A top campaign watchdog group this day is calling for a Justice Department criminal investigation into Super PACs supporting President Obama and GOP front runner Mitt Romney.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group sharply critical of Super PACs, said Priorities USA Action, the Obama Super PAC, and Restore Our Future, a similar group backing Romney, are both “illegal operations” because of their close ties to the candidates they are backing.

In the wake of reports that the White House has signed off on plans to urge wealthy donors to contribute to the group, Wertheimer stated he is writing a letter to the Justice Department this day urging criminal probes of both groups.

“In order to believe that the Super PACs supporting President Obama and Mitt Romney are ‘independent’ from the presidential campaigns they are supporting, you must believe in the tooth fairy,” Wertheimer said.

Bill Burton, Obama’s former deputy press secretary and 2008 campaign spokesman, set up Priorities USA Action last year along with another former Obama political aide, Sean Sweeney. Burton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Restore Our Future, which has spent millions in the GOP primary so far, was set up by former Romney aides Charlie Spies, who was Romney’s general counsel during his 2008 bid, and Carl Forti, who was Romney’s political director. Forti is also the political director for American Crossroads.

The White House plan to steer wealthy donors to give money to Priorities USA Action was disclosed in a blog posting on the Obama campaign website, saying that the move was needed to “neutralize the avalanche of special interest spending” being mounted on the GOP side to defeat President Obama.

“The stakes are too important to play by two different sets of rules,” Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager wrote.

The New York Times reported that the White House plans to dispatch top officials, including senior advisers David Plouffe and Valerie Jarrett to meet with donors. Romney himself has appeared at Restore Our Future fundraisers, something he defended on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, saying he’d acted within the law.

“They can help in terms of fundraising, but can’t in any way communicate a course of advertising, suggest when ads run, where they run, what is in the content of the ads,” Romney stated of candidates and campaigns and whether or how much they can coordinate with Super PACs supporting them. “Those are things that are prohibited so we are being very careful in that regard.”

A top strategist who works with Democratic Super PACs told NBC News that the White House decision came after mounting worries within party circles that spending by a phalanx of GOP Super PACs could reach $1 billion by election day — including $100 million from the conservative oil magnate Koch brothers — drowning out the president’s message

“When you see numbers like that, it starts getting a tiny spooky,” the strategist said.

He also stated most huge Democratic donors have so far been gun shy of the Super PACs, because of Obama’s past criticism of such groups. In the 2010 election, Obama charged that GOP groups, fueled with “special interest” money, were threatening to “hijack” democracy.

“We need some of our huge birds to get off the wire,” the strategist said, noting that some wealthy donors have expressed concerns that they will be “demonized” if they give to one of the Democratic Super PACs.

So far, Priorities USA Action has had relatively tiny success in raising funds, reporting last week that it had collected just $4.4 million through the end of last year. A Priorities official stated it had raised another $2.3 million via a 501(c)4 arm that doesn’t have to disclose donors. (The Karl Rove-Ed Gillespie-led groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have a similar set up and has raised far more money.)

That $6.7 million is compared to the $30 million raised by Restore Our Future and the $51 million reported raised by American Crossroads and its non-profit, non-disclosed affiliate Crossroads GPS.

The pro-Obama group did report a handful of huge checks, including $2 million from Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, $1 million from the SEIU labor union, $100,000 from director Steven Spielberg, and others.

While individual donors can only give $2,500 a piece to official campaign committees, the Super PACs can collect unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, and labor unions. Priorities USA Action also reported last week that $215,000 of its operating expenses were being paid by its nonprofit affiliate — called Priorities USA — which like Crossroads GPS, does not disclose its donors.

“As much as [David] Axelrod hates to give up this part of the president’s message,” the strategist said, “most voters are pretty cynical about this stuff and do not much care.”

