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Sen. Barrasso: Obama sees a ‘political victory’ in going over the cliffBy Alicia M. Cohn - 12/23/12 09:32 AM ET Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday he thinks President Obama wants to dive over the so-called "fiscal cliff." "I believe the president is eager to go over the cliff for political purposes," Barrasso told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "He senses a political victory at the bottom of the cliff." The senator also said he believes the nation will go over the cliff, with the deadline just nine days away. Barrasso said he thinks Obama is eager to blame...

Blah blah Fiscal Cliff blah. Blah blah blahdy blah Cliff. Cliff blah blah republicans blah democrats blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah, Cliff. Blah blah blah blah, blah blahdy blah.... Blah. Meanwhile in Europe: The only data point confirms what everyone knows - reality sucks, hope surges. As usual. German Ifo business confidence rises to 102.4 from 101.4, on expected rise of 102. Why the rise? Because forward expectations spike from 96.4 to 97.9. As for the "current assessment"? Why down of course from 108.1 to 107.1, on expectations...

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: ...By now you have heard about - you might in fact be tired of hearing about that so-called fiscal cliff. That's the package of automatic spending cuts and tax rate hikes that will go into effect if Congress and the White House can't agree on a plan to reduce the deficit by the end of the year. The speaker and the president of the United States met over the weekend to talk privately, but there's been a lot of public debate about it too, on the public affairs shows and in press conferences, and even some campaigning....

Over the past two days, the yield on the Treasury 10 year rose from 1.6451% to 1.7213%, about 7.6 basis points. Somehow, investors didn’t get The Fed’s memo about more monetary easing. The recovery from the recession (which ended June 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research) has been slower than molasses. 1. U6 Unemployment/Underemployment remains at daunting levels. 2. Salaries and Wages (divided by GDP) continue to fall. 3. The M1 Money Multiplier seems to have leveled out at a low altitude signifying that banks are not lending as much as previously. 4. The M2 Money Velocity...

There was a nice piece in the Los Angeles Times on the fate of the mortgage interest deduction. President Obama’s deficit commission (aka, Simpson-Bowles) proposed lowering the limit on mortgage principal eligible for a deduction to $500,000 from the current $1 million, removing any break for interest on a second home and turning the deduction into a tax credit capped at 12% of interest paid. “This is a sacred cow to the real estate industry, and it’s almost an entitlement to homeowners,” said Anthony Sanders, a real estate finance professor at George Mason University. “They could cut it in half...

As one of the first, if not the first, people to say Let It Burn, I’m clearly thrilled with the growing chorus of voices joining the movement. Like any movement, there are true believers and Let It Burn In Name Only (LIBINO) types. Since it’s never too early to purge a movement of its impure elements, let us lay out some key principles of Let It Burn. 1- America isn’t a conservative country anymore and hasn’t been for a while. Yes, you can point to lots of surveys that show people identify themselves as conservatives and they even say government...

In an interview with Bloomberg TV this week, Obama also hinted at a possible long-range solution, saying lower tax rates for the wealthy could be negotiated as part of broader tax reform in 2013, but only after those rates increase now.

Few would begrudge the President of the United States some well-earned down time. But with the "Fiscal Cliff" looming in coming weeks...and millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet...the Obama's choice of location and the expense of being there is causing many to shake their heads.

The good news out today is that the unemployment rate dropped from 7.9% to 7.7% for November and underemployment dropped from 14.6%? to 14.4% for November. Why the decline? First, nonfarm payrolls increased by 146,000 compared to expectations of 85,000. Private payrolls rose 147,000 compared to expectations of 90,000. Second, labor force participation dropped to 63.6% from 63.8%. So, as more people drop out of the labor force AND labor force survivor employment rises, we get a drop in the unemployment rate. But before you get too excited, there are still over 12 million unemployed in the USA. This compares...

Talk About Crazy Bastards...- By: Larry Walker, II -Hiking tax rates now, in advance of the pending 2013 Medicare Tax Increase from 2.9% to 3.8% on those making $200K ($250K if married), the new 3.8% Medicare Tax on Investment Income including capital gains, the 2014 health insurance tax on individuals of $695 to $2,085 (plus inflation) depending on family size, and the 2014 shared responsibility penalty of $2,000 per employee on companies with 50 or more part-time employees (working 30 hours or more), probably isn’t wise. Legislator's must pare any further tax increases with the hikes already baked in the...

