What the Fiscal Cliff Deal Didn't Solve
The best thing you can say about the New Year's Day fiscal cliff deal is that it's unlikely to hurt the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, it does almost nothing to help it.
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The contentious fiscal cliff deal struck Tuesday night sent stock markets, here and abroad, "climbing", "surging", "rallying," and "soaring" on Wednesday. Which confirms the importance of striking a deal — any deal! — in the first place.
The best thing you can say about the New Year's Day fiscal cliff deal is that it's unlikely to hurt the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, it does almost nothing to help it.
While we may be just weeks away from a series of mini-cliffs to come, the House of Representatives approved the much debated Senate version of a bill late Sunday night, 257-167, averting a fiscal crisis. President Obama said at an evening appearance that he would sign it.
Speaker of the House John Boehner's job today was to try and sell House Republicans on the fiscal cliff deal hammered out by the Senate in the wee hours of last night. Eric Cantor is certainly making that as hard as possible.
While you were out enjoying your New Year's Eve, members of the Senate and some of our top lawmakers rang in the new year working on, and eventually passing, a deal to avert the fiscal cliff.
Even as the United States found itself poised to go over the fiscal cliff on New Year's Eve, a deal was emerging — and liberals did not particularly like it. Here's why, exactly, they think he's got no game.
As the fiscal cliff negotiations reach their final hour, a strange new trend has emerged: people are going on TV and saying, with a straight face, that making $250,000 a year doesn't make you rich.
After President Obama said a deal was "within sight," a tax agreement was evolving in the Senate — but the House acknowledged it would not vote on fiscal measures before the midnight deadline. America, welcome to overboard.
We've been batting around this fiscal cliff debate for months, and now with just hours left until the deadline, Senators say they remain "apart on some pretty big issues." What are they? And what will we learn on Monday morning?
The fiscal cliff talks that were going so well yesterday have fallen apart, and now Mitch McConnell is reaching out to Vice President Joe Biden to help him see if they can get this deal done.
You would think the Senate and Congressional leaders would be making all kinds of progress towards a fiscal cliff deal considering it quite literally is zero hour and the country is mere days away from actually, really going over the proverbial cliff. But nope! You would be mistaken.
The most powerful people in Washington met at the White House on Friday, and they all walked away, saying and accomplishing close to nothing. President Obama and Speaker Boehner made evening statements, and here's what we know heading into the weekend.
After conflicting reports on whether a new offer was coming and in advance of a White House summit Friday afternoon, President Obama has reportedly crafted a "scaled back" proposal that would — temporarily, at least — avoid next week's fiscal cliff.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a less than encouraging speech on the Senate floor today, essentially conceded that the fiscal cliff is happening. During his remarks, Reid scolded his House counterpart John Boehner, calling his rule a "dictatorship."
Just in case the fiscal cliff problem wasn't bumming you out enough, Tim Geithner has politely reminded everyone that as of Monday, the Treasury Department won't be able to borrow any more money.
It might be a mini-deal, but still: members of Congress are expected to go back to work Thursday, and lawmakers seem to realize that their theatrics are wearing thin on the American public.
After a nice long holiday weekend, President Obama and members of Congress suddenly remembered that they never took care of that fiscal cliff thing that happens in just six days.
After the markets had closed and elected Washington had headed home for the holidays, President Obama took to the White House podium early Friday evening and suggested Congress cool off over Christmas.
House Republicans embarrassed "poor, orange man" John Boehner and rejected his backup plan, leaving the negotiations with a complex future. Here's how Obama and the Speaker might move next, if Boehner's even still the Speaker.
Lost in all the anxiety over the Fiscal Cliff, is another little noticed deadline that could force you to pay double the price for a gallon of milk come January 1.
After an hour delay so Speaker of the House John Boehner could try and whip up more Republicans votes to get his Plan B vote through Congress, the Speaker's saving grace bill didn't even go to a vote. And Boehner, like Elvis, left the building.
Instead of putting pressure on Obama and the White House, which immediately rejected and then announced its intention to veto the idea, Plan B has brought more attention to infighting among Republicans.
President Obama's highly anticipated press conference — in which he offered his strongest remarks about new gun legislation since the Newtown shootings, and officially announced a commission to be led by Vice President Biden — wasn't very interesting to the White House press pool. They wanted to talk about the fiscal cliff. Here's an anatomy of the insiders' priority shift.
