Can Pragmatism Pay Off?

Why the Tax Deal Confirms the Republican Worldview
Apart from its extraordinary cost and regressive tilt, the tax deal negotiated between the President and the Republicans has another fatal flaw. It confirms the Republican worldview. Americans want to know what happened to The Economy and how to fix it. At least Republicans have a story - the same one they've been flogging for thirty years. The bad economy is Big Government's fault and the solution is to shrink government. Here's the real story. For three decades, an increasing share of the be...

Pennies From Heaven? Why the Government Fails at Playing Good Samaritan
Creating Prosperity “They need it.” That is becoming a well-nigh unanswerable argument in Washington today. Anytime programs are proposed that spend money on aid of some type, the final, clinching argument is usually to point to some individual or segment of society that is putatively in need, and whose need (it is implied) can only be met by government. The inference is, it would be cruel and heartless not to spend the money to help those people. “They need it” —...

Senate Republicans keep to stance, block 9/11 first responders health care bill
Senate Republicans stuck by their pledge to not allow any bills to come to the floor before Tax Cut Legislation was dealt with and successfully filibustered a Sept. 11, 2001 First Responders bill on Thursday. The Legislation would have given $7.4 billion in Health Care and compensation to 9/11 First Responders and survivors. It also would have reopened a compensation fund for 9/11 Victims. The bill failed 57-42, with 57 Democrats in favor of it, 41 Republicans in opposition and Senate Majority L...

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...

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...

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...

Items added to tax cut bill to draw support
WASHINGTON — As Democrats in Congress battled in public over a proposal to extend Bush-era Income Tax cuts, a group of Democratic lawmakers are pushing to make subtle changes to help sweeten the pot. The agreement worked out between President Obama and Republican lawmakers would extend the expiring cuts for all Taxpayers for two years, continue jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and cut Social Security Payroll taxes next year. Many Democrats have balked at the Compromise, particu...

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...

Larry Beinhart: WEIRD TAX MYTHS #2 - RECESSIONS, DEPRESSIONS & TAX POLICY
Our prevailing mythology is that Tax Cuts help The Economy. They stimulate it. They promote growth. They create jobs. The truth is that Tax Cuts cause crashes. Tax hikes end depressions and Recessions. Those are the broad strokes. They need some parameters and qualifications. In modern times - since the introduction of the Income Tax by Constitutional Amendment in 1913 - there have been three basic types of recession. 1. Post-war recessions come when war spending stops and the Workforce ...

"Supply-Side Economics: Tea Party Style"
Pro-Growth Liberal takes is puzzled by Michele Bachmann's complaint that extending Unemployment Insurance will increase the Deficit: Supply-side Economics: Tea Party Style: Andrew Leonard covers the opposition to the Obama-McConnell tax deal coming from Tea Party star Michele Bachmann. I’m tempted to say that her comments make me feel 30 years younger... After all, 30 years ago we were mocking supply-siders and their Laugher Curve. Andrew notes: And as for what the country can afford? Th...

"They'll be dead"
Congressman Anthony Wiener (D-NY), the epitome of self-righteous Socialist Liberalism, really showed America the Democrats’ true colors yesterday afternoon on Megyn Kelly’s “America Live” program. When the host asked Mr. Wiener to justify the death tax, which taxes someone’s assets after they die (though those assets were already taxed in life) at a rate of 35% (the House Democrats want it up to 45% or 55%, thus their hissy fit against the President this week), the ...

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

Friday Palin op-ed in the Journal: I endorse Paul Ryans roadmap on entitlements
It’s no secret that she’s a Ryan fan (see here and here for starters, as one Twitter pal reminded me) but as far as I know, this is the first time she’s explicitly endorsed his roadmap as her preferred blueprint for entitlement reform. Which, I think, is a Big Deal: Ryan’s problem all along has been that, for all the positive press he gets, he can’t get the Republican leadership to talk seriously about entitlements for fear that doing so will scare off seniors and...

Giant Aspen
This is old, but I just stumbled across it on WashingtonMonthly: In every industrial Democracy since the end of World War II, there has been a social contract between the few and the many. In return for receiving a disproportionate amount of the gains from Economic Growth in a capitalist economy, the rich paid a disproportionate percentage of the taxes needed for public goods and a safety net for the majority. [....] Globalization has eliminated the first reason for the rich to continue suppor...

