And possibly permanent?
"House votes to extend tax breaks through December" by Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press December 04, 2014
WASHINGTON — The House rushed through a last-minute measure Wednesday to extend a massive package of expired tax breaks for banks, investment firms, commuters, and NASCAR track owners.
Related: Back to Bu$ine$$ as U$ual in Wa$hington
And you thought things had changed!
The bill would enable millions of businesses and individuals to claim the breaks on their 2014 returns. It would add nearly $42 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
The more than 50 tax breaks benefit big corporations and small businesses, as well as teachers and people who live in states without a state income tax. More narrow provisions include tax breaks for filmmakers, racehorse owners, and rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
‘‘With the end of the year and a new tax filing season rapidly approaching, we need to act,’’ said Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. ‘‘The IRS has been clear that unless Congress acts quickly, it will be forced to delay the start of the tax filing season.’’
The bill passed 378 to 46. It now goes to the Senate, where Democratic leaders have been noncommittal about whether they would accept it or try to change it. Time is short because the House plans to adjourn for the year next week, and the Senate could as well.
Congress routinely extends the package of tax breaks every year or two. But they were allowed to expire in January.
Lawmakers from both political parties said the short-term measure is the product of a divided Congress that has trouble passing routine legislation.
It won't be very soon.
‘‘This on-again, off-again style of legislating on a temporary basis is a terrible way to make tax policy,’’ Camp said.
House Republicans and Senate Democrats were negotiating to make some of the tax breaks permanent.
But talks faltered last week after the White House threatened to veto an emerging package, saying it favored big corporations over families.
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It was implied that the tax cuts wouldn't make it through the lame duck:
"Congress returns for lame-duck session" by Andrew Taylor | Associated Press November 11, 2014
WASHINGTON — Congress returns to work this week for a lame-duck session to try to clean up a lengthy roster of unfinished business, even as jubilant Republicans prepare to take over the Senate for the first time in eight years come January.
The agenda includes funding the government into the new year, renewing expiring tax breaks for individuals and businesses, the annual defense policy measure, and a slew of presidential nominations.
Also pending are President Obama’s requests for money to combat Islamic State militants, battle the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and deal with the influx of unaccompanied Central American children who have crossed into the United States.
The list of nominees awaiting Senate action — which will probably grow — includes 16 federal district court judgeships and 31 ambassadorships to countries ranging from Vietnam to the United Arab Emirates to the Bahamas.
Related: Wenham woman still in Bahamas hospital
You know why it's there, right?
Also pending are Obama’s picks for surgeon general, a member of the National Labor Relations Board, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and high-level jobs at the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. His pick for surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, is a Harvard Medical School physician.
The most anticipated nomination debate — about approving New York federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to replace departing Attorney General Eric Holder — might not occur until next year.
Democrats relinquishing the Senate have outlined an ambitious agenda for the lame-duck session, while House GOP aides say the agenda for the Republican-controlled chamber is more fluid pending discussions.
What were they waiting all this time for?
GOP leaders would like to start next year with as clean a slate as possible, but conservatives could press to hold off making deals with Senate Democrats in hopes of getting better outcomes next year.
In the meantime, negotiations are underway between the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on a $1 trillion-plus spending bill for the budget year that began Oct. 1. A temporary funding measure expires Dec. 11.
Aides have been going through the 12 annual spending bills line by line in hopes of wrapping the fiscal 2015 bills into an omnibus measure and passing it before the deadline. But conservatives such as Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, are likely to oppose any omnibus bill and press for a short-term funding measure into next year so Republicans can draft new versions of the bills then.
‘‘Do you go for a short period or do you finish out the fiscal year to clean the slate?’’ asked Senator John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican.
GOP leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, want to complete action on the 2015 appropriations cycle this year and get a fresh start when they take complete control of Congress in January. The incoming Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is believed to feel the same way but has not said so publicly.
The taxation committees have been slower to engage on renewing a bundle of expired tax breaks like the deduction for state and local sales taxes and the research and experimentation credit.
They didn't want to dole 'em out before the election.
