Leo W. Gerard: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Oligarchy

Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like Oligarchy
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas Ev’rywhere you go; Take a look in Tiffany’s store, glistening once again With Wall Street Bonus trinkets all aglow. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas Art flies from Christie’s. But the amazing sight to see is the Tax Cut guarantee For the most wealthy. Hedge funders content, still paying 15 percent Is the wish of Boehner and Mitch. Help these hurt least by financial crises Is the Chamber of Commerce pitch. And the GOP and

House passes Senate Tax Bill now awaits Presidents signature
The House just held a final vote to past the Senate Tax Bill (which passed yesterday), the House passed the Bill by a vote of 277-148. The Senate tax Bill was brokered by President Obama and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier this month after the Republicans held 2 million unemployed Americans hostage as their Unemployment Benefits were set to expire around Christmas Day. The Republicans also held millions of Middle Class working American families hostage as well by saying...

Unemployment extension, tax cuts pass U.S. House
The U.S. House of Representatives passed President Barack Obama’s Compromise bill to extend the Bush-era Tax Cuts in full for two years and federal Unemployment Benefits for one year late Thursday night after first rejecting an amendment to change the Estate Tax provisions of the agreement. In an unusual split for Iowa’s delegation, Democratic U.S. Reps. Leonard Boswell and Dave Loebsack joined Republican Tom Latham to support the bill, with Democrat Bruce Braley and Republican Steve...

House Passes Controversial Tax Legislation
What is this? The Controversial package extends long term Unemployment Benefits to jobless Americans and cuts Social Security taxes for a year. It renews some Bush-era Tax Cuts that were about to expire. AP notes the new expiration date for these Tax Cuts is 2012: right at the end of an election year. It passed the House 278-177, but NPR's Andrea Seabrook tells Morning Edition many Democrats hated it because it didn't require wealthier Americans to pay more in taxes, while Republicans mourned th...

Obama-McConnell Conservative Consensus Triumphs Over Working Families
Any Member of the outgoing 111th Congress wondering if they should apply for Reelection help from Blue America for the 2012 midterms can consult this page from the House Clerk's official roll call on the Obama/McConnell job-killing/economy devastating tax giveaway to Millionaires and Billionaires. Any Incumbent who voted YES-- and there were 139 Democrats who went along with this Conservative Consensus travesty-- should save themselves the trouble and the inevitable rejection of even asking fo...

Tell the President: Stand Up to the Hostage-Takers! Defend Social Security and Medicare.
Republican hostage-takers got President Obama to go along with their Tax Cuts for the wealthy by threatening to raise taxes on the Middle Class and blocking even modest stimulus funds for our struggling economy. Now the Republicans have identified their next hostage: They're going to threaten to destroy the international financial stability of the United States by refusing to raise the Debt ceiling. What are they demanding for ransom? They want President Obama to slash Social Security and Med...

Tell the President: Stand Up to the Hostage-Takers! Defend Social Security and Medicare.
Republican hostage-takers got President Obama to go along with their Tax Cuts for the wealthy by threatening to raise taxes on the Middle Class and blocking even modest stimulus funds for our struggling economy. Now the Republicans have identified their next hostage: They're going to threaten to destroy the international financial stability of the United States by refusing to raise the Debt ceiling. What are they demanding for ransom? They want President Obama to slash Social Security and Med...

Citizens group nixes tax cap
ALBANY -- Earlier this week, a group of municipal and school officials said Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo's proposed Property Tax cap would be unworkable unless they had leeway to freeze Public Employee pay or get greater power when it comes to bargaining Pension and Health Care deals with their unions. On Thursday, another collection of people ranging from teachers' union supporters to local officials said they believe a cap is a bad idea and should be replaced with a circuit breaker that would grant...

Congressman Jared Polis - the story behind the story on the tax compromise bill
Congressman Polis was kind enough to talk to me last night and explain what was going on behind the scenes on the tax Compromise bill from the Democratic House perspective. It's a fascinating story with several parts posturing, several parts negotiating, and a sprinkling of making a point. It's not politics as we learn it in the textbooks, but it is politics as it is actually practiced. And thank you to Jared for laying out what was actually going on. (I think how Jared and others in the House h...

Bill Preventing Tax Hikes Heads to Obama
(WASHINGTON) — A massive Bipartisan tax package preventing a big New Year's Day tax hike for millions of Americans is on its way to President Barack Obama for his signature. The measure would extend Tax Cuts for families at every income level, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and enact a new one-year cut in Social Security taxes that would benefit nearly every worker who earns a wage. In a remarkable show of Bipartisanship, the House gave final approval to the measure...

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
Friday opinion. By the way, while the East Coast slept Congress at midnight Thursday approved an $801 billion package of Tax Cuts and $57 billion for extended Unemployment Insurance. The vote sealed the first major deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans as Democrats put aside their objections and bowed to the realignment of power brought about by their crushing election losses. Steven Pearlstein: That said, a lot of the explanations given by Republicans themselves don't q...

Obama to sign tax cut extension deal
President Obama will sign the much-debated Tax Cuts extension and offer a public statement from the White House on Friday afternoon, according to two administration officials. The package includes a two-year extension of the Bush-era Tax Cuts set to expire December 31. It also would extend Unemployment Benefits for 13 months, cut the Payroll Tax by 2 percentage points for a year, restore the Estate Tax at a lower level and continue a series of other Tax Breaks....

