Ever since the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama has argued passionately for extending the Bush-era tax cuts for all but the richest 2 percent of Americans. His reasoning: the rich have fared spectacularly well over the past quarter century—incomes of the top 1 percent tripled in real terms—while incomes grew slowly or not at all [...]

As usual in December, personal finance columns are filled with end-of-year tax advice—all those things you should do before New Year’s to cut your tax bill. But 2010’s end-of-year issues are different: This year, it’s Congress and the president who need to act fast on a long list of tax policies. Everyone knows about the [...]

It is a good thing the “Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act,” which died in the Senate today, was never supposed to pass. That’s because it would have neither created American jobs nor ended offshoring (a word that never should have become a verb). The bill, sponsored by Senate Democrats, had three parts: It would [...]

While Washington seems obsessed with the fate of the Bush tax cuts, it has paid little attention to a soon-to-expire Obama tax cut: the Making Work Pay credit (MWP). Like the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, this credit, which was enacted as part of the 2009 stimulus, is also scheduled to expire at the end of this year. President Obama has proposed extending it through 2011. But Congress has been largely silent about what it plans to do, in part because extending the credit for another year would reduce federal revenues by more than $60 billion

The Congressional Budget Office’s annual mid-session update provides some striking evidence of just how challenging today’s fiscal environment is. Because deficits were so high going into the economic slump, and because the financial crash was so steep, Washington must now navigate between two unacceptable outcomes: tight fiscal policy and slower growth now, or bigger deficits and slower growth later.

The conventional wisdom is that Americans are fed up with their government. But our demands on policymakers are so inconsistent and irrational that we make governing nearly impossible. We hate big deficits, but oppose the actual tax increases or spending cuts that we need to dam the flood of the red ink. We are furious that government passed an $800 billion stimulus last year, but feel lawmakers are not doing enough to get the economy going. We want government to “do something” about the gulf oil spill but reject government interference in private business.

When the Senate returns next week, it must confront a bit of unfinished business—what to do about extending unemployment benefits. As fans of the ongoing soap opera that is the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body already know, the Senate failed to pass the unemployment bill before rushing out of town for its Fourth of July holiday. And just before the Labor Department issued a discouraging report that suggested private job creation may be slowing.

Maryland Democratic congressman Steny Hoyer is something of a throwback. In an age of ideological extremes, the House Majority Leader is a moderate. At a time when elected officials are held in low esteem, the #2 House Democrat proudly serves in his fourth decade as a legislator. And when incendiary speech is the ticket to political stardom, Hoyer is far more comfortable counting votes in legislative backrooms than delivering red-meat polemics.

Congress' effort to pass a jobs bill stalled in the Senate on Wednesday. In part, the upper chamber tied itself into Senate-like knots thanks to the usual partisan wrangling. But the proposal has also rekindled a debate over the need for more economic stimulus versus fear of rising deficits. This argument is important and healthy, but wildly overblown in the context of such a small and poorly-targeted bill.

I know it is risky so early in the year, but I have a nomination for the worst idea of 2010. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), wants to make Social Security retirement benefits available beginning at age 60. Temporarily. To create jobs.
His logic appears to be this: If one million people between 60 and 62 (the current age for early Social Security eligibility) retire early, they will open up one million new opportunities for younger people. Somehow, in Kucinich-math, this creates jobs.