The White House and Senate Republicans reached a tentative agreement yesterday that would see a GOP priority, Bush-era tax cuts extended for rich and poor alike, accepted in return for a Democratic priority: extending unemployment benefits to help keep the economy moving. Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich watched the deal in the making.
Conventional wisdom said votes to extend some of the Bush-era tax cuts and to repeal the healthcare reform bill will fall along party lines, and they still may. But with election just months away, elected officials are plugging numbers into a more detailed equation to figure out how to cast their vote.
Democrats are hoping to use the millionaire’s tax to push through an extension in President Barack Obama’s payroll tax cuts. So far, though, Republicans are resisting the idea of the millionaires tax, though they may be willing to use other means to keep the tax cut in place.
With all this talk about whether we’re going right over the cliff, The Takeaway started thinking about the patterns of budget cycles. These sorts of down-to-the wire negotiations are actually rooted in the political back and fourth of budget cycles that started years ago. The notion of the ten year budget and fiscal cycle is […]