Tax Cut Plan Draws Ire from Left and Right

It Just Gets Better and Better to Be Rich In America
What a great week to be rich in America! On Monday, President Obama compromised with the Republicans on extending the Bush Tax Cuts, leaving no Millionaires or Billionaires behind. By Thursday, a generous estate-tax exemption was heaped onto the deal, permitting wealthy couples to leave up to $10 million to their families without needing to pay a single cent in tax. Gee, thanks, grandpa! So thoughtful of you! Both moves are certain to further concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer ve...

Bill Clinton's rebuke to Democrats: tax deal is 'best' Obama can get
In an impromptu news conference Friday at the White House, former President Clinton strongly endorsed President Obama’s Controversial tax-cut deal. House Democrats say Obama caved on tax-cut deal. Are they wrong? House Democrats block GOP-Obama tax deal. Is it dead? Bush Tax Cuts 101: Would extension boost the Economic Recovery? Mr. Clinton told reporters that, after reviewing the agreement the president reached with Republicans earlier this week, he felt it was “the best bipartis...

Black Caucus opposes Obama's tax plan
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Friday announced that they are overwhelmingly opposed to the deal President Obama has struck with Republicans on extending the Bush-era Tax Cuts and are proposing their own alternative that essentially hews to a plan House Democrats passed this month. Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was joined by CBC members Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Donald Payne (N.J.) and Donna Christensen (V.I.) in announcing the CBC's position on the pac...

Christine Pelosi: Democrats' Dilemma: Fall in Love or Fall in Line?
Many Democrats want a better vision for America than the initial deal struck with Republicans. Call us TARPed out - weary from Bailout fatigue, we just can't see meeting Republican hostage takers' demands. Watching Bill Clinton help Barack Obama extend George Bush Tax Cuts - something no one could have imagined nearly four years ago during the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary - it's easy to see why Democrats have cognitive dissonance. Here were two enormously popular Democratic l...

Liberal Democrat Calls Obamas Tax Cut Compromise Not Acceptable
A growing number of House Democrats are refusing to back President Obama's Tax Cut Compromise. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week, calling the proposal "fiscally irresponsible" and "grossly unfair." More than fifty House Democrats signed on. On Thursday, the House Democratic Caucus voted to reject the Tax Cut deal. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., told Fox News on Saturday that "The proposal that the president and the Republicans worked out is not acceptab...

Eugene Robinson - Democrats have no choice but to accept an irresponsible tax deal
Approve the lousy deal. It pains me to write those words, because the agreement President Obama negotiated with Republicans on Tax Cuts is really quite awful. I know that some Progressives have come to see the package as a cleverly disguised "second stimulus," but they're just rationalizing. The fact is that nobody would start from scratch and design an economic boost offering so little bang for so many bucks. This Story Swindle of the year Democrats have no choice but to accept an...

Random Observations
1. Ralph’s book (see below) is really great. He reconciles philosophy and moral responsibility on the deepest level, but without getting all Kantian on us. 2. Because I’m known for liking Compromises, why don’t I like the current one between Congress and the president (that may be unraveling)? It’s self-indulgent or easygoing-Tax Cuts and spending increases. If the current Recession is caused by excessive indebtedness (or not primarily cyclical), as many say, than...

Obama calls in Clinton to help with tax fight
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday called on a battle-scarred dealmaker, former President Bill Clinton, to help convince reluctant Democrats to back a Compromise tax plan before rates rise for most Americans in January. As Democrats in the House of Representatives sought to toughen provisions targeted at the wealthiest, Clinton urged them to pass the plan in its current form before they hand over control of the chamber to Republicans next month. "This is a much, much better...

"Death Tax" Could Deliver Stinging Blow to Small Business
When people talk about the Estate Tax, they may think of extremely wealthy people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but the tax could have a devastating impact on the small businesses community. Small manufacturers like a construction company or lumber yard. The reason is that most small businesses have equipment and buildings and land -- and the estate tax is levied on all those assets. "These businesses aren't just sitting on a pile of cash," Bill Rys of the National Federation of Independent...

Come Saturday Morning: Reasons to Fight the Obama/GOP Poor Tax
Why should we be melting down our phones telling our Senators and Congresscritters “Hell NO!” on this turkey? Let us count the reasons: - The poorer you are, the more of your disposable income you’re prone to spend. The richer you are, the more likely you are to sock it away somewhere. This is why a stimulus that mainly benefits the poor is far better for The Economy as a whole than one that mainly benefits the rich. Yet the Tax Cut framework actually forces poor people...

Charles Krauthammer Is the Fraud
Charles Krauthammer says that Obama has conned Republicans into agreeing to a second stimulus even bigger than the first. Democrats are too stupid to see this (and Republicans are even more stupid, presumably, since they are the Victims). Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It wi...

Right-wing pundits all too happy to help Democrats tear each other apart over Obama's tax-cut deal
-- by Dave Probably the most aggravating aspect of President Obama's deal with the devil hostage-takers of the Republican Party is the way both the act itself -- and Obama's churlish spurning of the people who elected him at yesterday's Press Conference -- has been the opening it has created for the crass opportunists of the right-wing pundit class. Guys like Sean Hannity, whose greatest aspiration of the past couple years has been to separate Obama from his supporters, have b...

Obama takes credit for compromise (Politico)
President Barack Obama reprised his defense of his Tax Cut Compromise with Republicans in his weekly address on Saturday, arguing that the fate of Middle Class families — and the still-fragile Economic Recovery — is at stake as lawmakers consider the proposal. “The opportunity for families to send their kids to college hinges on this debate,” Obama said. “And our recovery will be strengthened or weakened based on the choice that now rests with Congress.” The...