Congress passes extension of Bush-era tax cuts
Congress approved the most significant tax bill in nearly a decade late Thursday, overcoming liberal resistance to continue for two more years Tax Breaks enacted under president George W. Bush and to provide a fresh boost of federal support to the tepid Economic Recovery. This Story Congress passes extension of Bush-era Tax Cuts Senate Democrats give up on earmark-laden spending bill Brown Says Tax Cuts Blow `Outrageous' Hole in Deficit Republicans and tax cuts? Now that's rich. Graphic: How ...

Bill preventing big tax hikes heads to Obama
WASHINGTON — A massive Bipartisan tax package preventing a big New Year’s Day tax hike for millions of Americans is on its way to President Barack Obama for his signature. The measure would extend Tax Cuts for families at every income level, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and enact a new one-year cut in Social Security taxes that would benefit nearly every worker who earns a wage. In a remarkable show of Bipartisanship, the House gave final approval to the measur...

Bill Preventing Big Tax Hikes Heads to Obama
Friday, December 17, 2010 By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California heads into a Democratic Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is at left and Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., is at center. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg) Washington (AP) - A massive Bipartisan tax package preventing a big New Year's Day tax hike for millions of Americans is on its way to President Barack Obama for his signature. The measure would ...

U.S. Congress passes Obama tax deal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress gave final approval late on Thursday to the deal President Barack Obama and Republicans made to extend expiring Tax Cuts -- a high-stakes gamble to create jobs at a cost of deepening the U.S. Debt. U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Annual Review from the White House Briefing Room in Washington December 16, 2010. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque) Over objections from many of Obama's fellow Democrats, the House of Represent...

The beginning of the end for the President?
Congress has passed sweeping Legislation to extend the so-called Bush Tax Cuts to all, while also extending Unemployment Benefits for 13 months. On the surface, it seems like the sort of Bipartisan piffle which many claim that the American public desire. The Republicans got what they wanted: the Tax Cuts preserved for even the wealthy. The Democrats got what they wanted: an extension of Unemployment benefits. Isn't that, presumably, the very definition of Compromise? Perhaps; but it also leaves ...

Twas The Lame Duck Before Christmas
A little Christmas satire that didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. But I already typed it out and everything so … Consider this an open thread. A Lame Duck Christmas ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when scared like a mouse, A lame duck was stirring, Both in Senate and House. November Elections, still hung in the air (though most of the Democrats just didn’t care.) Their omnibus nestled, all snug and unread, And visions of pork barrels danced in their heads. ...

Wonkbook: What went right, and what went wrong, in Congress last night
Congress was up late last night. First, something that could've gone wrong didn't. The tax deal passed, and despite a day of peculiar haggling over the way the vote would go down, most House Democrats joined with most House Republicans to protect the deal from amendment and pass it through the chamber. It doesn't have to go back to the Senate, a new round of negotiations isn't needed. It's done. But then, something that wasn't supposed to go wrong did. Harry Reid announced he didn't have enough...

Bush Tax Cuts Extended
Bowing to economic realities and the will of the American People, a Lame Duck Democratic Congress on Thursday extended Income Tax relief for all American Taxpayers for at least the next two years - keeping as much as $800 billion out of the hands of the Federal Government. By a vote of 277-148, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a tax Compromise reached two weeks ago by Congressional Republicans and U.S. President Barack Obama. Under the deal, Income Tax relief (and Dividend and ca...

Obama to sign tax bill today
President Barack Obama will sign the $858 billion tax bill into law Friday, a White House official said. The signing will take place during a White House event this afternoon, the official said Friday. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 It will come only hours after the bill cleared its last major hurdle, final passage in the House around midnight Thursday by a comfortable margin, 277-148. But there's a reason for the rush: The current Income Tax rates expire Dec. 31, putting...

Tax Cuts For The Rich, Painful Cuts For The Rest
Already passed by the Senate, the House probably votes today (late addition -- maybe not) on extending the Tax Cuts for the rich and permanently cutting the Estate Tax to a very, very low level. It is hard to convey just how dispiriting this is to Progressives who worked so hard to reach and persuade people and get them to the polls in 2008 to vote for "change." The "change" was not supposed to be about giving even more breaks to the wealthy and big corporations while doing less for the rest ...

Econ 101: AACF On Capital Gains
Cutting Arkansas’ already generous capital gains taxes would benefit only the super wealthy, with three quarters of the Tax Break going to the top 1 percent of Taxpayers, according to an analysis by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Taxpayers making more than $352,000 a year would pay on average $7,142 less per year in taxes if capital gains taxes were eliminated in Arkansas. That compares to a Tax Break of $2 per year for middle-income workers . Under House Bill 1002, the top ...

US Congress passes contentious Obama tax deal (AFP)
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US lawmakers gave final approval to President Barack Obama's contentious deal with Republicans to avert a New Year's tax hike and extend aid to the jobless, despite a Democratic rebellion. A day after the Senate passed the package by an 81-19 margin, the House of Representatives followed suit 277-148, sending the measure to Obama to sign and reap a restorative Bipartisan victory six weeks after an Elections rout. The 858-billion-dollar measure was expected to g...

US tax cuts given final approval
US MPs have given final approval to President Barack Obama's contentious deal with Republicans to avert a New Year's tax hike and extend aid to the jobless, despite a Democratic rebellion. A day after the US Senate passed the package by an 81-19 margin, the House of Representatives followed suit 277-148, sending the measure to Obama to sign and reap a restorative Bipartisan victory six weeks after an Elections rout. The $US858 billion ($A869.3 billion) measure was expected to give the American e...