| Financial reform battle continues over Dodd-Frank law Jan 3rd 2013, 01:07 The fate of financial reform may be decided in the coming year as congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle attempt to modify the Dodd-Frank Act. In the two years since Congress passed the far-reaching regulatory overhaul, lawmakers have railed against the law for either not going far enough to reform Wall Street or being too burdensome to the industry. Republicans have sought to dismantle Dodd-Frank through a series of failed bills, placing Democrats on the defensive despite their own misgivings about the law. Read full article >> |  | The worst budget gimmick in the fiscal cliff deal Jan 2nd 2013, 21:49 Buried in the fiscal cliff deal is a small provision with big political significance: The bill makes it much easier for ordinary Americans to convert traditional 401(k) retirement accounts into Roth IRAs, which the Congressional Budget Office has scored to raise $12 billion over 10 years. Read full article >> | | Calm down, liberals. The White House won. Jan 2nd 2013, 21:02 I've covered every one of this White House's major deals. Part of that coverage has been taking the temperature of key players on the left. So I heard the frustration when the White House agreed to shave a hundred billion dollars off of the stimulus, when they threw the public option overboard to pass the health-care bill, when they extended the Bush tax cuts for two years to secure more stimulus and when they agreed to the 2011 Budget Control Act to resolve the debt ceiling. Read full article >> | | Zipcar reassures members about acquisition by Avis Jan 2nd 2013, 20:09 Zipcar on Wednesday reached out to its members, who may be wondering where they stand after hearing the news that Avis has acquired the car-sharing service. In an e-mail, the car-sharing company was long on optimism — and short on specifics— about how the deal will affect its user base of at least 767,000 drivers who can reserve the cars online or via smartphones by the hour. The service charges users an hourly fee in addition to annual membership dues. Read full article >> | | The legacy of the Bush tax cuts, in four charts Jan 2nd 2013, 20:00 With Tuesday's House vote, the George W. Bush tax cuts, born in 2001, reach a new milestone. Originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, they are now permanent (or most of them, anyway). Congress voted to extend the income tax cuts for most families earning under $450,000 a year, while taxing capital gains, dividends and tax breaks at higher rates for upper-income earners. Read full article >> | | The fiscal cliff negotiations, in one chart Jan 2nd 2013, 17:14 A while back, we posted a chart comparing the offers presented by President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in the fiscal cliff talks. Since then, details of Boehner's "plan B" option became clearer, and Vice President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hashed out a final deal and got it passed. So here's that same chart, with the most fleshed-out version of plan B, and the final plan, included: Read full article >> | | Congress tries democracy for a change! Jan 2nd 2013, 17:01 Here's the biggest winner in the fiscal cliff deal: majority rule. Congressional rules reform is a subject guaranteed to make the eyes glaze over. But if you want to know Congress why gets nothing done, it is not primarily because the country is hopelessly divided or the sensible center has disappeared from the American electorate, but because neither the House nor the Senate allows a majority of its members to work their will. Read full article >> | | How Avis will ruin Zipcar Jan 2nd 2013, 16:27 News that Avis has signed a deal to buy Zipcar is bad news for consumers — as it always is when companies that dominate an industry with an "old" business model buy upstart competitors with a threatening "new" business model. Read full article >> | | Get used to more fiscal cliffs Jan 2nd 2013, 15:52 There is a fiscal cliff deal, and it will become law. That is the good news. Our long national nightmare of 34 hours having fallen off the fiscal cliff (and counting, until the president signs the legislation) is over. Read full article >> | | The fiscal cliff cuts $1.9 billion from Obamacare. Here's how. Jan 2nd 2013, 15:50 The fiscal cliff deal is, obviously, mostly about preventing the fiscal cliff and stopping a wave of huge spending cuts. At the same time, legislators did find ways to make some relatively important health policy changes too. They include everything from raising Medicare doctor's pay, repealing a part of the Obamacare and cutting over a billion from the law's funding. Let's get right to it. Read full article >> | | Everything is Terrible Jan 2nd 2013, 15:47 The original version of this post is here. This version covers the full debate, up to Wednesday's passage of a final deal. Once upon a time, there was a budget surplus. A big budget surplus, in fact. In July 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that if discretionary spending kept growing at the rate of inflation, the next 10 years would see a combined surplus of about $2.8 trillion. Revenue would stay the course, and spending would actually decline gradually: Read full article >> | |
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