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The Obamacare "Cadillac tax," which will tax businesses for employee health plans that are above a certain level by 40 percent, could be the next big fight in the push to either repeal or change the Affordable Care Act. This particular piece of the Obamacare law will not go into effect until 2018, but it is already causing headaches for businesses as they put together employee benefit plans. Politico has an in-depth story about the "Cadillac tax," which will apply to individual health plans worth more than $10,200 and family plans worth more than $27,500. The current system in place...

**SNIP** Requiring employees to shoulder more of the cost burden may undermine public support for Obamacare just as Congress, now firmly under Republican control, considers new ways to gut the law. The tax takes effect in 2018, and employers are already laying the groundwork to make sure they don’t have to pay the 40 percent surcharge on health-insurance spending that exceeds $27,500 for a family or $10,200 for an individual. Once envisioned as a tool to slow the nation’s growing health-care tab, the tax has in practice meant higher out-of-pocket health- care costs for workers. “I don’t think there’s any...

Mourn with me. Cadillac – Cadillac! – no longer sells a single car powered by a V-8 engine. Or such will be the case in about two months, when 2014 fades to 2015. Come Jan. 1, all new Cadillac cars will be powered by fours or sixes. Some will be turbocharged. But none will larger than 3.6 liters. The last of the V-8 Caddys – the (very) limited production CTS-V sedan/wagon – is being retired. There appears to be a replacement on deck for 2016, but the continued politically viability of V-8 engines within the system (so to speak) is...

Cadillac sales continue to sputter at General Motors. In fact, the brand is the only make at GM that has seen a year over year sales decline for the period ending in September at a time when the auto industry was booming. Specifically, Cadillac has logged in 127,837 sales for the first nine months of 2014 compared to 133,414 in 2013 for a sales decline of 4.2 percent. GM will now offer frequent flyer miles to help spur sales at the division. The marketing move at GM follows a decision to relocate Cadillac's sales team to New York City....

Full Title:Cadillac fuels Parisian fury with 'anti-French' advert which takes a dig at countries who take the 'whole of August Off' U.S. luxury car maker Cadillac has provoked anger in France with an advert which pokes fun at countries where workers 'stroll home, stop by the cafe... and take the whole of August off'. The commercial features Desperate Housewives actor Neil McDonough as a successful businessman who compares 'hard-working' Americans to their counterparts abroad who in his words 'don't work'. He says: 'Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries don't work, they stroll...

RUSH: Have you seen, ladies and gentlemen, the new Cadillac commercial for their new electric car? (interruption) You haven't? It features the actor Neal McDonough. Do you watch Justified? (interruption) Well, Neal McDonough was in Justified two years ago. He's got this baby-shaped head, blue eyes, short, blond hair. He can play the nicest next-door neighbor or the evilest villain you've ever found. He is the actor in this commercial. The left hates this commercial. There are caustic posts on leftist websites, and even mainstream news sites, Huffing and Puffington Post. They're outraged over the Cadillac ad! If you've seen...

The journalists at Good Morning America on Thursday were sufficiently provoked by a pro-American Cadillac commercial that they devoted a whole segment to wondering if the spot was "arrogant" and "xenophobic." GMA's reporters, who couldn't find any time to cover former IRS head Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth on Capitol Hill, devoted almost three minutes to the "backlash" against the car commercial. The ad features a man strolling around his large house, praising the free enterprise system and the work ethic of Americans: "Other countries, they work. They stroll home. They stop by the café. They take August off. Off!"...

The Cadillac ELR extended range electric luxury coupe will go on sale in January for $75,995, including destination charges. Derived from the 2009 Converj concept car, the ELR will have a driving range of more 300 miles between the dual fuel powertrain of an electric motor and a gas generator. The electric-only range is 35 miles, General Motors says, but once the battery loses power the 1.4-liter gas generator takes over to power the electric motor. If this sounds like the Chevy Volt, the other plug-in hybrid (PHEV) or extended range electric (EREV) produced by GM, it’s because the ELR...

The 12 year old girl from Haring Township is in stable condition after undergoing surgery after a black bear attack. She suffered deep cuts in her thigh. Just after 9 PM, Abby Wetherell, was heading home from a cabin down a two-track, north of Cadillac, when she saw a black bear. She began to run, hoping to make it to a nearby house. The bear attacked and clawed her. Abby got to her feet and started running when the bear attacked her again. The girl shouted for help. A neighbor heard her and ran to her aid, calling out Abby's...

TTAC readers looking for a more pro-GM news source may want to check out Bloomberg for their next dose of pro-GM news. A story on Cadillac’s revived fortunes contains all kinds of enthusiastic copy and positive quotes, but still manages to bury the lede way down at the bottom of the story... ...Uh oh. $3,700 just months after their crucial entry-level car was introduced? A nearly tenfold increase in incentive spending in just a few short months? Not good news at all. The incentives do explain why the ATS had a nice bump in sales right around February. It’s unfortunate...

