The House passes the Senate bill 257-167 was the vote tally. Here’s the official list of yeas and nays: —- AYES 257 — Ackerman Alexander Altmire Andrews Baca Baldwin Barber Barletta Bass (CA) Bass (NH) Benishek Berkley Berman Biggert Bilbray Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Boehner Bonamici Bono Mack Boren Boswell Brady (PA) Brady (TX) Braley (IA) Brown (FL) Buchanan Butterfield Calvert Camp Capps Capuano Carnahan | Read More »
Perhaps the House Republicans need to consider reviving the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles package as their Republican bargaining strategy. Though the package isn’t perfect – Republicans cringe at the tax increases while Democrats despise the spending cuts – in many ways, it certainly is more reasonable than the offer currently on the table (a true “balanced approach”). The virtues of Simpson-Bowles right now are that it includes | Read More »
Here’s the scoop on the fiscal cliff Senate vote last night. Measure Number: H.R. 8 (Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012) Measure Title: An act entitled the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. Alphabetical by Senator Name. Those who voted NO or DID NOT VOTE are in bold Akaka (D-HI), Yea Alexander (R-TN), Yea Ayotte (R-NH), Yea Barrasso (R-WY), Yea Baucus (D-MT), Yea | Read More »
For those of you who have asked, I have produced an outline of my recent talk on the Fiscal Cliff: How We Got Here & Where Do We Go? This is a handy cheat sheet that outlines the problems that contributed to our current situation and what we can do to make long-lasting, systemic changes. Share far and wide. A. How Did We Get Here? | Read More »
Alan Reynolds over at CATO published a nice piece at National Review Online (NRO). He adeptly points out the fallacy of Obama’s claim that raising taxes on the top 2% will raise a princely sum of revenue to put toward our skyrocketing deficit. The Treasury Department calculated that raising the top two personal-income-tax rates — to 36 from 33 percent and to 39.6 from 35 | Read More »
In order to understand the magnitude of government spending, debt and fiscal cliff “solutions”, it is helpful to scale down the numbers to more manageable ones that we are more accustomed to. Most citizens cannot properly comprehend the magnitude of the government finances because the amounts with which we are dealing were — at one time — unimaginable. First, some basic facts: 1. Government annual | Read More »
In order to understand the magnitude of government spending, debt and fiscal cliff “solutions”, it is helpful to scale down the numbers to more manageable ones that we are more accustomed to. Most citizens cannot properly comprehend the magnitude of the government finances because the amounts with which we are dealing were — at one time — unimaginable. First, some basic facts: 1. Government annual | Read More »
Here’s a true story to ponder. A gentleman, one of my clients, recently sold his entire business that he founded. Having worked at it and worked hard for it his entire life (he is in his late 70′s), the company sold for around $600 million dollars. This is a classic example of the American Dream. From the sale of the company, his cut was around | Read More »
Tomorrow is the first Friday of the month — when unemployment numbers get released. This morning, Gallup released the results of its survey. It announced that, U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was 7.8% for the month of November, up significantly from 7.0% for October. Gallup’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 8.3%, nearly a one-point increase over October’s rate. . The article | Read More »
Howard Dean wants your money. The only problem is — and this is initially going to seem like heresy from a progressive is — the truth is everybody needs to pay more taxes, not just the rich. And it’s a good start. But we’re not going to get out of this deficit problem unless we raise taxes across the board, to go back to what | Read More »
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