Two weeks ago, Linda posted a terrific, detailed post on the Camp hearings in the House Ways and Means Committee–which is not known for kumbaya, despite the chairman’s surname–on the possibility of ending or curtailing the tax deduction for charitable donations. The hearings apparently were surprisingly serious in tone and nature, from what I could […]
Via Truthout Dean Baker points to continuing insistent of President Obama to keep Social Security ‘on the table’. Dean Baker has a take on some numbers surrounding the politics and stories politicans offer: While most of the DC insiders probably don’t understand the chained CPI, everyone else should recognize that this technical fix amounts to […]
by Linda Beale Private equity and real estate managers get a “costly and unjust [tax] perk” Through a process of Wall Street interpretation of the law and the “Wall Street Rule” (that says that the government tax administration will have great difficulty gainsaying an interpretation of the tax laws that lots of high-powered–read “wealthy”–Wall Street […]
by Tom aka Rusty RustbeltHealth Care Thoughts: Essential Benefit RegulationsThe final regulations were published on “essential benefits.” No major surprises. The best summary I can find is at:http://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2013/02/22/hhs-gets-specific-on-acas-essential-benefits/
This post will be long, fairly wonky, and confused. I am typing, because I just have to stop playing with FRED and write something. My claim is that expected inflation over the next 5 (and 10 and 20) years is very similar to actual inflation over the past year. I think the data generally […]
In followup to this post of mine from earlier today, I want to point out Ezra Klein’s post from last night titled “On the sequester, the American people ‘moved the goalposts’.” It begins: I don’t agree with my colleague Bob Woodward, who says the Obama administration is “moving the goalposts” when they insist on a […]
Good lord. So much ado about one high-profile journalist’s (deliberate or inadvertent; I can’t tell which) semantics ploy. Stellar New York Times White House correspondent Jackie Calmes, in a lengthy article on the provenance of the sequester, explains the controversy: As this weekend arrived, Republicans were circulating a column by [Bob] Woodward published online […]
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2008/01/some-legislators-saw-dilemma.html http://www.angrybearblog.com/2008/04/one-ring-to-rule-them-all.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/business/major-banks-aid-in-payday-loans-banned-by-states.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130224&adxnnlx=1361718393-6egGqNlj8mdptNYglLFLXQ
I was wrong. It turns out that National Journal editorial director Ron Fournier wasn’t out sick the day his eighth-grade civics class learned about the separation of powers between the three branches of the federal government, after all. He was present and learned about it. But he missed a class a few weeks later explaining […]