Free Republic

So you think you got a payroll-tax holiday for free? Think that the big fat-cat mortgage lenders will foot the bill as part of Obama’s promise to make the cut pay for itself? CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson delivers the wake-up call to home buyers, who will pay a pretty penny for the latest gimmick of Obamanomics:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Guess what? The fees collected won’t even cover the loss to the Social Security fund. It’s going into the general fund instead. Meanwhile, the Obama administration says to quit whining and suck it up so that we can recapitalize the...

On December 29th, 2011, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) acting director Edward Demarco released a statement detailing the increase to the guarantee fee charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as part of the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011. As part of the legislation, FHFA is increasing the guarantee fee by no less than 10 basis points (bp), effective April 1st, 2012. This increase affects all single-family residential mortgages, and the additional 10 bp in fees will be remitted to the U.S. Treasury instead of being retained by the GSEs. Additionally, the minimum initial increase shall...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When last seen in Washington, House Republicans were furious with their own leader, Speaker John Boehner, and angry with their Senate Republican brethren over how the showdown over the Social Security tax cut turned into a year-end political debacle. The holidays and three weeks away from the Capitol have tempered some of the bad feelings, but several GOP lawmakers' emotions are still raw as Congress returns for a 2012 session certain to be driven by election-year politics and fierce fights over the size and scope of government and its taxing, spending and borrowing practices. In the week...

Two words: “Speaker Cantor.”Seriously, though, I’m skeptical that he’d do this. House Speaker John Boehner, hoping to spare fellow Republicans a second embarrassing defeat over payroll tax cuts, is prepared to navigate around rebellious Tea Party-aligned lawmakers to get a deal, according to congressional aides…Boehner’s office would not comment on possible divisions among Republicans in the upcoming debate over the payroll tax cut or tactics to get a bill passed. But one House Republican leadership aide told Reuters: “I think Boehner will seek a more accommodating approach to get a good percentage of Democrats to vote for it – even...

Democrats believe their chances of recapturing the House have improved significantly after what was widely seen as a GOP meltdown in the payroll tax debate. Democrats believe the messy fight has helped narrow the advantage Republicans have traditionally held on tax policy. Democrats have long espoused populist tax policy, with mixed results in recent years. Democratic strategists think that is about to change as high unemployment rates have given new traction to their proposals, which Republicans dismiss as class warfare. Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist, said he believes Democrats can recapture the House in part because of growing public resentment...

Flush from last night’s victory, Harry Reid floated the possibility at a press conference this morning that Dems could revive the idea of a millionaire surtax when the talks begin over the year long payroll tax cut extension next year. “I’ve talked to Senate Republicans, plural, who think there should be a fair tax on rich people,” Reid said. “I’m going to make sure that my conferees understand that this could be part of what we try to do.” Given that Dems dropped the millionaire surtax during the talks over the payroll tax cut earlier this month, you’d be forgiven...

House speaker John Boehner is set to sign an offer from Obama to accelerate negotiations. Republicans in the House of Representatives have capitulated in the showdown over the payroll tax, handing Barack Obama an important victory going into election year. Under pressure from other senior Republicans for blocking a bill that would extend tax cuts to millions of Americans, the House speaker, John Boehner, is backing away from his insistence that any deal must cover a full year. A deal agreed by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on Saturday covers two months, to allow further negotiations in January. It...

Officials from the policy-neutral National Payroll Reporting Consortium, Inc. have expressed concern to members of Congress that the two-month payroll tax holiday passed by the Senate and supported by President Obama cannot be implemented properly. Pete Isberg, president of the NPRC today wrote to the key leaders of the relevant committees of the House and Senate, telling them that “insufficient lead time” to implement the complicated change mandated by the legislation means the two-month payroll tax holiday “could create substantial problems, confusion and costs affecting a significant percentage of U.S. employers and employees.”

Sen. John McCain, D-Ariz., lit into President Barack Obama today for failing to produce an agreement on extending the payroll tax cut, The Hill reports. The Senate passed a compromise two-month extension Saturday, but the House rejected it Tuesday amid objections from conservatives who want a one-year extension. Obama needs to exhibit leadership to break the stalemate, McCain told CNN. The president has merely told the House to pass the Senate bill. "Previous presidents I've served under ... would be calling them [members of Congress] over to the White House, looking them in the eye and telling them, 'We need...

RICHMOND, Va. -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday he would tell his caucus to get "noisy" if he were trying to game out the dispute on a payroll tax cut with President Obama. Asked about the standoff by a voter, the Republican presidential candidate also called the senators "arrogant" over their refusal to negotiate. “I would have all of my members on talk radio back home demanding the senators come back. And I could say 'How can the senators arrogantly go home." Gingrich, who has previously said he doesn't know what John Boehner is going through because President...