*** UPDATE *** Priorities spokesman Bill Burton disputes the notion that Priorities is an “illegal operation.”

“We of course are abiding by all appropriate rules and laws,” Burton said.

source : firstread.msnbc.msn.com

I have praised Barack Obama on previous occasions for finally (after almost three years) figuring out he needs to position himself as the defender of the middle class and the Republicans as the defenders of the wealthy…. more ››

Here are some things you could learn about black Americans from the recent statements and insinuations of Republican presidential candidates, Republican congressmen and Republican-friendly radio personalities:Black people have… more ››

When President Obama announced that because of health care reform, birth control would soon be available for free in new insurance plans, you would have expected universal approval.After all, virtually all women, including 98… more ››

source : www.realclearpolitics.com

The Senate will vote Monday afternoon on a House-passed bill aimed at improving the nation’s aviation infrastructure and modernizing air traffic control systems. The bill would provide more than $60 billion in funding through fiscal year 2015.

The Federal Aviation Administration had gone through more than 20 short-term funding extensions since 2007 as Democrats and Republicans struggled over a longer-term bill.

The House passed the bill last week on a vote of 248 to 169, with most Republicans voting for it and most Democrats voting against it.

A last-minute change in the bill, negotiated by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, made the vote on the measure into a litmus test of support for organized labor.

Democrats were critical of the provision in the bill that they stated weakens the capability of unions to try to organize workers in the aviation and railroad industries.

“I don’t get why you hate unions and working people. I really don’t comprehend that,” Rep. Peter DeFazio, D- Ore., stated to Republicans during the House debate on Friday.

And Rep. George Miller, D- Calif., called the labor union provision in the bill “an example of why it is counterproductive to negotiate with hostage takers.”

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But House Transportation Committee chairman Rep. John Mica, R- Fla., defended the labor provision saying, “it is fair to labor because it does requires a certain number of people to sign up to have the election” to determine whether workers want a union to bargain for them. 

Airlines for America, the trade group that represents major U.S. airlines, supports the bill, with the group’s president Nicholas Calio calling it “great news for aviation, our customers and the 10 million jobs we enable. The bill establishes a much-needed long-term reauthorization that addresses the significant issues that previously blocked the legislation from moving forward.”

In addition to the labor union provision, another contentious issue in the bill was whether to phase out a program called Essential Air Service, which ensures that more than 100 smaller cities retain some link to the national air transportation system. Under the program, the federal government subsidizes some air carriers who serve smaller cities such as Dodge City, Kan., and Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Rep. Tom Petri, R- Wis., chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee, stated the bill will abolish “the most egregious subsidies” in the Essential Air Service program.

Democrats who supported the bill stated they were pleased that it did away with a provision in the original House-passed bill that would have phased out the Essential Air Service program entirely.

source : nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com

GREELEY, Colo. – As his plane touched down in Denver, Colo. on Saturday afternoon, presidential hopeful Rick Santorum peeked up from his iPad to announce the first results he had seen come out of Nevada. “We’re tied with Romney in Searchlight, Nevada. That may be the highlight of our day,”  Santorum joked to the handful of reporters following him throughout the state.  “You guys are going to tweet that, aren’t you?”

While most of the political world was focused on the Silver State’s caucus, the former Pennsylvania senator headed east for three stops in Colorado.  He remained upbeat and largely dismissive of any impact the results would have on his candidacy — even as it became clear he would finish last, something he has been able to avoid in all previous primaries and caucuses.

“It’s a state that very much favors Gov. Romney,” Santorum stated of Nevada.  “He’s invested about $1 million in the state already.  Ron Paul’s got close to $1 million in the state.  We just do not have those resources. We think we will do well in some of the conservative areas…Las Vegas doesn’t match up for me as well as some other says do. We’re not putting an emphasis on it.”

Santorum’s absence from Nevada on Saturday marks the second straight time when the candidate was not in the state that was voting.  When Florida voters went to the polls last Tuesday, the GOP hopeful was in Nevada and arguing the Sunshine State’s results show nothing more than the fact that candidates with the most money do well in the state’s that are most expensive.