If the White House won't buy the House Republicans' backup plan, does that mean it's time for fiscal cliff panic?
Within hours of its being floated publicly, the White House has already rejected House Speaker John Boehner's backup plan on the fiscal-cliff negotiations.
House Speaker John Boehner announced in a press conference Tuesday morning that he's suddenly pushing for a backup plan, which he also hopes will prod President Obama into a better deal for conservatives.
Leaked details of Obama's third attempt to compromise with Republicans on solutions for the fiscal cliff made headlines on Monday night, mainly the bit about increasing the earnings threshold to $400,000 for higher tax rates.
Seeking Arrangement, the infamous dating website that matches "sugar daddies" and "sugar mommies" with attractive but cash-strapped young people, is inserting itself into the budget debate with a new pitch: to avoid the fiscal cliff, have a rich guy buy you things.
John Boehner has finally given in to raising taxes for America's wealthiest citizens for the first time in the ongoing fiscal cliff talks. But it isn't exactly what the President asked for...
Everyone seemed to ignored one thing that made Boehner's Thursday press conference new and special: a chart — from Paul Ryan, no less.
The latest poll numbers show that a record number of Americans favor raising taxes on the rich as a solution to our budget problems. With the fiscal cliff just weeks away, one question remains: Who cares?
Why is the fiscal cliff so boring? It's not because it's about math. But whether or not you freak out over tax hikes depends on what you think about how many details Republicans have made public. A guide.
This fiscal cliff is making people do crazy things. Case in point, 81-year-old Representative Bill Young coming very close to caning a protester who wanted "a commitment from him [Young] to extend the middle class tax cuts."
SNL's image of a "poor orange man" who needs to be left alone may be funny, but it may not be true: Georgia Rep. Tom Price isn't quite coming for John Boehner's speakership, even if some of the House GOP is coming for his head.
It's a sign that maybe there's an emerging conservative consensus, given the growing number of Republican lawmakers suggesting the party should cave on lettings tax rates go up for the top 2 percent of income earners.
Obama and Boehner met at the White House Sunday for an undisclosed amount of time and discussed an undisclosed amount of solutions.
If John Boehner fails to get a fiscal cliff deal done, a responsibility he's now put entirely on his own back, then he might have trouble on January 3rd when he's expected to be re-elected as Speaker of the House. A conservative group is angling to throw a monkey wrench in that process.
Even though we don't know what's going on behind closed doors in the fiscal cliff negotiations — or on the phone lines (they talked!) — we can measure progress on the fight in a couple clear ways.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced Wednesday afternoon that the House can't go home for the holidays until the fiscal cliff is resolved, which sounds horrible, but maybe isn't totally. We asked Sen. Claire McCaskill's daughter.
The president's latest attempt to portray congressional Republicans as unreasonable now boils down to something like this: What? What did I say? It was y'all's idea all along.
A group of economic advisers from the Clinton era thinks it may have stumbled upon a brilliant solution for America's current economic situation: make it more like the Clinton era. Which, given today's Washington gridlock, may not be all that brilliant.
A newly released poll shows that the 53 percent of Americans would blame Republicans in Congress if a fiscal cliff agreement isn't reached. Obviously, that's more than the 1 Percent they're fighting for.
Basically, they want half the tax increases and 50 percent more cuts to entitlements, and say their plan adds up to $4.6 trillion in deficit reduction. Here's how the plans look side-by-side.
What a day for Twitter! First the Pope, then the Royal Baby, and now President Obama will come online to answer questions about the fiscal cliff.
For now, all the "negotiating" amounts to little more than House Republicans and President Obama giving press conferences full of catchy phrases. Here are some of the best from Friday's back-and-forth, and a look into the subtext therein.
The president asked for a whole lot in his opening offer to Republicans Thursday, and they rejected it.
The debt-limit debacle of 2011 created the fiscal cliff of 2012, but the homestretch of this new fight is going to be different than the one that created it. Here's what the next four and a half weeks might look like.
America's biggest anti-tax advocate has gotten the vast majority of congressional Republicans to sign his pledge to never raise taxes. But with the fiscal cliff looming, some influential Republicans are suddenly offering to break the pledge. Here's why.
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve explained it all quite simply today: the sooner it's over, the better—and the sooner we can enjoy a good 2013.
The key players in the budget negotiations finally sat down for the first time on Friday, but are still feeling each other out as they establish their opening gambits.
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