WASHINGTON (AP) — Barely beating Santa’s sleigh, Congress delivered a last-minute holiday tax-cut extension to 160 million American wage-earners on Friday, just when it looked like they and millions of unemployed workers were going to be left with coal in their stockings.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress lurched toward Grinch-like gridlock on Tuesday as the Republican-controlled House rejected a two-month extension of Social Security tax cuts that President Barack Obama said was “the only viable way” to prevent a drop in take-home pay for 160 million workers on Jan. 1.
WASHINGTON — Senate leaders reached tentative agreement Friday night on legislation to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for two months while requiring President Barack Obama to accept Republican demands for a swift decision on the fate of an oil pipeline that promises thousands of jobs.
WASHINGTON — Democrats backed away from their demand for higher taxes on millionaires as part of legislation to extend Social Security tax cuts for most Americans on Wednesday as Congress struggled to clear critical year-end bills without triggering a partial government shutdown.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Inviting contrasts with thrice-married religious convert Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney cast himself as a man of consistency in religion and matrimony Wednesday as he and other GOP candidates went after the latest front-runner in a strikingly aggressive new phase of the Republican campaign.
WASHINGTON — Newt Gingrich, a political gambler his whole life, is banking on unorthodox stands on immigration, Social Security and other issues to propel him past Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential contest.
WASHINGTON — Deadline nearing, the deficit-reduction talks in Congress sank toward gridlock Friday after supercommittee Democrats rejected a late Republican offer that included next-to-nothing in new tax revenue. Each side maneuvered to blame the other for a looming stalemate.
The economy stinks and we’re not going to take it any longer. While this may not be the official message of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) participants, it seems to come pretty close to understanding why the movement was born, blossomed and now searches for a unifying message to policymakers. Had the U.S. economy experienced anything like a normal recovery from the Great Recession, it seems unlikely the movement would have developed. But with an unemployment rate in excess of 9 percent and nearly 14 million people unemployed — and many more millions underemployed — it is little wonder that some people have taken to the streets to protest.