Some of the so-called tax extenders, such as tax credits for renewable energy, are controversial with conservatives, but tax filing season is closing in and the provisions always pass in the end.
The House has passed legislation that would make several of the tax breaks permanent, while the Senate approach has been for a two-year extension of the package of tax breaks, which is seen as more likely to prevail.
The problem of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria also looms. Authority to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels to fight the terror group expires in December, and lawmakers will decide whether to renew the authority, though debate on a new congressional authorization to use military force is likely to wait until next year.
Obama is requesting more than $5 billion to pay for sending additional noncombat troops to Iraq, as well as munitions and other military and intelligence requirements to fight the militants.
That could really roll the costs up quick!
Last week he also requested $6.2 billion in emergency money to confront Ebola at its source in West Africa and to secure the United States against any possible spread.
Almost as if it were a terrorist.
There is also a pending $3.7 billion request to address unaccompanied immigrant children.
While American kids make due with austerity in the war economy!
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So how much are they going to get done?
"Little expected as Congress heads to a lame-duck end" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff November 19, 2014
WASHINGTON — Despite the full plate of issues this Congress faces in its waning days, just about everything is meaningless. Little substantive work is getting done.
Then why all the print?
Few are holding out hope for any major breakthroughs.
Top lawmakers have yet to stage any vote on war, even as the United States continues to bomb Syria and Iraq.
Will tax reform happen? Not a chance.
No?
The Senate spent all day Tuesday debating whether to approve the Keystone XL, a pipeline that would carry oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. But the vote was for show. All 45 Republicans and 14 Democrats supported the measure, but it failed with just one vote shy of the 60 needed to shut off debate. Had it passed, Obama probably would have vetoed it, and it’s largely been an executive branch decision in any case.
One of the primary reasons Democrats pushed for a vote was to give a boost to Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat now in a runoff election.
Related: The Key(stone) to Landrieu's Loss
**********
Congress has one primary job during the lame duck session: Avoid another government shutdown.
At midnight on Dec. 11, the current stop-gap funding bill that allows the government to run will expire. Without congressional action, the government would shut down for the second time in 14 months.
“We have a lot of unfinished work to do,” Reid said. “The number one issue is to make sure the government is funded.”
I'm being led to believe it is the ONLY ISSUE!
It seemed another shutdown was off the table. McConnell, who is set to be the majority leader in the next Congress, said when he won reelection last week that the days of shutting down the government were over.
But that pledge is now in jeopardy because some Republicans who favor Tea Party policies are considering derailing the government funding to retaliate against Obama’s expected executive action on immigration.
Just do the right thing and impeach him.
House Republicans, for example, are discussing strategies to fund the government, but not the agencies carrying out Obama’s executive order. Obama could take action as early as this week, announcing a plan that is expected to allow up to 5 million undocumented immigrants to obtain work permits and live in the United States without the threat of deportation.
Democrats say the president has no choice but to act alone. He’s been waiting for nearly two years for Congress to reform the country’s immigration laws. The Senate passed a bill, but the House has not.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is a dictator.
“When the president decides to do this executive order, he should go big,” Reid said. “As big as he can.”
He did and yet didn't.
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"White House veto threat shelves possible tax plan" by Andrew Taylor, Associated Press November 27, 2014
WASHINGTON — A White House veto threat appears to have put on ice a congressional effort to permanently renew a handful of tax breaks for businesses and individuals. Officials say the plan, brewing behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, favored corporations over the working class.
That's a week before the article that led this post.
So, what, lied to again? Misled and deceived by the agenda-pushing, narrative-forming propaganda pre$$ again?
The unusual veto threat came before the parameters of a potential agreement were even revealed.
Speculation on Capitol Hill on Tuesday focused on a potential agreement to permanently enact tax breaks on business investments in new equipment and research and development as part of a plan that would renew dozens of expired tax breaks for businesses and individuals both.
The White House immediately weighed in with a veto threat, saying Congress should also make permanent a top Obama administration priority: extending more generous tax credits for the working poor and people with children.
