I guess the good news about the state of the fiscal slope negotiations is that nobody seems to like what’s on offer. Dick Durbin, seen as close to the President, just rejected including the chained CPI for Social Security benefits in a final deal. That rejection came even faster than the rejection of raising the [...]

The Treasury Department once again declined to label China a currency manipulator, despite arguing that the yuan “remains significantly undervalued” and should rise further. They basically patted themselves on the back and tried to show that their policy of engagement with China has worked to this point. China “has substantially reduced the level of official [...]

It’s easy to forget, amid the non-stop talk about long-term deficits, that the East Coast remains fairly ruined from the effects of Superstorm Sandy. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – who’s going to win re-election next year by saying he’s the only man in the state equipped to handle the reconstruction efforts – already released [...]

Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham have restarted talks on a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Chuck Schumer, obviously running point for Senate Democrats on fiscal slope negotiations, claims that a chastened GOP will be willing to deal. But the only party who has made any concessions on a deal has been Chuck Schumer, floating an extension of current tax rates for upper-income earners, accompanying a limit on deductions. He went [...]

It’s just a few days out from a national election, the spotlight is more closely affixed on Washington, and everyone is on their best behavior. That’s the best reading of several comments made over the last 48 hours, designed to get the media to believe that we’ve entered a new era of bipartisanship, and more [...]

Peter Orszag’s column today, which I highlighted earlier, says that a deficit deal should include Social Security changes even while admitting they have nothing to do with the deficit. It’s worth pointing out that the Senate leadership is right now making a lot of statements that will be difficult to walk back on this matter, [...]

Senate Democrats have liberated a report from the Congressional Research Service which Senate Republicans successfully got the nonpartisan research arm of Congress to retract. The report argued that there is no evidence that tax cuts for high-income earners boosts economic growth, which Republicans didn’t want out in the public sphere. Here’s what Senate Democrats said [...]

White House officials reiterated a vow made in the past about the fiscal cliff, but in much stronger terms, saying that President Obama would veto any bill related to extending or offsetting the expiring fiscal measures if it didn’t include allowing the top two marginal tax rates, over $250,000 of income, to return to 36% [...]

We now know where Harry Reid stands in the great divide between base-broadening, rate-lowering “tax reform” and the Chuck Schumer approach, which rejects lowering rates as a trap. As I fully expected, Reid sided with Schumer. “He’s supportive of the Schumer approach, thinks it’s smart to put the goalposts where Schumer set them,” said a [...]

Chuck Schumer definitely got under the skin of Republicans yesterday by suggesting that Democrats were being led into a “tax reform” trap. Until this point, Republicans had been fairly cagey about their tax plans for a grand bargain, but they were able to garner a mild consensus over the concept of broadening the tax base [...]