Obama Urges Congress To Pass Tax Deal
President Barack Obama answers questions on his Compromise on Tax Cuts, Unemployment Insurance and jobs on Tuesday at the White House. (Chuck Kennedy / White House) (NewsCore) - President Barack Obama used his weekly address Saturday to urge Congress to pass the tax cut deal he negotiated with Republicans ahead of a Jan. 1 deadline and amid opposition from some of his most stalwart supporters. "We hammered out a deal that reflects ideas from both sides. It wasn't easy, and it's by no means perfe...

With Obama, Clinton urges Dems to back tax deal (AP)
WASHINGTON – Bill Clinton implored Democrats to back the tax-cut deal that President Barack Obama negotiated with Republicans as the former president made a surprise appearance with Obama in the White House briefing room Friday — and later took over the podium. "I don't believe there is a better deal out there," Clinton told reporters who'd been summoned at a moment's notice to see the former chief executive back the current one. Clinton and Obama had just finished a private meetin...

Low Taxes Are the Problem, Not the Solution
Sen. Bernard Sanders speaks against Tax Cuts on the floor of the Senate on Friday. “Every Economist that I’ve talked to … acknowledges that this [tax] agreement would boost Economic Growth in the coming years and has the potential to create millions of jobs,” President Barack Obama said this week. But if low taxes are the solution, this must mean that high taxes are the problem. Yet the Bush Tax Cuts are already in effect; taxes are therefore low already, and the unemplo...

John McCain's Tax Cut Stance Seems To Have Dramatically Shifted
ThinkProgress: While it is certainly true that Obama has acquiesced on his principled stand against doling out unnecessary Tax Cuts to the rich, he's not the only one. In fact, John McCain was once a crusader against the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy. Read the whole story: ThinkProgress Get HuffPost Politics On Twitter and Facebook! Subscribe to the HuffPost Hill newsletter! Know something we don't? E-mail us at [email protected] ...

Clinton to the rescue?
From NBC's Athena Jones: With the fate of a tax deal reached with Republicans still uncertain, President Obama brought out one of his party's biggest guns to help drum up support for the agreement: former President Bill Clinton. The current president called on his predecessor in part to help convince angry Democrats -- especially in the House of Representatives -- to pull together to vote for a bill he believes will help spur Economic Growth and Job Creation and without which the economic recov...

Charles Krauthammer Responds To Clintons Brilliant Praise: Im Toast
Possibly lost to many during yesterday’s White House time warp was a somewhat surprising, hearty compliment from the former president to Washington Post columnist and beloved conservative Charles Krauthammer : “he’s a brilliant man.” Given a chance to respond on Hannity. Krauthammer seems a bit apprehensive about expressing gratitude, instead assuring Sean Hannity , “my career is done.” Krauthammer got a chance to explain his mostly tongue-in-cheek fears: R...

Ignore the disinformation: DREAM Act remains on track for Senate vote Monday
-- by Dave There was a lot of disinformation floating about yesterday regarding the DREAM Act's progress in the Senate, including Megyn Kelly and Shannon Bream on Fox, repeating long disproven canards about the Legislation -- embodied, perhaps, by the chryon running with the report calling the act "sweeping Immigration reform" (in reality, this law is very limited in its reach and scope, and falls far short of anything even remotely like comprehensive reform). Both of them characterized it (sec...

Harry Reid Sweetens Tax Cut Deal With Democrats Favorite Meat: Pork
Harry Reid is gathering his fellow Senate Democrats around the trough for another round of pork-laden backroom deals. (Heritage Foundation) Well now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has submitted a bill, and it is clear that negotiations are still very much open … at least for the left. Politico reports that in order to buy the votes of Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Reid added cash subsidies for wind and solar corporations that were orig...

Just a reminder, businesses do not pay taxes
Conservatives are up in arms over the fact that only approximately one half of the population pays income taxes.  I noticed Fox News was hitting this theme through out the week as the Congress decided to do nothing when it comes to the Bush Tax Cuts. This is a well intended distortion of the truth.  It is designed to make us angry over the fact that a huge number of Americans do not contribute to the government pie.  But it is a distortion.  Everyone pays income taxes, e...

Conrad says tax bill will pass, seeks changes to estate tax
Congress will approve Bipartisan tax Legislation brokered by the White House and Senate Republicans with few if any changes, lawmakers said Friday.  Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee in the 112th Congress, and Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) agreed that the plan will go forward although Conrad is keen to see the House adjust the Estate Tax rate.  "I hope the Estate Tax provisions are changed, because they went too far on Estate Tax relie...

House Democrats May Block Tax Cut Bill
House Democrats met Thursday and overwhelmingly voted to block the Bush Tax Cut extension Compromise announced earlier in the week by President Obama and Republican congressional leaders. Like what you see? Click here to sign up for Accounting Today's daily newsletter to get the latest news and behind the scenes commentary you won't find anywhere else. House Democrats were later reported to be planning to introduce several changes in the deal, including in the Estate Tax, which has provoked par...

House likely to pass reworked tax deal: aide
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives will likely pass next week, with some changes, the framework of President Barack Obama's plan to extend Tax Cuts, a senior Democratic aide said on Friday. The aide said that House Democrats intend to tighten the Estate Tax provisions in the Senate Bill prior to the House vote on the package. The House will likely begin consideration of the measure within days of its anticipated passage next week in the Senate, the aide said. (Reporting by Thoma...