In the coming days, the House will pass a tax bill that would extend the Bush tax cuts entirely for one year. This stands in slight contrast to a Senate-passed bill that extends the same tax cuts for the first $250,000 of income. But what I didn’t realize is that the House bill will also [...]

The conference committee for the payroll tax cut is on a road to nowhere, and it’s clear that the House and Senate leadership will have to step in if the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance and the doctor’s fix will get extended beyond the end of the month. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave [...]

The payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits expire on February 29. And though the House-Senate conference committee charged with figuring out a year-long extension met yesterday, there really isn’t a lot of movement toward a solution. Pay-fors seem to be the biggest stumbling block. On Wednesday, the House approved one of the GOP’s favored [...]

It looks like a blink. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters yesterday that “I think at the end of the day there’s a lot of sentiment in our conference, clearly a majority sentiment, for continuing the payroll tax relief that we enacted a year ago in these tough times.” That was a clear endorsement [...]

You may have noticed that the only politicians in Washington wanting the Super Committee to “go big” on the deficit are politicians who aren’t on the Super Committee. The Hill finds a member of the aforementioned committee willing to acknowledge that the plan is to go small. The key lawmaker, who spoke on condition of [...]

The Super Committee, what we’ve been calling Catfood Commission II, held its first meeting today. There wasn’t much on the agenda, just the internal governing rules of how the committee will proceed, under the direction of co-chairs Patty Murray (D-WA) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). Both sides are talking about compromise and the need for action, [...]

There were no real surprises among the choices made by John Boehner and Mitch McConnell for the Catfood Commission II. It’s perhaps interesting to note that Paul Ryan didn’t make the cut, but I guess Boehner figured that he’s toxic and therefore not a good face to put on the committee. Instead, Boehner picked two [...]

If you thought that the deal on three NAFTA-style trade deals and trade adjustment assistance renewal was set in stone, Mitch McConnell’s pique needs to be priced into that theory: Congressional leaders yesterday struck a deal with the White House that will reauthorize TAA in return for moving on the pending agreements. But McConnell is [...]

So, health care repeal was always dead. There was never a chance that Republicans would have the numbers over the next two years, and probably beyond that given the current super-majority function in the Senate, to repeal the bill. But Rep. Dave Camp said it out loud today. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the [...]

Yesterday definitely felt like a kickoff to House Republicans using the committee hearing process for their own ends. I wrote about the hearing in the Oversight Committee, where Darrell Issa tackled TARP and the foreclosure crisis. Issa stumbled a bit trying to say that banks should be broken up, but also, not: “I’m not for [...]