Since his Iowa caucus victory, Santorum has struggled to remain relevant.  With each state he has lost, the excuses have built. Romney took New Hampshire because he hailed from a neighboring state, and Newt Gingrich won South Carolina for the same reason, he argues.

Political observers point to his ailing poll numbers and comparatively low war chest as evidence Santorum’s campaign is on its last legs.

But the Santorum campaign remains undeterred by the conventional thinking that their candidate needs wins that translate into momentum and money is irrelevant.  They have more money now than at any point during their run.  And while reports have indicated Newt Gingrich is losing support from some of his huge money backers, Santorum to this point has not had that issue.

 The commitment does not seem to be waning from Foster Friess, the billionaire largely funding the pro-Santorum Super PAC “Red, White, and Blue Fund.”  Friess has recently been with Santorum, travelling with him to each of his three stops and illustrating the blurry laws that state candidates are not granted to collaborate with Super PACs.

“We do not speak about any activity of the Super PAC at all,” stated Santorum. “I have no idea about what he is doing or how much he is giving and I do not want to know. We speak about family. We speak about other activities. He’s very careful in that regard and so am I.”

Outside of Friess’ influence, Santorum has been able to continue to translate their Iowa victory into dollars, though still underfunded compared to the campaign coffers of the three other Republicans still in the race.  Santorum has made the comment in the past that the only reason candidates stop running for president is because they run out of money.  Campaign aides state they are stretching dollars as far as possible to ensure that doesn’t happen soon.

Another sign that the Pennsylvanian has no plans to leave the race are the debut of newer and sharper hits on his GOP rivals.  “Newt can throw out some funny lines about people going to jail, but he supported the basic concepts of Dodd-Frank.  And you do not think the President’s going to point that out?  You do not think the President is going to point out what their position is on health care, which is identical to his?” Santorum asked while campaigning in Montrose, Colo.

“I heard Mitt Romney state the other day that he doesn’t care that he doesnt care about the very poor.  He doesn’t care about the very rich or the very poor, that his program’s going to focus on the 95%,” Santorum said. ”I thought, that is not the Republican party I believe in. That’s not the conservative movement I believe in.  We need a President who believe in 95%, or 99% like this president.  We need a President that is concerned with 100% of Americans.”

Santorum now heads to Minnesota for a day of campaigning and will be back in Colorado Monday night. 

source : firstread.msnbc.msn.com

So overwhelmingly unpopular is Obamacare that in his third State of the Union address, President Obama barely made a passing reference to it, the namesake signature issue of his presidency. Why? Because opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of Americans want it repealed. Outrage over the law fueled a historic tidal-wave election in 2010 in national and say offices that painted a blue map red, a sea change…

Related Topics: Mitt Romney, Health care

source : www.realclearpolitics.com

The two mayors, whose local teams face off in the huge game, are making the pitch for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), the organization they co-founded in 2006.

Murder has been on the decline in New York and other major American cities for years, but the mayors say they still see too many dead cops and teens. On Tuesday night, Bloomberg was at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan visiting a New York police officer who had just been shot in the face in Brooklyn.

“We have someone who’s dedicated his life to protecting all of us, who has had a much too close brush with death tonight because of what appears to be an illegal gun,” Bloomberg told a news conference. He added that more Americans have been killed by illegal guns since 1968 than were killed in World War II.

Candidates for local and national office in the U.S. have faced sharp backlashes for advocating restraints on gun ownership, such as assault weapons or guns on campus. Such pushes draw fire from the well-funded National Rifle Association (NRA) and its allies. For many defenders of the Constitution’s Second Amendment – the right to bear arms – guns are the single issue on which they vote.

“We have to face the fact that both Democrats and Republicans have for a while viewed this as the third rail of American politics,” stated John Feinblatt, who helps run MAIG as Bloomberg’s chief advisor for policy and strategic planning. (Bloomberg is an independent; Menino is a Democrat.)

Democrats, who are more likely than Republicans to favor some restrictions on gun ownership, made a conscious decision to stay away from the gun issue in the 2010 midterm congressional elections. The aim: protect the so-called Blue Dog conservative Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, who did not toe the party line on gun control. Most were defeated anyway.

