Larry Summers: Tax cut plan will add consumer purchasing

Summers: Tax cut plan will add consumer purchasing
President Barack Obama's top economic adviser says targeted Tax Cuts, more exports and greater spending will help reverse a lack of consumer demand that threatens to constrain The Economy "now and for the next several years." Lawrence Summers, in his swan song Speech as head of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, said the tax cut plan negotiated with the president and Senate Republicans "averts what could have been a serious collapse in Purchasing Power." "And it adds far more fi...

Summers: Tax cut plan will add consumer purchasing (AP)
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's top economic adviser says targeted Tax Cuts, more exports and greater spending will help reverse a lack of consumer demand that threatens to constrain The Economy "now and for the next several years." Lawrence Summers, in his swan song Speech as head of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, said the tax cut plan negotiated with the president and Senate Republicans "averts what could have been a serious collapse in Purchasing Power." "An...

Obama narrows list of possible Summers successors (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House is narrowing its list of possible replacements for outgoing economic adviser Larry Summers to Yale University President Richard Levin, investment Banker Roger Altman and U.S. Treasury official Gene Sperling. Levin has met with President Barack Obama to discuss a job in the administration, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday. Altman has also met with the president. Sperling, a former Clinton Administration official, has helped spearhead Obama'...

Unemployment extension highly popular, poll finds
Although progressive Activists and Democratic members of the U.S. House hate the Obama-Republican deal on taxes and Unemployment extension, the American People like it, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. They especially like the Unemployment extension, which will see Insurance benefits extended for a year as The Economy steadily recovers but adds few jobs. Respondents to the poll favored the Unemployment extension by more than a two to one margin. Nearly 70 percent of those asked in a...

New Mexico senators split as tax-cut deal passes Senate test
The Tax Cut deal which includes extending tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000 a year is still going on right now due to inclement weather across the country but it already has more than enough votes to pass. The deal passed the Senate 83-15. Among those who voted against invoking Cloture, or ending debate and allowing a final up-and-down vote on the bill, is New Mexico’s senior senator, Jeff Bingaman. Sen. Tom Udall voted to invoke cloture on the deal made between the White Ho...

Obama takes center stage – this time as a moderate
It took a month for Barack Obama to make clear what he has learned from the Midterm Election “shellacking,” but the time has not been wasted. Future political historians are likely to trace his recovery – and re-election, if that’s what happens – back to decisions made in December. In these last few days, he has regained the economic initiative from the victorious Republicans, separated himself from the left of his own party and staked a strong claim to the terri...

Poll: Strong support for unemployment extension
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll found strong public support for most of the elements of President Obama’s Compromise deal with Republicans that would extend the Bush Tax Cuts and federal Unemployment Benefits — particularly the Unemployment extension, which was favored by more than 2/1 margin. Nearly 70 percent of those asked in a recent poll back a Bipartisan tax Compromise that is set for its first vote Monday afternoon on the Senate floor. Of the four major elements in the pa...

Deficit Fraud Romney: Jobless Benefits Are Too Expensive, But The Bush Tax Cuts Increase Revenue
Yesterday, the Senate approved the tax deal that President Obama negotiated with Congressional Republicans by an 83-15 vote. The Legislation now moves to the House, where Democrats are saying that they might tinker with the Estate Tax cut that Republicans are insisting upon. But it isn’t only on the left that opposition to the deal exists. A few House Republicans have disparaged the deal for including too few Tax Cuts and too much help for the jobless. In a USA Today op-ed today, former ...

Secondary Sources: Unemployment Benefits, Inequality and Finance, Larry Summers
By Phil Izzo A roundup of economic news from around the Web. - Unemployment Benefits: Ezra Klein posts a primer on Unemployment benefits. “There are three Unemployment Insurance programs right now: Basic Unemployment Insurance, Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Extended Benefits. The latter two are the extension programs. And they’re mindful that we’re not seeing the same rates of joblessness all across the country. North Dakota, for instance, has a very low unempl...

What Does an Unmanaged Macroeconomy Look Like?
In some very nice musings about Lawrence Summers's farewell address, Greg Ip commits one misstep when he writes that: What will scholars’ verdict of Mr Summers’ contribution be?... The pessimistic view... macroeconomic Activism failed because its success in the decades before the crisis sowed the seeds of ever more risk-taking and complacency... It is certainly possible that the relative macroeconomic calm of what we used to call the "Great Moderation" from 1985-2005 played a mater...

Obama applauds Senate test vote on tax cut plan
President Barack Obama is praising a test vote in the Senate supporting the Compromise tax plan he negotiated with Republicans. He says it proves both parties can work together. The president spoke at the White House on Monday after the Senate surpassed the 60-vote threshold it needed to advance the Legislation toward final passage. A vote that would send the proposal to the House is expected Tuesday. Obama says the plan would help create jobs by providing 13 months of jobless benefits to the un...

Obama narrows list of possible Summers successors
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is narrowing its list of possible replacements for outgoing economic adviser Larry Summers to Yale University President Richard Levin, investment Banker Roger Altman and U.S. Treasury official Gene Sperling. Levin has met with President Barack Obama to discuss a job in the administration, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday. Altman has also met with the president. Sperling, a former Clinton Administration official, has helped spearhead Obama's push for a...

Franken, Klobuchar back unemployment extension/tax-cut compromise
Supporters of President Obama’s Tax Cut Compromise with GOP Senate leadership defeated a threatened Filibuster by mostly Liberal Democrats through the use of Cloture Monday evening. Minnesota Democratic Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar were among those voting for cloture. The bill could see an Up or Down vote as soon as today. Klobuchar said she voted to advance the bill because of the middle-class tax cuts contained in it. Franken said he supports the measure reluctantly, citing an exte...

