As the Republican establishment returns to the fold in the Missouri Senate race, it’s worth reminding everyone that one of the major problems with Todd Akin is the simple fact that he’s Todd Akin. It’s not like the “legitimate rape” comments sprung out of the blue; they exist on a continuum of other extremist comments. [...]

The Senate staff of the Joint Economic Committee, led by Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), has put out a new report on the House Republican budget resolution, specifically their tax reform plans, which lowers the top marginal rate to 25%. Casey’s report shows that the tax cuts in the plan would fall entirely on the wealthiest [...]

OK, so we have the full language now of the compromise measure for the payroll tax cut, and there are basically three components to the pay-for for the legislation, which now only increases and extends the employee side of the tax cut (a total of a 3.1% tax cut, which functions as a 3.1% wage [...]

Democrats in the Senate announced legislation today to renew and expand the existing payroll tax cut, adding an employer-side reduction to an expanded employee-side cut. The bill would be paid for entirely with a 3.25% surtax on millionaires. The message legislation is the opening salvo in a month-long effort to save the payroll tax cut [...]

Weekly unemployment claims spiked up again today, and the NY Fed’s survey of regional manufacturing, a key indicator of the economy, was down sharply relative to expectations. This is a crisis time in the economy, and big solutions are needed to arrest the slide. The American Jobs Act isn’t perfect, but it would improve the [...]

On a conference call, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey today released a report with Alan Krueger of Princeton University showing that the expiration of tax subsidies for the Big 5 oil companies will have no impact on gasoline prices. This is elementary when you consider the economics of the situation. The legislation Democrats have [...]

Max Baucus just got around today to introducing a one-year extension of unemployment benefits, at a one-time cost of $56.4 billion dollars. Baucus did not offset the bill (though isn’t that equal to the cost of the federal employee pay freeze over ten years, and less than canceling ethanol subsidies, FWIW). And that’s because he [...]

Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Bob Casey (D-PA) want the Senate to take up and pass a one-year extension of unemployment insurance benefits from 26 to 99 weeks, but they did not sound hopeful on a conference call that this could get done before the extension lapses at the end of November. Getting jobless benefits [...]

Freshman Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) took to the Senate floor yesterday with a resolution that would allow the incoming Senate in January 2011 to determine its rules by majority vote, which could lead to the end of the filibuster. Currently, under Senate rules, a 2/3 vote would be needed to change any measure be which [...]

Ben Smith’s latest on Jonathan Gruber’s disclosure problems makes a very salient point – while disclosure would be expected in cases of traditional media mentions of Gruber, in the case of the New England Journal of Medicine, they have a formal process for disclosure: Gruber pointed out that he’d disclosed the contract in the New [...]

There was a report last week that abortion foes were having trouble finding a sponsor willing to carry something similar to the Stupak amendment in the Senate health care debate. I guess Ben Nelson answered the phone: Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) will attempt to strengthen language in the healthcare reform bill prohibiting federal funding of [...]