Spending Cuts, 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....

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.

The outline of a compromise over upcoming federal tax hikes and spending cuts began to come into focus Friday after President Obama convened congressional leaders at the White House.

...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.

A long-running war between Democrats and Republicans over Bush-era tax cuts doomed the debt supercommittee's chances of reaching a deal. Efforts to overhaul the tax code may await the same fate as both parties gear up to make taxes a central issue in 2012 elections....