Obama: 'Still a path' to budget compromise

[bertramhall]

Obama: 'Still a path' to budget compromise

Is Obama right again? The gun control should be politicized in order to provide economic stability. The only problem is the government which is incapable to come up with a reasonable budget when the US won`t suffer from deficit.

 

[Stephanie]

they haven't had a balanced budget since he's been in office. He's SUCH A STINKING LIAR. He let the government be shut down BECAUSE they were threatening to not fund his suck ass Obamacare. he doesn't give a crap about anything. I wouldn't believe anything from him if it came tattooed on tongue his and his ass

 

[OKTexas]

Of course compromise to the dear leader is giving him everything he wants.

 

[waltky]

Conservative Republicans balk at spending...

U.S. tax, spending deal meets resistance from lawmakers
Wed Dec 16, 2015 - A deal to fund the U.S. government met resistance on Wednesday from conservative Republicans concerned about spending, as well as House of Representatives Democrats who complained about corporate tax breaks and a planned end to a ban on U.S. oil exports.

But House Speaker Paul Ryan said he was confident of a bipartisan compromise and that there is "no reason to believe we're going to have a shutdown" of the federal government, which would hurt the U.S. economy. The deal, reached late on Tuesday after weeks of wrangling, includes a $1.15 trillion U.S. government spending bill and a companion $650 billion package of tax breaks.

The Republican-controlled House will vote on extending the tax breaks for corporations and individuals on Thursday and the "omnibus" spending bill which would fund the U.S. government through September 2016, on Friday, lawmakers said. Meantime, the House and Senate passed and sent to President Barack Obama a temporary funding bill to keep the government running through next Tuesday, by which time leaders hope the massive funding measure will have been approved. Without the stopgap measure, money for federal programs and offices would have run out at midnight Wednesday.

Some Republican fiscal hawks balked at the massive funding bill, raising questions about the overall level of support for it in the House, although conservatives were not talking about shutting down the government. It was unclear whether opponents had the votes to stop the measure. The government last shut down in 2013 for more than two weeks due to a fight in Congress over the Obamacare healthcare program. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers were furloughed.

Representative Jim Jordan told Reuters some members of the Freedom Caucus he heads, and other conservative Republicans, would vote against the spending bill because it failed to include provisions to tighten U.S. screening of Syrian refugees, address national security concerns and deny funding to Planned Parenthood, a target of abortion rights opponents. The White House reacted positively to the deal, saying it met Obama's priorities without including "hundreds of needless ideological" extra measures.

HISTORIC OIL ACCORD

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Costly subsidies for business, middle class propel U.S. tax bill
Wed Dec 16, 2015 - Businesses would get billions of dollars in tax assistance on a permanent basis, while middle-class Americans would make gains too, under a $680-billion tax package hurtling toward approval with bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.

In the closest thing to a grand bargain on taxes in years, the package would be a major win for corporate lobbyists and Republicans. It would also offer aid to low-income parents, students, teachers and others, attracting Democrats' support. The House of Representatives was slated to vote on the package on Thursday, and the Senate as soon as Friday. It would then go to President Barack Obama, a Democrat. The White House issued a statement on Wednesday in support of the package.

In a move that was helping to overcome disputes that have frustrated previous attempts to overhaul the same tax provisions, the package was being closely linked procedurally in Congress to a $1.1-trillion spending bill that must be approved within days to avert a government shutdown. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, formerly the chairman of the House tax committee, called the tax package a "huge win for families, for job creators, for certainty for our economy." The largest and costliest component of it would be making the business research and development (R&D) tax credit permanent, costing taxpayers $113 billion over 10 years.

The R&D credit is now subject to periodic congressional review as part of a list of "temporary" tax breaks known as the "extenders" that Congress has routinely renewed for years. Like the R&D credit, other business tax breaks would be made permanent, including one on business depreciation, with a 10-year cost of $28 billion; one on "active financing" that lets businesses shelter profits overseas, costing $78 billion; and one on business expensing, costing $77 billion.

In addition, "extenders" items geared to middle-class Americans would also be made permanent, including the child tax credit, costing $87 billion; the American Opportunity tax credit for college students, costing $80 billion; and the earned income credit for low-income wage earners, costing $30 billion. Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation said the tax provisions in the package and the spending bill would increase U.S. budget deficits by around $680 billion over 10 years.

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