Taxes, Bush Tax Cuts | featured news

The GOP-controlled House is moving ahead Thursday on a bill that would raise taxes on people earning over $1 million a year, sparing most workers from a tax hike but leaving in place painful budget cuts to the military and domestic agencies as "fiscal cliff" talks appear stalled.

House Speaker John A. Boehner’s "Plan B" on the budget talks, bringing to a vote his proposal to extend expiring tax breaks for all but those Americans who earn more than $1 million a year, ran almost immediately into stiff resistance Tuesday.

Politico is reporting that one of its sources claims John Boehner has placed tax increases for the wealthy on the table. He has been adamant that Republicans would never agree to a tax increase for anyone. President Obama has said that there would be no agreement to end the chance of falling over the “fiscal cliff”, without increasing taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent.

President Barack Obama plans to make a public case this week for his strategy for dealing with the looming fiscal cliff, traveling to the Philadelphia suburbs Friday as he pressures Republicans to allow tax increases on the wealthy while extending tax cuts for families earning $250,000 or less....

Some Republicans appear to be softening what was once a hard stance on their no-taxes pledge as the end-of-the-year deadline on the so-called “fiscal cliff” approaches. But it’s not clear how far they would go – if they would raise rates on the wealthiest, as President Obama wants, or if they are simply willing to go along with eliminating some loopholes and deductions to raise revenue. And those who have been outspoken on the topic thus far are not seen as the key players in the ongoing negotiations.

President Barack Obama's re-election has stiffened Democrats' spine against cutting popular benefit programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Their new resolve could become as big a hurdle to a deal that would skirt crippling tax increases and spending cuts in January as Republicans' resistance to raising tax rates on the wealthy.

...In his first full-scale news conference since March, Obama said he was willing to compromise with Republicans to forge a deal on the nation's debt and taxes to avoid the "fiscal cliff," a combination of budget cuts and tax increases that will kick in next year if such an agreement is not reached.

President Barack Obama is lobbying business and labor groups to support his plan to avoid an impending fiscal cliff, telling the two sides he remains committed to requiring the wealthy to pay more in taxes.

Consumers will have to dig deeper into their pockets next year to pay for costlier healthcare, more expensive grocery bills and higher taxes, an extra drag on the country's already slow-moving economy.

The Senate narrowly approved legislation on Wednesday to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class but to let them lapse for more affluent households, in a surprise vote intended more to give both parties election-year cover than to produce a new tax law.