Tax Cuts For The Rich, Bush Tax Cuts | featured news

Tax cuts that President George W. Bush signed in 2001 and 2003 are playing a major role in the election of 2012. They surface again today as the Democratic-run Senate holds a symbolic debate over President Obama's proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts only for middle-class Americans, not for the wealthy.

President Barack Obama would veto legislation that extends all of the Bush administration's tax cuts, including those for the middle class, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday. But top Republican aides said they don't buy it.

Bill Clinton said Thursday that he's "very sorry" for comments he made days earlier that appeared to undermine President Obama's position on extending certain tax rates, chalking it up to a misunderstanding over when lawmakers needed to act ahead of a looming "fiscal cliff."

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....

Occupy Wall Street is going on the road – a two-week walk to Washington. A small group of activists plans to leave Manhattan's Zuccotti Park at noon Wednesday and arrive by the Nov. 23 deadline for a congressional committee to decide whether to keep President Barack Obama's extension of Bush-era tax cuts. Protesters say the cuts benefit only rich Americans.

President Barack Obama signed into law an $858 billion bill extending for two years Bush-era tax cuts to boost a fragile economy and add jobs.

Republicans and Democrats joined forces in the Senate on Monday to deliver the most significant bipartisan vote since President Obama took office, advancing a plan to extend tax cuts for virtually every American and to boost the economic recovery.

The Democratic-led U.S. Congress moved on Monday toward grudging approval of President Barack Obama's deal with Republicans to extend expiring tax cuts, even for the wealthiest Americans.

President Barack Obama said on Monday he had reached an agreement with Republicans on how to extend expiring tax cuts. He said the compromise's provisions including a 2 percent payroll tax cut for next year, extending jobless benefits for 13 months and extending tax cuts for all Americans -- including the wealthiest -- for two years.

$60 Billion: The approximate amount that extending the Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 a year — which Congress seems on the verge of doing — will cost a year, in inflation-adjusted terms. On average, the affluent households that benefit from these cuts will save $25,000 annually. What else might that $60 billion a year buy?