If the Democratic Party hoped to keep the gun issue off center stage in the 2012 presidential race, MAIG’s campaign makes that unlikely. So does the fact that the NRA and the gun industry’s trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), have announced they will have a combined war chest of $225 million.

“We are expecting having a voter-education effort that will be our largest effort ever,” stated Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the NSSF.

NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre echoed the sentiment.

“I do not think this is going to be an apathetic year for American gun owners.”

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No more candles New York’s activist mayor cannot simply restrict handguns in his city – as he has done with smoking and transfats. Two Supreme Court decisions – District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago – have declared such local initiatives unconstitutional. Instead, Bloomberg launched MAIG, which now has 600 members nationwide. Although it has a handful of private donors, the bulk of MAIG’s $4 million budget comes out of the mayor’s own pocket.

“He’s putting his money where his mouth is,” stated Carolyn McCarthy, a Democratic congresswoman from Long Island. She entered politics after a 1993 shooting spree on the Long Island Rail Road left her husband dead and her son severely injured.

Bloomberg, in his third and last term, is free from concerns about electability and can tap a personal fortune of $19.5 billion, according to a November estimate by Forbes. As for speculation that he might mount a presidential bid this round or next, his leadership on such a divisive issue makes that look less likely.

“There was a lot of political capital that was poured into this,” one person who worked closely with MAIG said.

In the past, advocates for stricter gun controls held marches, rallies and candlelight vigils. MAIG has taken a far more activist approach, conducting undercover investigations and sting operations that are then dramatically revealed to the press.

In 2009, New York City contracted the security firm Kroll Inc. to send undercover agents to gun shows in Ohio, Tennessee and Nevada to show how people who could not pass a background check easily purchased guns.

MAIG also used undercover investigators to expose gun dealers who sold to “straw purchasers,” buyers intending to quickly resell the guns on the black market. Another investigation identified on-line gun sellers who did not require background checks.

Bloomberg launched another probe after the January 2011 shooting in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 13, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Using city money, he sent undercover investigators to Arizona to repeat the gun show sting and prove how simple it was for someone like Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, to get a gun.

That move enraged supporters of unfettered gun rights.

“The ‘sting’ was a waste of money that misleads Americans and did nothing to reduce crime,” wrote John Lott Jr., an economist who writes about guns, in a column on FoxNews.com. “Talk about an aggressive publicity stunt.”

The NSSF’s Keane stated there are serious problems with many MAIG actions. He cited another investigation in which MAIG used gun data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to sue dealers found to be selling guns to straw buyers.

“The New York City police department went to the ATF, traced data, turned that traced data over to private investigators, violated federal law, and interfered in 18 on-going criminal investigations,” he said. “The ATF had to pull agents out of the field because they were placed at risk.”

Marc Lavorgna, a spokesman for the New York City mayor’s office, stated in response: “They cannot argue the substance, so they continue to make a false, tired claim that has been directly refuted by the ATF. And the courts have validated that our investigations were legal.”

The ATF did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Opponents of the mayors’ efforts have also seized on a Department of Justice program codenamed “Fast and Furious” to discredit sting operations. Beginning in 2009, the ATF, investigating a gun-trafficking network in Arizona and Mexico, supplied 2,000 illegal guns they hoped to trace through the system so they could catch the leaders. Instead, they lost track of hundreds of the guns – two of which were found near the murder scene of Brian Terry, a border patrol agent, in 2010.

Last Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder was called before a congressional committee for a second time to explain how the program went bad. He repeated that senior Justice Department and ATF officials had not known about the operation until it was over.

Real change Members of the MAIG say they are not trying to take guns away from their legal owners, just to close loopholes that grant criminals to get guns and move them around undetected.

“It’s a serious safety issue,” stated Margaret Stock, the Democratic mayor of Butler, Pennsylvania, the town of 13,000 where Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum spent part of his childhood. “If an officer gets shot with an illegal gun I’m responsible.”

