What Today's Payroll Tax Vote Means

Dec 20th, 2011

Allow me to register my total lack of surprise. AP reports:

"The House Tuesday rejected legislation to extend a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for two months, drawing a swift rebuke from President Barack Obama that Republicans were threatening higher taxes on 160 million American workers on Jan. 1.

Obama said the two-month compromise is the only way to stop payroll taxes from going up by two percentage points.

"Now let's be clear," Obama said in a surprise appearance in theWhite House briefing room after the House vote. "The bipartisan compromise that was reached on Saturday is the only viable way to prevent a tax hike on January 1st. The only one."

First of all, this was a case of hostage taking. It's plain and simple. If the GOP had wanted to keep the payroll rate in place, all they had to do was vote for it. They insisted that it "had to be paid for." How does this square with their 30 year mantra that "tax cuts" pay for themselves by magically expanding growth? It doesn't and an obedient media is largely obliging them by not asking about that. More predictably and repulsively, they not only insisted that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline was somehow related to the payroll tax rate, but they uniformly parroted each and every proven falsehood regarding that project.

What does it mean for you? The chart below shows it clearly.

Graphic via CNN

Newt Watch - Legacy Edition

Nov 29th, 2011

Lawrence Lessig writes:

"There is no candidate for president who has had more experience in changing Washington than Gingrich. Indeed, there may be no American since James Madison who has had more of an effect in making the institution of Congress what it is today.

For as far too few remember, more than any other living American, it is Newt Gingrich who gave us the current version of our hopelessly dysfunctional Congress — an institution which, according to a New York Times/CBS poll, now has the confidence of 9% of the American people. That monster is his baby, and no one should deny him his parental bragging rights."

We couldn't agree more. He deserves every bit of credit for this. We encourage you to read the whole piece.

FAA Showdown Over... For Now...

August 4th, 2011

The good news? The crisis over funding the FAA is apparently over. The bad news? It's not really over.

Just in via CBS:

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday that Congress has reached a deal to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.

"I am pleased to announce that we have been able to broker a bipartisan compromise between the House and the Senate to put 74,000 transportation and construction workers back to work," Reid said in a statement. "This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain. But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that."

The FAA shut down on July 23 after Congress failed to pass an extension of the agency's existing budget authorization. Congress has done that simple extension, with no strings attached, 20 times in the past four years."

If Congress "settles its deifferences" in a way similar to the debt deal, I would recommend planning travel via rail for the foreseeable future.