There is less optimism now over the prospects of a deal wrapping up on the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance and a doctor’s fix on Medicare reimbursement rates than there was this morning. Leading House Democrats exhibited caution over declaring a deal done. “We’re still a long ways from getting there,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra [...]

As we await resolution of the payroll tax/UI/doc fix extension bill, I want to address this trend in the comments about whether or not extending these measures is worthwhile at all. To separate the wheat from the chaff, I don’t think anyone believes that extending unemployment insurance is a bad idea. With no further action, [...]

Making an obstructionism exacta today, Senate Republicans defeated the motion to proceed on a second payroll tax cut bill by a 50-48 count. The roll call is here. Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders crossed the aisle to vote with all the Republicans. Sanders opposes the measure because another year of payroll tax cuts threatens Social [...]

As I’ve said, it doesn’t really look as if the Republicans want to extend the payroll tax cut. The reasons for this are almost certainly tied up with the fact that extending it would prevent a fiscal drag in 2012, meaning that the economy would be in worse shape for the incumbent President in an [...]

So here’s the first trial balloon from Republicans on the pay-for they will demand in exchange for extending the payroll tax cut. Keep in mind that this is a tax cut that Republicans are “demanding” a price for – something at odds with a principle previously embedded into Republican DNA. But because Democrats are desperate [...]

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 [...]

With the small fry measures in the American Jobs Act almost out of the way, the debate turns to the largest measures in the bill, particularly the payroll tax cut. While this is another example of a tax expenditure, at least this one goes to the working poor as well as everyone else, and it [...]

The US Census Bureau changed its formulation of poverty for the first time in over fifty years, taking into account reductions in the cost of food while including rising costs in health care, child care, housing and transportation. In addition, non-cash government aid like food stamps and tax credits were finally included in the formulation. [...]

I still don’t think there’s going to be a grand bargain coming out of the Catfood Commission II. Republicans summarily rejected the first offer from Democrats, and vice-versa. Committee members may be thinking about their reputational risk, but there’s only three weeks until a solution is needed, which doesn’t leave enough time. What’s more, the [...]

On Sunday, the Washington Post ran as a front-page item a story about Social Security that intimated the Trust Fund was a fiction and generally put a right-wing slant on the matter, in favor of the idea that the social insurance program was in crisis. Dean Baker pounced immediately, setting off a chain reaction that [...]

The House bill eliminating the 3% withholding rule, making it easier for government contractors to cheat on their taxes, a small part of the American Jobs Act and supported by the President, passed today, on a near-unanimous vote of 405-16. The bill was paid for through a separate measure, which changes the calculation of modified [...]