Obama continues tax push
President Obama , with the help of business leaders, kept up the pressure on members of Congress to pass a tax deal reached with Republicans that would extend Bush-era Tax Rates for all income levels for two years and extend Unemployment Insurance for 13 months, along with other measures. The president used a meeting of his Export Council to act on the agreement, which he believes is essential to The Economy's continued recovery. "Every Economist that I've talked to, or that I've read over the l...

Dems spending costs Americans retirement dreams
The Free Market has judged the policies of President Obama and Congress during the last two years, and the verdict is in: the Spending Spree from Democrat-dominated Washington has led to a dramatic decline in asset values and reduced Americans' Retirement Savings, analysts are telling WND. In short, the Deficit spending has dampened the American Dream and dealt American Citizens a bad hand. "Two years after the Financial Crisis, our economy is still wallowing in misery," James DiGeorgia, publi...

Renewable energy industry banking on more grants
WASHINGTON—Officials in the wind industry say that a hard-fought extension of a cash grant program for Renewable Energy will be a lifeline for domestic producers, saving tens of thousands of jobs. "Factories across the country will restart production lines, recall workers and avoid layoffs that would have followed the loss of this key incentive for Wind Energy, which with consistent policies like this one can generate 20 percent of America's electricity within 20 years," Denise Bode, CEO ...

Senate tax-cut bill lures Dems
The Senate released its bill Thursday to extend the Bush-era Tax Cuts for two years, but also renews a host of more minor tax provisions aimed at winning over recalcitrant Democrats in the House and Senate. The bill, which faces its first key test vote Monday in the Senate, mirrors the deal that President Barack Obama struck earlier this week with Republicans. It extends the Tax Cuts for all Americans regardless of income, renews jobless benefits for one year and reinstates the Estate Tax at ...

Democrats defy Obama, oppose tax deal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Angry Democrats in the House of Representatives defied President Barack Obama on Thursday and rejected a deal he struck with Republicans to extend low Tax Rates that are set to expire in three weeks. While unlikely on its own to derail the tax plan, the House Democrats' rebellion gives Obama another political Headache just over a month after he took a beating in mid-term Elections. In a raucous, closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, mutinous Democrats chanted "Just say no!"...

Rep. Gary Ackerman: Tax Cut Deal Is GOP's 'Wet Dream Act'
© Huffington Post Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-New York) used a crude play on words Wednesday, when he described what he saw as Obama's gift to the GOP in the recent Tax Cut deal as the "Republican Wet DREAM Act" -- apparently no relation to the actual Dream Act. "Members of the Democratic Caucus are saying 'why should we take this vote, we're gonna get blamed for adding to the Deficit,'" Ackerman told MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan in his analysis of the potential political consequences of passing Obam...

"F%$& the President"
Dems are keeping it classy: The frustration with President Barack Obama over his Tax Cut Compromise was palpable and even profane at Thursday's House Democratic Caucus meeting. One unidentified lawmaker went so far as to mutter "f-- the president" while Rep. Shelley Berkley was defending the package the president negotiated with Republicans. Berkley confirmed the incident, although she declined to name the specific lawmaker. "It wasn't loud," the Nevada Democrat said. "It was just expressing f...

"F%$& the President"
The frustration with President Barack Obama over his Tax Cut Compromise was palpable and even profane at Thursday’s House Democratic Caucus meeting. One unidentified lawmaker went so far as to mutter “f— the president” while Rep. Shelley Berkley was defending the package the president negotiated with Republicans. Berkley confirmed the incident, although she declined to name the specific lawmaker. “It wasn’t loud,” the Nevada Democrat said. “It was ...

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 cut: Democrats lose civility as they refuse to 'cave in' (Video)
“F*** the president," mutterings have shocked the nation as Democrats steel one another and  themselves against enabling Obama as he, realistically, attempts  to move to the center-left to keep government functioning.  Today, marked the beginning of total exposure of  the civility charade among Democrats  - whether it's the slow death of a presidency remains to be seen. Democratic politicians didn't hold back today, angrily denouncing President Obama. Following is ...

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