Poll: Broad bipartisan backing for tax package
WASHINGTON — About seven in 10 Americans back the tax deal negotiated last week by President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The high Bipartisan support for the package masks more tepid public approval for some of the main components of the deal that came before a key Senate vote Monday afternoon. A slender 11 percent of those polled back all four of the deal's primary tax provisions: an across-the-board extension of Bush-era ta...

Hoyer: Senate tax vote reflects 'urgency' for middle-class cuts
The overwhelming Senate vote to advance President Obama’s tax deal reflects an “urgency” to stop a middle-income tax hike, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday.   “The vote in the Senate indicates an urgency that is felt by a broad spectrum that middle-income taxes not be increased come Jan. 1,” Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters at his weekly press briefing. “In order to effect that, you’ve got to pass a bill.”   The tax Compromise that Obama

Obama-Republican Deal Could Mean Tax Hike For One In Three Workers
WASHINGTON - The tax deal reached between President Obama and congressional Republicans could mean a higher tax bill for roughly one in three workers as a result of the Social Security Tax Cut Republicans pushed as a replacement for the current Making Work Pay Tax Credit. The Making Work Pay credit gives workers up to $400, paid out at 8 percent of income, meaning that anybody making at least $5,000 gets the full amount -- and gets as much as anybody else. Its replacement knocks two percentag...

Group urges Congress to pass tax bill
Published: Dec. 13, 2010 at 5:45 PM Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks to reporters after a Republican Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on December 7, 2010. The Republicans met to discuss the current tax bill going through Congress. UPI/Kevin Dietsch WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Since the U.S Senate agreed to advance a bill that would keep lower Tax Rates and extend jobless benefits, a jobs-focused group urged Congress to pass the bill. The National Employment Law P...

Moodys Raises Specter of U.S. Downgrade After Tax Cut Deal
Pragmatism! Moody’s Investors Service, a leading credit Rating Agency, warned in a report on Monday that the Tax Cut Compromise could imperil the U.S. government’s top Aaa rating, though a downgrade remains highly unlikely. The Moody’s report pointed to provisions such as a temporary Payroll Tax holiday and extensions of Unemployment Insurance and the Bush-era tax cuts as likely to produce “substantially higher Budget Deficits,” even Accounting for an expected boo...

Romney opposes tax deal, with care
Mitt Romney, in an op-ed whose delay -- the tax deal has been out for a few days now -- reflects the exquisite care he's taken with his position, opposes it: The deal has several key features. It reduces Payroll taxes, extends Unemployment Benefits and keeps current Tax Rates intact. So far, so good. But intermixed with the benefits are considerable costs of consequence. Given the unambiguous...

Obama Raps With Buffett and Gates About Our Economy
Following the Farewell Speech of peevish genius Larry Summers, the outgoing chief of the National Economic Council, President Barack Obama got together with Billionaire buddies Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to talk about Philanthropy and, also, how to fix the horrible economy. Reuters reports: "During the visit, they also discussed ideas for growing The Economy and making America more competitive including investment in education to better prepare the next generation and investing in innovativ...

Federal Reserve Says 'Economic Recovery Is Continuing'; Holds Rates Steady
What is this? Saying that "information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in November confirms that the Economic Recovery is continuing, though at a rate that has been insufficient to bring down Unemployment," Federal Reserve policymakers just effectively said they're going to keep trying to give The Economy some gas in a bid to get it moving faster. You can read the FOMC's statement here. The Fed added that because unemployment (just under 10 percent, officially) is high and i...

Romney and Rove divided over tax cut deal
Republicans are increasingly divided on the deal to extend the Bush Tax Cuts that was hammered out by the Obama Administration and the Republican Congressional leadership. Potential 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney urged Congress to vote against the bill in an op-ed published Tuesday in USA Today. The temporary nature of the deal is Romney’s main objection, he writes. He acknowledges the traditional Republican argument that all Tax Cuts are good because they spur economic...

Payroll tax cut worries Social Security advocates (AP)
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's plan to cut Payroll taxes for a year would provide big savings for many workers, but makes Social Security advocates nervous that it could jeopardize the Retirement program's finances. The plan is part of a package of Tax Cuts and extended Unemployment Benefits that Obama negotiated with Senate Republican leaders. It would cut workers' share of Social Security taxes by nearly one-third for 2011. Workers making $50,000 in wages would get a $1,000 tax ...

Obama tax deal gets nod from Senate. Will House risk making changes?
Senators vote to end debate on GOP-Obama tax deal, clearing the way for its passage. Attention now shifts to the House, where Liberal Democrats are expected to discuss revisions. President Barack Obama speaks at the White House on Monday, in Washington. The Obama tax deal has been approved by the Senate, but Liberal Democrats in the House have to decide if they want to revise the bill. In a break with gridlock, the Senate voted 83 to 15 Monday to move ahead with a Bipartisan deal ­- f...

May I Sell Out, Please?
Here's a shocker: Fearless progressive blogger Kevin Drum can't buy into Barack Obama's tax sell-out fast enough. Why? Well, because it's popular: Support for the overall package was extremely high: 68% among Democrats and Independents and 75% among Republicans. But the breakdown in the chart above ought to give all of us lefties pause. It's great to see that extending Unemployment Benefits polled higher than any other element of the plan, but not so great that Bonus ta...