Those were left out of the potential pact and expire at the end of 2017. Democrats fear they won’t be renewed if Republicans control Congress or retake the White House.
‘‘The president would veto the proposed deal because it would provide permanent tax breaks to help well-connected corporations while neglecting working families,’’ deputy White House press secretary Jennifer Friedman said.
A senior White House official said the president was personally working the phones to try to kill the plan.
Negotiations on renewing the expired tax breaks were expected to continue.
At issue are dozens of expired tax breaks, known as ‘‘extenders’’ in Washington parlance. They are generally renewed every year or two and have broad political backing from both Democrats and Republicans.
What did you expect from the election?
They expired last year and action now would extend them retroactively in time for individuals and businesses to claim them in the upcoming filing season.
That is supposed to be unconstitutional (Section 9, ex post facto), but....
In trade-offs that angered the administration but gave political wins to top Senate Democrats, the emerging pact would also have made permanent tax breaks for college tuition, parking and transit subsidies, and a deduction for state and local sales taxes.
‘‘The president has consistently stated his opposition to giving hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts primarily geared toward corporations while leaving middle-class families and those struggling to get into the middle class behind,’’ said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The possible agreement, Democratic aides said, was being negotiated between House Republicans and top Senate Democrats including outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose state of Nevada benefits from the state and local sales tax deduction.
Senate Democrats were seeking the best deal they could while retaining leverage, but the emerging outline reportedly infuriated the White House and liberal Democrats because it was so favorable to businesses.
‘‘This deal would give a massive handout to big corporations and expect working families to pick up the tab. Congress should be helping these families, not rewarding corporate lobbyists and their wealthy clients,’’ said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts.
The cost of the outline under consideration could have reached $450 billion over the coming decade and would have been financed entirely by adding to the $17.9 trillion national debt.
Oh, look, it is a HALF-TRILLION (with a T) LOOTING to be piled upon (with interest paid to the Federal Reserve) the American taxpayer's backs -- all for WEALTHY ELITES and CORPORATIONS!
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"House nearing vote on 1-year package of tax breaks" by Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press December 02, 2014
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are preparing to pass a one-year extension of temporary tax breaks affecting millions of businesses and individuals.
Most of the more than 50 tax breaks expired at the end of 2013, so the extension would only run through the end of the month.
However, it would allow taxpayers to claim the tax breaks when they file their 2014 tax returns.
The tax breaks benefit big corporations and small businesses, as well as commuters, teachers and people who live in states without a state income tax. In all, they affect about one in six taxpayers, according to The Tax Institute, the independent research arm at tax giant H&R Block.
Yeah, right, it's going to be good for us all.
Senate Democrats and House Republicans were negotiating to make some of the tax breaks permanent. But talks faltered last week after the White House threatened to veto an emerging package, saying it too heavily favored big corporations over families.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest expressed concerns about a one-year extension, but stopped short of issuing a new veto threat.
‘‘There are significant fiscal consequences for just a one-year extension, instead of a permanent extension,’’ Earnest said.
A House GOP aide said the House could vote on the one-year package as early as this week. The aide was not authorized to speak publicly about the package ahead of an official announcement.
Took about a day and a half.
Congress routinely passes the package of temporary tax breaks every year or two, drawing complaints from businesses that it is hard to plan from year to year. A one-year package would bring more uncertainty next year.
Among the biggest breaks for businesses: a tax credit for research and development, an exemption that allows financial companies to shield foreign profits from being taxed by the United States, and several provisions that allow businesses to write off capital investments more quickly.
So much for the "New" Leadership down there, and this fal$e debate about wealth inequality.
The biggest tax break for individuals allows people who live in states without an income tax to deduct state and local sales taxes on their federal returns. Another protects struggling homeowners who get their mortgages reduced from paying income taxes on the amount of debt that was forgiven.
Other more narrow provisions include tax breaks for film and theater producers, NASCAR race track owners, manufacturers of electric motorcycles, commuters who use public transportation, and teachers who spend their own money on classroom supplies.
Why do teachers have to spend their own money on classroom supplies?
