The House just rejected the deal.

Now, the question is will they fight for what would really do something to create jobs.

Just yesterday they passed the Dream act, which I'm sorry, what a screwed up bill that is and it's about their illegal immigrant constituents. This is coming from someone who knows there are people who need to be legalized as their rhetoric proclaims, it's the actual bill I'm referring to.

If they had any sense, they would fight to get that corporate tax incentive loophole to offshore outsource jobs closed, as an amendment. They already passed this once in the House. Hell tack on the China as currency manipulator bill on there, I believe almost every single Congress representative, both houses, has co-sponsored a version of that bill.

You lay out the key issues and factions regarding deficit reduction in a clear fashion. It starts with policy and values and proceeds to spending and debt. I would welcome a national debate on the merits of $700 bil in military spending that only detracts versus spending on education, health, and other social programs that have a measurable positive impact qualitatively and quantitatively.

I was surprised that the hand picked debt commission tanked, unceremoniously. Then I saw the planned payroll tax cuts and realized that the attack on Social Security was much more direct. In one strange move, Obama the deficit hawk gave away $600 of revenue bil in order to spend $50 bil on unemployment. We're through the looking glass, officially.

That was the moment any fantasies of a productive administration were squashed. #2 is the speech justifying the Afghanistan expansion claiming it was about the safety of our grandchildren and those of the Afghan people. But this was offensive in it's own way. It was a complex and comprehensive betrayal masked as a surrender. 'At long last, have they no shame?' Apparently not.

I've fallen behind in overviewing and getting the St. Louis FRED graphs on some of the economic report releases. I'm playing catch up and going to hit the most important ones. We get googled all of the time on these, so I try very hard to be dead accurate as well as link first and foremost to the government site which has the original press release as well as plain link over to the St. Louis FRED database itself. That said, I personally find it irritating if I'm hunting for some information and come up with data that is a year old.

Anyway, the press jumped on this report as fabulous news and that's frankly by me as to why they did.

I think a real betrayal was in other taxes, such as the estate tax. That said, my understanding of the uber rich is they have already sheltered, trusted out their wealth so it doesn't get taxed anyway.

How come we're not seeing the Democrats fight to put in the corporate offshore outsourcing loophole plug in? Ya know, all of those corporate tax incentives to offshore outsource your job...

I mean what are these people thinkin' both sides? They simply are not focused on what is good for the nation, what will get people back to work.

WSJ here.

What's amazing of all of the betrayals to date by the Obama administration, this one bothers me the least. Yes, it's true. The one that bothered me the most was financial reform. But we have....on one hand, a group of insane, I mean completely absurd, insane stupidity on tax, economic issues, coming from GOP leadership and on the other hand....continually Democrats are busy with their special interests, which actually will hurt the economy, yes that's true too.

The minute Obama put Diana Farrell in his administration, she worked for the ultimate offshore outsourcer/lobbyist group, McKinsey, I knew we were in big trouble.

Did they do anything to ban Federal Contracts from being offshore outsourced, the banks offshore outsourcing, bringing in H-1Bs even? All we got was a token amendment from Bernie Sanders (because this was all he could get) on H-1B.

Confront China on currency manipulation beyond words? No. Even do anything to streamline the SBA and make it easier so small businesses could get grants, contracts? No, it's a real hydra to figure out that system and the delays are so huge, by the time you land anything, you're foreclosed and homeless.

What bothers me the most is the insane rhetoric coming from GOP leadership. It's so psycho and they don't bat an eyelid while they spew complete lies on what really effects the economy. Like tax cuts for the rich, this is such bullshit. income is taxed NET, not GROSS receipts! Gross receipts come in on schedule C, this is for sole prop, which is when someone is self-employed, owns their own business. Then one writes off their expenses, which INCLUDES employees, their wages ...no one is paying income tax on someone else's wages that they hired.

Just an amazing lie the GOP keep spinning and it never gets fronted. Of all business taxes, I'd say sole proprietorship is the easiest to understand, yet not once on cable noise or in the press have I seen it explained that income comes from NET, not GROSS on a self-employed person.

Nice summary. The whole "compromise" thing is just politics as theater. Obama and the Senate leadership could have (and still can) just pass a sane tax policy using the reconciliation process which requires only 50 votes, bypassing any filibuster. That's how the original Bush tax cuts (and Obama's health care plan) were passed in the first place. There was never any need to compromise beyond getting 50 Senators to agree to something. The compromise meme is just a charade to make it appear as if Obama isn't just brazenly doing what the plutocrats want.

I guess were going to have to wait to hit rock bottom; 20%, 30%, 40% unemployment for you dummies to want the Tariff back.

Right, that's the only reason I'm for it, as an export/import price control, used as EU and especially China do...against the U.S. and for their own domestic economies but regressivity is bad, bad, bad.