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Does Nancy Pelosi have any leverage in fiscal cliff talks?By Sargent and Greg Sargent The Washington Post Posted Nov 29, 2012 08:51 PM EST With John Boehner continuing to (publicly) rule out a hike in tax rates for the rich, Nancy Pelosi fired back today by drawing her own hard lines. She told reporters that another round of big spending cuts is unacceptable, and in an interview with NPR, she rebuffed the idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age. Which raises a question: Does Pelosi have any leverage in the talks to begin with? The Beltway chatter holds that she...

Washington (CNN) - After two years of endless debate and a national election, Democrats and Republicans on Thursday found themselves right where they started -- blaming each other for stagnant negotiations on taxes and government spending. This time, they face an imminent deadline of automatic tax increases and spending cuts in 33 days -- the looming fiscal cliff at the end of the year that economists fear could cause another recession. After meeting separately with President Barack Obama's point man on the talks, top congressional Democrats and Republicans said the failure to move forward was the other side's fault. House...

We apprehensively advance through this nail biting moment in history as a great Nation floats, uncertain, caught in a holding pattern, hoping its leadership will find wisdom enough to avert the so called Fiscal Cliff, even if most of us don’t fully comprehend what such a cliff entails, or even if such a thing exists. We’re too busy struggling, hanging on to whatever we have, hoping for stability, and hoping that tomorrow brings some relief to our stress.So let’s look for a little insight into what astute and gifted minds are really doing deep in the core of the...

Word is slowly seeping out for Washington about a grand bargain being worked out between Barack Obama and John Boehner. As we hear about the negotiations, the obvious question to be asked is, does Boehner and the Republican leadership in the House even have a clue? What is going on that is so dangerous? The Republicans are going to surrender on taxes. According to published reports a deal is going to be made. It is your typical Republican deal. The GOP will agree to a trillion in new taxes and there will be spending cuts in the future. When will...

We are cruising towards the fiscal cliff. The John Boehner leadership of the House is fighting Barack Obama and the Party of Treason. The issue is will some or all of the Bush tax cuts be extended and will there be cuts in spending or will the so-called “sequestration” kick in and force automatic and ill-advised spending cuts in key areas like defense. Is there an alternative to this mess? If there is, what is it? Here is the alternative. Do nothing. Will that be a good thing? Not really. It is simply better than the alternative. Why is it...

<p>Pete Peterson. Peterson founded, funded or supported most of the institutions in Washington devoted to publicizing the problem of the deficit, including ... documentary “I.O.U.S.A.”</p> <p>Bill Clinton. By the time Clinton left office, politicians were beginning to talk about perpetual surpluses, in exactly the same way that hucksters on Wall Street were talking about a perpetual bull market.</p>

Two weeks after raising its regular quarterly dividend, Brown-Forman (BFB n.a.) declared a special cash dividend of $4.00 a share on Tuesday as it looks to return money to shareholders ahead of the fiscal cliff deadline that could significantly raise dividend taxes. The maker of alcoholic beverages like Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, Southern Comfort, Korbel and Woodford Reserve said the special dividend will be paid on Dec. 27 to shareholders of record on Dec. 12. A slew of companies, including Wal-Mart (WMT), have been moving up the date of their dividend to save shareholders a bundle of money on taxes...

If federal tax cuts that are under review are not extended, Michigan residents could end up paying the equivalent of double their state income tax rate, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation looked at the alternative minimum tax (which includes the child tax credit), the Bush tax cuts (which refers to changes to the tax codes that lowered income tax rates) and the 2 percent tax cut to employee-side social security payroll taxes that all expire at the end of the year. The tax cuts are part of the so-called “fiscal cliff” debate. Michigan residents...

The Republicans keep putting new tax revenue on the table (capping deductions), Warren Buffet suggests increasing tax rates on households earning $500k and above, but President Obama and Democrats replied “Nyet.” It is always a risky proposition to raise taxes when the economy is so fragile. Speaking of a fragile economy, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index printed at -0.56 for October and a previous reading of 0.00 in September. A print of -0.56 indicates economic contraction. Meanwhile, down in Texas, the Dallas Fed’s Manufacturing Outlook Level of General Business Activity was expected to print at +2.5, but printed at...

The sky is not falling. That's according to Steven Kyle, an expert in macroeconomics and government policy, and a professor of management at Cornell University's Dyson School of Applied Economics, who offered his comments on the potential economic implications of Congress and President Barack Obama failing to come to an agreement ahead of the Jan. 1, 2013 "Fiscal Cliff" deadline. “The fiscal cliff isn't an emergency that requires most people to take immediate action," he said. "Actually, it is more of a slope than a cliff. The "Fiscal Cliff" refers to the effect of laws that, if unchanged, could result...