The lame-duck lawmakers who returned to Washington on Monday face a full agenda and not much time to get it all done before the new Congress convenes in January.
I was led to believe it was all meaningless, etc. WTF?
In addition to the tax bill, the agenda includes keeping the government running into the new year and approving a defense policy measure. The lawmakers hope to get it all done in two weeks without forcing a government shutdown.
Also pending are President Obama’s requests for money to combat Islamic State militants, battle Ebola, and deal with an influx of unaccompanied Central American children who have crossed into the United States.
The agenda also includes renewing the government’s terrorism risk insurance program and extending the ban on state and federal taxes on access to the Internet.
Actually, they want to levy them on the Internet.
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Related: Congress crams unfinished work into final days
Republicans push to update education law
Led by Lamar Alexander, of all people.
How can the NSA not know about that?
"Boehner plan to avert shutdown gains support" by Noah Bierman, Globe Staff December 02, 2014
WASHINGTON – House Speaker John A. Boehner, who has pleaded with fellow Republicans to avoid a contentious government shutdown fight, appeared to win support on Tuesday for a plan that would allow members of his party to vent anger at President Obama while keeping the government open beyond next week.
Republican leaders, eager to consolidate their election victory as they take control of the Senate next month, are hoping to avoid the drama over fiscal deadlines that had hurt the party politically in recent years and threatened the economy.
Republican House members nonetheless found themselves in a familiar place Tuesday: huddling in the basement of the Capitol, with some representatives refusing to rule out a shutdown in retaliation for Obama’s decision to unilaterally soften immigration enforcement. But most House Republicans seemed to side with Boehner, leaving the fight for another day.
“I think they understand that it will be difficult to take meaningful action as long as we’ve got Democrats who control the Senate,” Boehner said after the closed-door meeting.
The challenge Boehner faces in keeping the government open is a reminder of how tough his job remains, even as his party gained power in the November elections. Funding for the government expires Dec. 11.
“He has a test every day,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and close supporter of Boehner as he left Tuesday’s meeting. “But he passes it every day, or he wouldn’t be speaker.”
The plan endorsed by Boehner would fund most of the government until September. But it would use a stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security only through March, setting up a fight next year over the agency that enforces immigration policy.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he had been speaking with Republican leaders and believes Boehner’s approach could be a “big accomplishment.” He said he would need to review details before signing off, but was far more conciliatory with Republicans than he has been during previous budget standoffs.
House Republicans are also planning to vote on a measure that would express disapproval with Obama’s actions, but even the most optimistic among them conceded that it would not pass the Senate, which remains Democratic until the new session begins next month. Nor would it be signed by the president himself. Boehner urged patience from House Republicans until next month, when Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell takes over as majority leader, after the newly elected GOP majority is sworn in.
Still, some hard-liners remained dissatisfied and were hoping to provoke an immediate fight, insisting it would end differently than the 2013 shutdown over Obama’s health care law. The shutdown proved largely unpopular with the public.
Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican, said a well-tailored funding bill designed to strip money from Obama’s plans to protect almost 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation could force the president to be held responsible for a shutdown if it led to that.
“We fund everything else, and then the president has to argue that he’s going to shut down the government in order for him to carry out his lawless, unconstitutional act,” King said.
The energy it is taking to craft essential legislation in the final weeks of the year has probably scuttled attempts to do anything more ambitious before Congress adjourns later this month.
A bipartisan deal to alter the tax code will probably be replaced by a stopgap measure designed to preserve longstanding tax breaks for a single year, 2014. The tax breaks cover a wide range, including a deduction used by businesses for research and development.
Republicans, who plan to vote on the stopgap measure Wednesday, were eager to put blame on Obama for killing the bigger $440 billion deal that would have made many of those deductions permanent. He threatened to veto the package of tax changes, saying they were weighted too heavily for big business, even though they were negotiated by Reid and other Democrats.
Not because they added to the debt?
“The president killed them. Period,” Boehner said Tuesday.
Democrats had yet to commit to the Republican bill.
