Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. I hate to say I told you so, but… I predicted as far back as May (here, here and especially here) that House Speaker John Boehner’s reelection as speaker could be in trouble if it looked to the tea party wing of the Republican Party that he was capitulating [...]
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The offer made yesterday by House Republicans to the White House to avoid the fiscal cliff got all the headlines, but there were two reasons why it wasn’t the most important fiscal cliff-related story of the day. First, it wasn’t really a serious offer. In spite of the fact that the letter to the White [...]
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Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games.
I first posted about the budget dilemma Hurricane Sandy presented to congressional Republicans in general and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on October 31. At that time I said there were three questions.
The questions are now starting to be answered.
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Without the White House and House Republicans seeing eye to eye — and they still definitely don’t — we’re no closer to a deal to stop the fiscal cliff than we were before the start of the Thanksgiving recess.
But that doesn’t mean the budget debate hasn’t been substantially changed by what’s already happened. To the contrary, some of the most commonly held budget beliefs and fiscal fish tales have now been shown to be deceptive, disingenuous, misleading and just plain wrong.
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Congressional Republicans in general and House GOP'ers in particular have been saying since Election Day 2010 that the Gingrich Republicans of the mid-1990s compromised too early with Bill Clinton on the budget and would have gotten much better deals if they had only held out longer.
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Originally published at Capital Gains and Games. The Dow Jones Industrials Average was in negative territory on Friday morning when congressional leaders emerged from their first fiscal cliff meeting at the White House. At that point the Dow was down 59 points. But based on the totally innocuous and meaningless statements from the leaders that [...]
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Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. Last week’s election results did not change my opinion that we’re more likely to go over the fiscal cliff than to avoid it. Yes, I heard the less defiant tone Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, has used to talk about the cliff. Yes, I heard the president use [...]
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You haven't heard much...or perhaps anything...yet about a disaster relief supplemental appropriation for the state and local governments and individuals who were hit so hard by Sandy.
But you will, probably starting this afternoon when President Obama tours New Jersey arm-in-arm with Governor Chris Christie.
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The mainstream media and blogosphere lit up like Christmas trees yesterday when 80 CEOs came together to call on Congress and the president to agree on a comprehensive deficit reduction plan that includes revenue increases and spending cuts. Here’s David Wessel’s story from The Wall Street Journal. (Note: I’m linking to the story on the Fix [...]
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