Veteran political analyst Pete Davis offers up a list of possible impediments to a deal on avoiding the fiscal cliff: 1. President Obama insists on a tax rate increase on those earning $250,000 or more, and House Republicans balk; 2. President Obama and Democrats refuse to accept revenue increases that won’t be scored by CBO, i.e. that depend upon tax reform and/or upon an assumed increase in economic growth; 3. President Obama insists on a Making Work Pay tax credit to replace the lost 2% payroll tax cut for working Americans that Republicans won’t accept; 4. House Republicans insist on...

As you're most likely already aware, Greece imploded dramatically once they hit about 170% debt-to-GDP ratio. But what you may not know is that America is well on pace to dig a proportionally even deeper hole -and on a far greater scale.  Alas, when we go belly-up, they'll be nobody big enough to bail us out- and you libs can kiss your beloved entitlements bye-bye forever. The harsh reality comes via Doug Ross: Suffice it to say that no country in history has ever survived a 195% debt-to-GDP ratio without devastating economic repercussions.  Yet that is the course Barack Obama, Harry...

Supply-siders and Keynesians don’t agree on much these days, but when it comes to the alleged “fiscal cliff”, both sides are in agreement that jumping off this ledge would bring tragic economic consequences. Though a strong believer in supply-side principles, I believe even more strongly that conventional wisdom is nearly always wrong. It’s wrong here. Before getting into why the grand assumptions surrounding the fiscal cliff are ridiculous, it’s best to explain why we’ll never reach this ranch-style house “plunge” onto soft ground. We won’t because the incentives that drive politicians ensure a deal. That’s the case because with the...

A rift has emerged between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over the timing of a deficit-reduction deal, which they discussed at the White House Friday. The disagreement stems from a battle for leverage. Democrats want to strike an agreement now, when their political capital is at a high point following the election. They feel their position is further strengthened by the pending expiration of the Bush tax cuts and scheduled cuts to defense spending.

Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo may have been the first person to use the term “austerity bomb” for the expired tax cuts and automatic spending cuts to take effect at the beginning of next year. Paul Krugman adopts the term in his blog entry "The Austerity Bomb" in the New York Times. Beutler wrote: “A giant austerity bomb is timed to go off at the beginning of next year, and the threat of significantly higher taxes and lower spending has Republicans running around the Capitol sounding more like John Maynard Keynes than John Boehner.” The term "fiscal cliff" makes...

Dennis Van Roekel, president of the teachers union that styles itself the National Education Association, told the network: "I brought the message that, number one, it's important that we let the Bush tax cuts disappear for the wealthiest 2%. As we're looking for a $1.2 trillion solution, $829 billion takes us a long way there." Do you see the problem here? The annual budget deficit has been running at around $1.2 trillion. (The Hill reports the deficit for October alone was $120 billion.) Raising taxes on "the wealthiest 2%," it is estimated, would increase government revenues $829 billion over a...

Moments ago the MTS [Monthly Treasury Statement] released the final October budget report. It was not pretty, although those who read our report on how much debt was added - $195 billion to be precise - in the first month of the 2013 Fiscal Year will know where this is going. The US budget deficit was expected to soar after the September surplus of $75 billion, driven entirely by calendar shifts and pre-election propaganda, to -$113 billion. That was optimistic: the total amount of overspending in October was $120 billion. What is distressing is that this was well above the...

Mr. Obama won't want you to know this, but this revenue increase is occurring under the Bush tax rates that he so desperately wants to raise in the name of getting what he says is merely "a little more in taxes." Individual income tax payments are now up $233 billion over the last two years, or 26%. This healthy revenue increase comes despite measly economic growth of between 1% and 2%. Imagine the gusher of revenue the feds could get if government got out of the way and let the economy grow faster. Now let's look at outlays, which declined...

It seems to me that we're holding all the cards in this sequestration negotiation. We don't need to protect a President Romney and have nothing to lose, really. This is the deal I would offer Obama: We'll give you tax increases for $250k and higher. We'll even eliminate the debt ceiling. But, he needs to agree to repeal Obamacare. If he chooses not to accept our offer, tell him he'll have until X date in December, at which point everyone will head home for Christmas and he can explain to the American people why he's putting "economic patriotism" aside for...

According to The Hill, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) is optimistic that there is a deal to get beyond the fiscal cliff. Really? The fiscal cliff is simply the foothills of a much larger mountain (of debt) range, much like the Andes of South America. So, what Senator Corker is talking about is getting past the foothills right in front of us. President Obama’s preferred habitat of tax are households with adjusted gross income of $250,000 and above. He defines this group as “the rich” and wants them to pay their “fair share.” Households with adjusted gross income of $250,000 or...