Falling off a cliff is never a good idea. Then again, neither is digging yourself deeper into a hole. Those are the messages, contradictory but compelling, embedded in a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) about the fast-approaching “ fiscal cliff .” The economy will confront the precipice at year’s end, on account of a confluence of tax cuts set to expire and spending cuts scheduled to kick in. Read full article > >

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Responsibility is missing as ‘fiscal cliff’ approaches

Tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect in January would suck $607 billion out of the economy next year, plunging the nation at least briefly back into recession, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. Read full article > >

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CBO: Taxmageddon would throw U.S. back into recession

President Obama admits it: His proposed “Buffett Rule” tax on millionaires is a gimmick. “ There are others who are saying: ‘Well, this is just a gimmick. Just taxing millionaires and billionaires, just imposing the Buffett Rule, won’t do enough to close the deficit,’ ” Obama declared Wednesday. “Well, I agree.” Read full article > >

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Rebuffing Obama’s gimmicky ‘Buffett Rule’

Former President George W. Bush reflected on his presidency in a rare public appearance Tuesday, poking fun at his low approval ratings and saying he didn’t miss being the leader of the free world. Read full article > >

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Bush: ‘I wish they weren’t called the Bush tax cuts’

The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a $3.5 trillion budget plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on a 228 to 191 vote, largely along party lines. It was a dramatic departure from the night before, when lawmakers took up a plan based on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction proposal. Read full article > >

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House approves $3.5 trillion budget plan proposed by Paul Ryan

UPDATE D: 2:45 p.m.: The Senate will not begin debating postal reform until late Wednesday at the earliest, according to several Senate aides. Senators are slated to vote Monday afternoon on a bill to repeal oil industry tax breaks, a Democratic-sponsored measure that wasn’t expected to earn widespread Republican support. But Senate GOP leaders have told members to vote for cloture in hopes of beginning a days-long debate over tax cuts, energy policy and rising gas prices. Read full article > >

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Senate turns attention to the Postal Service

Clarifying moments are rare in politics. They are the times when previously muddled issues are cast into sharp relief and citizens get a chance to look past the spin and obfuscation. Americans were blessed with three such moments last week. Read full article > >

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The right’s Etch a Sketch imperative

Congress is ignoring that it has only nine months to head off sequestration and the economic “perfect storm” looming in December. Remember, it’s an election year, which probably means a lame-duck session in December will have to pass fiscal 2013 appropriations bills wrapped in a continuing resolution, raise the debt limit, and deal with the required $1.2 trillion in debt reduction over the next 10 years — or pass some tax proposal that would replace the Dec. 31 end of all the George W. Bush tax cuts (for the middle class and the wealthy). Read full article > >

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Oil and water: Budget cuts and election years

Every estimate you’ve heard of who is being helped and who is being hurt by the tax cuts proposed by the various Republican presidential campaign is telling you, at best, only half the story. And that’s because these estimates only look at one side of the ledger: who gets the tax cuts. But there’s another side to the ledger: Who pays for them, and how? That side is at least as important as who gets the tax cuts, but it’s almost always ignored. Read full article > >

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What we miss when we talk about tax cuts

House Speaker John Boehner gave a spirited reply when asked recently about whether his party’s resistance to middle-class tax cuts risked making Republicans appear to be lackeys of the rich. “I’ve got 11 brothers and sisters on every rung of the economic ladder, all right?” Boehner said . “My dad owned a bar. I know what’s going on out in America.” Read full article > >

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On tap: Radical Republican Winterfest

House Speaker John Boehner gave a spirited reply when asked recently about whether his party’s resistance to middle-class tax cuts risked making Republicans appear to be lackeys of the rich. “I’ve got 11 brothers and sisters on every rung of the economic ladder, all right?” Boehner said . “My dad owned a bar. I know what’s going on out in America.” Read full article > >

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On tap: Radical Republican Winterfest

The House speaker, John A. Boehner, did an about-face and said he and other House Republicans were opposed to the extension until February of the payroll tax cuts.

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House Republicans Oppose Senate Deal on Payroll Tax Cut, Boehner Says

President Obama questioned why Republicans who opposed paying for tax cuts in the past now won’t support them unless they are offset with other revenues.

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Obama Challenges G.O.P. on Payroll Tax Stance

Almost two weeks ago, 21 Occupy Wall Street protesters decided to take the movement on the road , in a march from New York’s Zuccotti Park to the White House. Their goal: to spread the movement to the 12 cities and small towns they would pass through along the way, and to protest the supercommittee’s likely decision to retain Bush tax cuts “for the rich,” or “one percent.” Read full article > >

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Occupy Wall Street protesters finish journey from Zuccotti Park to D.C.

President Obama is preparing to roll out a jobs program Thursday that could cost as much as $300 billion in infrastructure investments and tax cuts, but which aides said will include ways to pay for the programs that the White House hopes will win bipartisan support from skeptical Republicans. Obama, whose approval ratings are at record lows, will present his proposals before a joint session of Congress at 7 p.m. ET Thursday in an address that could mark a critical moment in his presidency. Obama aims to restore public confidence in his administration’s ability to boost the economy and prevent another recession, even as Republican rivals point to a Labor Department report that showed no new jobs created last month as evidence that his policies aren’t working. Read full article > >

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Obama jobs plan could cost $300 billion, include tax cuts, new spending