The Hill: “Senate rejects million-dollar tax-cut compromise in Saturday session”

Or more clearly, all Senate Republicans plus one four Democrats reject a tax cut for incomes below one million dollars. From The Hill:

Republicans had held firm in recent weeks that the tax cuts — designed to benefit the wealthiest Americans — should be permanently extended as a whole. Democrats had argued that only the cuts for the middle class should be extended, also blasting Republicans for failing to propose any spending cuts or revenue increases to pay for all of the cuts.

Chicken**** Passes House

(That’s not my phrase, it’s Rep. Boehner’s). Or, tax cut extension for income less than $250,000 passes. From The Hill:

House passes middle-class tax bill with three Republicans supporting

By Vicki Needham – 12/02/10 04:00 PM ET

The House passed by a vote of 234-188 a measure that permanently extends expiring middle-class tax cuts and provides a patch for the alternative minimum tax.

Continue reading

BCA, UI and EGTRRA/JGTRRA

Four Acronyms in a Very Depressing Play

Truly we are in a strange world where legislative extension of unemployment insurance payments, which is highly effective at maintaining aggregate demand, is stalled, while giving tax cuts to households with income in excess of $250K (a.k.a. the Todd Henderson households) moves forward despite having very little impact on employment and aggregate demand. In other words, on benefit-cost grounds we would want to do exactly the reverse. Given the sheer incoherence of some of the arguments being propounded, it might be useful to recap some findings.

Continue reading

The Fed’s communication problem

The start of the FOMC’s November meeting is described in the minutes released yesterday as follows:

The meeting opened with a short discussion regarding communicating with the public about monetary policy deliberations and decisions. Meeting participants supported a review of the Committee’s communication guidelines with the aim of ensuring that the public is well informed about monetary policy issues while preserving the necessary confidentiality of policy discussions until their scheduled release. Governor Yellen agreed to chair a subcommittee to conduct such a review.

Here I provide some suggestions for Governor Yellen’s subcommittee to consider.

Continue reading