Some conservatives are saying that Republicans should let Obama own the economy. Essentially give him what he wants with regard to tax hike, spending, etc. so that Republicans could not be labelled obstructionist. This is garbage! This strategy will mean that Obama will be able to put more in his Santa sack to give to his constituents. More will become dependents and more will love Obama. The Republicans should not "give" Obama anything. They need to fight for lower tax rates and reduced spending. If it means we go over the cliff so be it. The House must be ruled...

A new government report finds that the country is heading toward fiscal ruin, and the only way to avoid that is to make deep cuts in entitlement programs; tax hikes can't fix the problem. In other words, what's needed is the opposite of what the Obama administration and congressional Democrats propose as part of the fiscal cliff talks. The Government Accountability Office report found that, even using optimistic assumptions about spending, the government is "on an unsustainable long-term fiscal path" that will lead to debt exceeding the economy within a few decades. The report puts the blame squarely on entitlement...

And we should end the wars now too! Wait a minute ... isn't that what Obama campaigned for in 2008? Why hasn't it happened yet? He can do anything with executive privilege, right. I mean, congress is not acting. They have not presented a budget to Obama that he would accept for 3 years now. That do nothing congress. They have bad ideas, like implementing the deficit reduction plans proposed by the appointed Obama deficit commission. Poor Obama ... this feuding is just going to ruin his Christmas vacation plans.

US President Barack Obama speaks on the fiscal cliff negotiations and business relations during the Washington Business Roundtable in Washington. President Obama's lead negotiator in the "fiscal cliff" talks said the administration is "absolutely" willing to allow the package of deep automatic spending cuts and across-the-board tax hikes to take effect Jan. 1, unless Republicans drop their opposition to higher income tax rates on the wealthy. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview with CNBC that both sides are "making a little bit of progress" toward a deal to avert the "cliff" but remain stuck on Obama's desired rate...

If no deal is reached this year, then on 1 January, daily tax withholdings will rise by an average of about $4 per person. Any money actually deducted from pay checks will be refunded if a deal is subsequently reached that returns tax rates to 2012 levels. Government spending probably won't change at the start of the new year, since President Obama has considerable discretion over the flow of spending. No one can think that this modest increase in tax withholdings would plunge the economy into a recession, but the Wall Street types seeking to dismantle social security and Medicare...

The ObamaCare fiscal cliffBy: John Hayward 11/30/2012 02:34 PM While we’re busy listening to President Obama demand a $1.6 trillion tax increase on some people as the price for disarming part of a $1.2 trillion tax bomb aimed at other people, let’s not forget that he’s already detonated a $1.058 trillion tax warhead on all of us: ObamaCare. As the House Ways and Means Committee noted last summer, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding ObamaCare, it contains 21 distinct tax increases, “a dozen of which target Americans earning less than $200,000 per year for singles or $250,000...

Stop the MSM from Pressuring Congress!!! We should not sit back and let the Main Stream Media continue "campaigning" for Obama!!! The lies: We want to give tax breaks to the 98% of Americans. Obama has a mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy. We can make a difference. History shows they had to back down some when we apply pressure via blogs and notifying conservative news outlets and hosts otherwise they look like fools or continue to appear even more untrustworthy which we know they are. We can't have the kind of news outlets that dictatorship countries have.

Stop the MSM from Pressuring Congress!!! We should not sit back and let the Main Stream Media continue "campaigning" for Obama!!! The lies: We want to give tax breaks to the 98% of Americans. Obama has a mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy. We can make a difference. History shows they had to back down some when we apply pressure via blogs and notifying conservative news outlets and hosts otherwise they look like fools or continue to appear even more untrustworthy which we know they are. We can't have the kind of news outlets that dictatorship countries have.

(Reuters) - The Obama administration's opening bid on Thursday in negotiations to avert a year-end fiscal crunch included a demand for new stimulus spending and authority to unilaterally raise the U.S. borrowing ceiling, a Republican congressional aide said. The proposal, made by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to congressional Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, was seen as offering little the Republicans could agree to and was greeted with laughter, the aide said. "We can't move any closer to them because they're not even on our planet," the aide said. "It was not a serious proposal."-snip-In the maiden bargaining session, Geithner, the...

I was on Fox News with Tom Sullivan yesterday to discuss the housing “recovery.” Rick Sharga (formerly of RealtyTrac and now Carrington Mortgage Holdings) was the guest before me and said that we are witnessing the sustainable recovery of the housing market. I simply pointed out that the “recovery” thus far is dominated by hedge funds, corporations, cash transactions and foreign investors and not the traditional family purchase of housing. So, it may be a recovery, but not your father’s Oldsmobile (so to speak). And don’t forget the fiscal cliff and the large volume of foreclosed properties about to hit...