Someone gave the Chevy Volt a tuxedo, and it fits well. The Cadillac ELR coupe is the luxury automaker’s take on extended range electric vehicle, and its first ever hybrid car. The dramatic two-door is wider than the Volt and dressed in a slightly toned down version of the sharply creased, broad shouldered bodywork seen on the Cadillac CTS coupe. It rides on turbine-look 20-inch wheels and features vertical head and brake light clusters, the latter with a slight tailfin design. Like the Volt, the ELR is powered by a combination of an electric drive unit and 1.4-liter internal...

Robert Ferguson, named today by General Motors Co. to the new position of “vice president, global Cadillac,” is not a “car guy,” in the Detroit parlance. He’s a government guy, and before that, a deal guy and a phone guy. This is a sign of how things are changing at GM as it tries to rebuild itself post-bankruptcy. Mr. Ferguson, 53, joined GM in 2010 and until today was GM’s vice president for public policy, aka chief lobbyist in Washington. He led GM’s negotiations with Obama administration officials over the details of the president’s plan to nearly double the fuel...

General Motors is becoming China Motors. Forget the spin. The evidence is clear and convincing. Did U.S. taxpayers save GM for China? Listen to the candid comments of GM's CEO.

For Mitt Romney, ad-libbing is becoming a liability. At the end of a 35-minute speech Friday to the Detroit Economic Club at this city’s football stadium, Romney offered yet another YouTube-worthy moment for his GOP rivals to exploit — reminding the well-heeled executives that his family owns four Detroit-made-cars, including two Cadillacs. Though they may be made in Michigan, owning two of the pricey cars - which cost between $35,000 and $49,000, according to the campaign, will only reinforce the image that he’s out of touch with working-class Americans.

GM challenges German brands with small CadillacBy Deepa Seetharaman and Ben Klayman DETROIT | Mon Jan 9, 2012 7:55am EST (Reuters) - General Motors Co proved with the Chevrolet Cruze it can build a top-selling compact car, cracking a market long dominated by Japanese brands. Now the No.1 U.S. automaker is targeting the entrenched German luxury brands with a more nimble compact Cadillac. The 2013 ATS is central to GM chief executive Dan Akerson's mission to refashion Cadillac into a global luxury brand by winning over younger buyers with a sportier image. From the start, GM took aim at BMW's...

Federal bailout funding may have prevented General Motors from going through a normal bankruptcy process, but it has come at a significant price in terms of reputation and potential buyers. Fifty percent (50%) of American adults are less likely to buy a GM car because of the bailout. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds just four percent (4%) are more likely to buy from the company that critics refer to as Government Motors. Forty-two percent (42%) say the bailout has had no impact on their buying plans one way or the other. The flip side of the data...

Professional subsidy-sucking General Motors, which seems content to marinate in its taxpayer "investment" indefinitely, is getting ambitious. No, not in the sense of paying backthe $50 billion U.S. government bailout, or in producing vehicles people actually want to buy, but instead in finding other governments to subsidize its products. Not surprisingly the new partner - in a 50-50 joint venture with the state-run auto industry - is China. And also unsurprisingly, General Electric will join GM in a related partnership in the communist nation. And you probably already guessed the agreements surround the development and sales of electric vehicles....

Criminals seem to have a thing for big vehicles. The Cadillac Escalade remains the car most likely to be stolen, according to new data from the Highway Loss Data Institute. This is the fourth year in a row the Escalade has topped this list. The rankings for most stolen cars are based on auto insurance claims data from 2008 and 2009.

According to a USA Today report, General Motors has decided to offer a Cadillac version of the Chevy Volt called the Converj. This follows reports that the Obama Administration will continue to hold its stake in GM. That makes sense, since a decision to build a Cadillac version of the Volt could not be based on economic considerations, but political ones.Sales of the Chevy Volt have been horrible. The statements out of GM that the vehicle was "virtually sold out" turned out not to be true. Even in a best case scenario where sales pick up, the vehicle is...

The Car That Thinks It's A Tank: Inside Obama's 'Beast' Cadillac that is being flown from the U.S. to drive down the Mall By CHRIS GREENWOOD and REBECCA ENGLISH 23rd May 2011 An extraordinary entourage will accompany President Obama and his wife Michelle when they sweep into London tomorrow. The team of at least 500 will include White House aides, a six-doctor medical team and a squad of personal chefs. There will be more than 200 secret service agents, many of them armed. The President will travel in ‘The Beast’, his gigantic bomb-proof General Motors Cadillac with eight-inch thick armour-plating...