Republican craziness has stopped a deal from happening on the fiscal slope, and really nothing else. Because here’s Nancy Pelosi yesterday on chained CPI, a benefit cut to Social Security recipients that happens to be regressive and more painful as people age: Q: Members of your Caucus are organizing against the chained CPI that the [...]

The White House announced they would veto “Plan B,” John Boehner’s gambit to pass a bill extending the Bush-era tax rtes for all earners on the first $1 million of income. And Nancy Pelosi said that Boehner had better have 218 votes for such a bill, since House Democrats won’t provide any. Of course, Boehner [...]

Many of what would be described as the liberal left of Congress have weighed in against using the chained CPI to calculate cost of living increases in Social Security benefits. Here’s a representative sample from Sen. Jeff Merkley: We had an election, and the voters sent a message to Congress to focus on jobs and [...]

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 [...]

Since returning to the control of Republicans, the House has returned to the “Hastert rule,” (named for the former House Speaker, Denny Hastert) where only legislation that has a majority of votes among the majority, rather than a majority of votes overall, will get a vote on the floor. The Senate’s tax bill, which extends [...]

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi laid out a bright line this weekend, echoing many other Democrats in saying that merely cutting loopholes to raise revenues would not be sufficient for a deal.

Congressional leaders left the White House after a one-hour meeting today on the fiscal slope. And their post-meeting comments could be best described as conciliatory, enough to send the stock market spiking. I don’t know that you can put any stock in any remarks today, but for what it’s worth, here’s the White House readout: [...]

I don’t think this will be a regular feature, but here are a few things on everybody’s favorite cliff/slope metaphor that caught my eye at the end of the day: First of all, unions are so far following through on protecting social insurance against potential attacks from both parties: The American Federation Of State, County [...]

Backed by a larger caucus, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will stay onin the post for another two years. She will make the announcement at this hour. Nobody will challenge her for the Democratic leadership position. A delay in leadership elections and the rumor mill pointed to the possibility that Pelosi would step down from [...]

Former House Speakers don’t typically spend a lot of time in Congress after their ouster. Nancy Pelosi felt she had a chance, aided by the coattails of the President, to win back the House in 2012. It turns out that the Democrats picked up, if all the current too-close-to-call races hold, eight seats. Key states [...]

The farm bill expired today, reverting some programs back to a 1949 level and totally eliminating others. The other day I looked at the consequences of expiration, and while many elements didn’t have much of an impact until the end of the year, in particular milk and dairy farmers were likely to feel the pinch [...]