Just across from National Journal. Our dumb national nightmare is over. House Republicans on Thursday crumpled under the weight of White House and public pressure and have agreed to pass a two-month extension of the 2 percent payroll-tax cut, Republican and Democratic sources told National Journal…The House will pass the two-month extension with a technical correction to the language designed to minimize difficulties businesses might experience implementing the short-term, two-month tax cut extension. In exchange, Reid agreed to appoint several Senate Democrats to start negotiating with the House on a full-year payroll-tax holiday extension, which is right in line with...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has just offered a way out for House Republicans, who are badly losing the public relations war over the payroll tax cut. He's calling on Speaker of the House John Boehner to give in and pass a bill to extend the payroll tax cut — implicitly the bill that passed the Senate by an 89-10 margin on Saturday. As a compromise, he also calls on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to appoint negotiators on a year-long extension of the payroll tax cut — which Reid has already pledged to do once the House passed...

The standoff over preserving a tax break continued as House Speaker John Boehner showed little sign of reversing course despite sustained criticism from his own party and President Obama. Boehner assembled his top negotiators for a second day at an otherwise empty Capitol, but their position is being overpowered by the risk of a looming tax hike on Jan. 1. Obama planned to showcase stories of workers who will lose $40 a paycheck later Thursday at the White House.  “We’re fighting to do the right thing,” said Boehner, who wants to launch formal negotiations with Democrats to resolve differing approaches...

On December 20, the House of Representatives refused to pass the Senate’s 2-month Social Security payroll tax cut extension. This created the genuine possibility that this temporary 2.0 percentage point cut in the 6.2% Social Security tax normally paid by employees would expire at the end of this year. It became clear before the financial markets opened in New York on December 20 that the tax cut extension would be defeated. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) opened sharply higher and ended the day up 2.9%. The action in the European markets suggested that it was the news of the...

Yesterday the House voted to reject a Senate plan for temporarily extending the payroll-tax cut and subsequently moved to recess, and they deserve credit for doing so. This move does not eliminate the possibility of extending the tax cut, which expires at the end of December: The House previously passed a bill extending the cut for a full year, and that bill is good policy. It doesn’t increase the deficit. It forces a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. And it’s President Obama’s major year-end priority. So why is the Democratic Senate blocking the bill’s path between Capitol Hill and...

PARKERSBURG - A temporary extension of the Social Security payroll tax has infuriated a West Virginia senator. Sen. Joe Manchin said the two-month extension is a failure for the American people. "I am furious and disgusted that anyone could imagine this stopgap measure is the best that Congress could offer hard-working Americans, seniors and the unemployed," Manchin, a Democrat, said. "Delaying a decision for another two months makes no sense, especially when Congress will not be working for one of those months. Only in Washington would you get a month off for failing to do your job. West Virginians and...

Politics: Lost in Beltway wrangling over a payroll tax cut, an ugly reality lurks: Our politicians are plotting yet another raid on the Social Security "trust fund," which is already near insolvency. When will this madness stop? President Obama and his congressional Democrats know well how bad their spendthrift reputation is among voters as election day approaches. With Obama at sub-50% approval numbers and Gallup reporting Congress clocking in at a record-low 11%, they expect a bloodbath at the polls in November — and maybe another slashed debt rating, too. What then could be better for Democrats than to be...

Once again, Congress is playing high-stakes poker with a precarious economy and the lives of struggling Americans who live paycheck to paycheck - that is, if they're lucky enough to have a job. [Snip] In a mean-minded, take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to the "people's House," Senate Majority leader Harry Reid made it clear he didn't care what the House did with the bill - the Senate was finished for the year. That's not the way Congress usually has operated over its 222 years, especially on must-pass legislation that may affect the lives of 160 million working Americans. In such cases, the Senate...

(Reuters) - If Congress misses its New Year's Eve deadline to renew a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits by a few weeks or a month, damage to the economy could be reversed in fairly short order, economists and analysts say. As the odds of a missed deadline rise, several economists said the economy could survive nearly unscathed if there is a short delay in extending the payroll tax break for 160 million workers and unemployment insurance for millions. "If it is a week or two, it is annoying but the impact would be fairly small," said Nigel Gault, U.S....

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is slamming House Republicans today for their hard-line position on the payroll tax cut, writing that GOP lawmakers are throwing the 2012 election to President Barack Obama before it even begins. House Republicans are refusing to pass the bipartisan two-month extension of the tax cut that passed the Senate on Saturday, demanding a year-long increase. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he'll only reopen negotiations on a longer deal once the House passes the Senate bill — and removes the immediate threat of a tax increase for most Americans. [Snip] The Journal's...