Many in Congress had also hoped to debate a war resolution. Instead, lawmakers are likely to pass more stopgap measures to renew funding for rebels in Syria.
War always gets the money it needs.
Congress is also under pressure to finish approving a bill to set the military’s spending priorities for the next year.
So am I, to get this post finished.
Despite the large to-do list, Senate Democrats have been spending much of their time trying to win approval for presidential nominees before the Republican takeover.
Why did they wait so long?
Reid said there would not be enough hours to confirm all 130 pending nominations. The Senate spent time on Monday and Tuesday on two political appointees for ambassadorships who were more controversial.
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, mocked the appointment of Colleen Bell, a Hollywood producer who raised at least $2.1 million for Obama in 2012, according to the New York Times.
McCain argued on the Senate floor that the position, ambassador to Hungary, is too strategically important for a political appointee.
Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, said that Bell is highly qualified and that McCain and others have often supported political appointees to lead embassies.
Bell was approved on a near party-line vote, 52 to 42.
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And how are they going to pay for those tax cuts?
"GOP seeks to ease regulations in $1.1 trillion spending bill" by David Espo and Andrew Taylor, Associated Press December 09, 2014
WASHINGTON — Key lawmakers weighed legislation to permit a reduction of benefits for up to a million retirees at economically distressed multiemployer pension plans, officials said late Monday as Congress labored over a $1.1 trillion measure to keep the government operating past midnight Thursday.
The officials said the goal of the secretive pension talks was to avert bankruptcies at troubled plans that could in turn endanger the stability of the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
At least $omeone cares about your retirement.
Related: War in Wa$hington
They will manage it for you!
In the emerging budget bill, lawmakers also moved to dismantle Michelle Obama’s school-lunch nutrition mandates and give employers new ways to avoid paying for employees’ contraception under the federal health care law.
Lunch is looking better already.
Related: Religious nonprofits challenge health law
Did you reenroll yet?
Few details of the proposed pension law changes under discussion were available.
They don't want you to know they are stealing your retirement to pay for tax cuts!
***********
The issue was among numerous items affecting the final shape of the spending measure, one of a handful of must-pass items clogging the agenda for lawmakers eager to adjourn for the new year.
Others were bills to extend dozens of expiring tax breaks, authorize President Obama’s policy of arming Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State forces and a Democratic drive to confirm as many administration nominees as possible before the Republicans take control of the Senate in January.
Legislation to continue preventing state or local governments from imposing a tax on Internet access also seems likely to make it to Obama’s desk.
There was relatively little controversy over spending levels themselves in what was shaping up as a classic year-end measure that rolled numerous unrelated issues into a single package.
That way we all don't know what is in it until later.
The $1.1 trillion in total spending adhered to spending caps approved in previous negotiations between Obama and House Republicans. It included more than $5 billion of the $6.2 billion the president requested to fight Ebola at home and overseas.
The money would be available to keep the government running through the Sept. 30, 2015, end of the fiscal year, except for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security programs.
Even failure to complete work before Thursday at midnight would not lead to a government shutdown because lawmakers were prepared to pass a stopgap bill for a day or two to make sure there was no interruption in federal services.
I wouldn't be unhappy if this government shutdown -- although last time it cost more than it would have to keep it running.
And you wonder why I'm sour?
Unlike the rest of the government, enough funds were made available for the Homeland Security Department only until late winter. Republicans hope that will allow them to use their new leverage to force Obama to roll back his decision suspending the threat of deportation for millions of immigrants in the country illegally.
Even before then, some conservatives sought to use the year-end funding measure to try to force a presidential retreat. Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, complained the legislation ‘‘will allow the president to move money around to fund his executive amnesty program.’’ He said he hoped Congress would prevent it.
Business-friendly Republicans were largely united behind efforts to roll back government regulations affecting the trucking industry and the financial sector, as well as the school lunch program and the contraceptives provision of the health care law.
The budget negotiations were shaping up as something of a dress rehearsal for next year, when the GOP controls both houses of Congress....
This wasn't the real $how?
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Time for the Democrats to reassess and rise from the ashes!
