only did the president appear uncomfortable - on the order of someone suffering an attack of gout - he also garbled his message. Instead of selling Americans on his plan to extend and in fact enhance the Bush-era Tax Cuts, he was defensive and apolog...

Deficit commission chiefs call for serious action on fiscal report
Reporting from Washington — Amid wrangling over an expensive tax measure, the co-chairmen of President Obama's Bipartisan fiscal commission called on the White House and lawmakers to begin seriously tackling the nation's Deficit challenge in the new year. Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and ex-Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, who led the 18-member Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, met Thursday morning with Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew and Tre...