Butler is in a sparsely populated area of western Pennsylvania where the first day of deer hunting season is often a school holiday.

“We’re a huge hunting community, but this is illegal handguns, it’s a totally different issue,” Stock said. “I had a tiny bit of backlash from local members of the NRA that I was somehow anti-gun. That was not the intent of the coalition.”

MAIG’s efforts have spurred some change. In 2008, Wal-Mart signed the voluntary 10-point code of conduct MAIG developed for gun sellers. It includes videotaping the area of a store where guns are sold, setting up a computerized gun tracing and alert system, and performing background checks on its employees.

An Ohio gun show operator identified in MAIG’s 2009 sting began offering police and federal firearms agents a free booth at his shows to strengthen background checks and help dealers recognize straw buyers, according to the Dayton Daily News.

MAIG claims on its website that “four out of the seven gun shows and venues” fingered in the 2009 investigation “have changed their practices.”

On the campaign trail No one thinks gun control is going to be the most important issue in 2012, but there are specific races and constituencies where it certainly will matter.

One such race is northwestern Arkansas, where a 33-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran named Ken Aden is challenging his former battalion commander for a Congressional seat. Aden is running as a progressive Democrat; his Republican opponent, Steve Womack, is a freshman incumbent, part of the Tea Party sweep of the 2010 midterm elections.

Aden, who has already met with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and other party officials in Washington, has strong views on guns. He collects them, and say he knows what damage they can do. When Aden was 16 his dad was shot and killed by his stepmother, using his father’s own 357 magnum and his shotgun.

“We’ve got to keep guns out of the wrong hands,” Aden said.

He supports the background checks mandated by the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and has pledged in his platform to “fight to make sure that hazardous assault rifles and ammunition with no practical purpose in hunting, self-protection, or sport shooting … stay off our streets.”

Womack, for his part has co-sponsored several pieces of legislation to reinforce Second Amendment rights, including a bill that would force says to honor other states’ concealed carry permits.

“New, more stringent gun laws will not keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” Womack told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in January 2011, after the Tucson shootings. “Rather, proper enforcement of our current laws will provide the necessary mechanisms to ensure the well-being of the American people.”

The NRA is telling supporters that President Obama will outlaw guns in a second term by appointing Supreme Court justices to reverse the gains made in the Heller and McDonald decisions. The White House denies that it has any such aim.

“The real threat to the Second Amendment is the re-election of President Obama,” stated LaPierre.

He believes that other Democratic candidates will stay away from gun issues so as not to draw attention to Obama’s ultimate game plan.

“Their strategy is to fog the issue through the 2012 election, because they do not want the Second Amendment or guns to prevent the re-election of President Obama,” LaPierre stated of the Democrats.

Her firm, Lake Research Partners, conducted a poll in late October for MAIG that found 76 percent of Latinos supported a new program requiring gun dealers in border says to report when someone attempts to purchase more than one semiautomatic rifle within a five-day period.

Suburban women, Lake said, who are known to be swing voters, want guns kept out of their neighborhoods.

In addition to his work with MAIG, Mayor Bloomberg is keeping a close eye on elections all around the country. He has already backed six candidates for Virginia’s say senate with contributions of $25,000 each, and may give to more candidates.

MAIG’s Feinblatt stated the group had not yet identified congressional races it wanted to support, but, he added, “We’re always watching.”

Corrects to “viewers in Washington” from “viewers in New York and Boston” in first paragraph; corrects name to Feinblatt from Feinberg in last paragraph.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

source : www.msnbc.msn.com

The earth has become small, and on it hops the LastMan, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as theflea; the Last Man lives longest.– Nietzsche

So it seems it will be Mitt. And good thing he will not beoffering his main rival the second spot on the ticket. “Mitt &Newt” sounds like the name of a comedy act or a network sitcom. Notright for something epic or tragic. Which is to say”� not right forthe times. Not even close.

When you think about this election — and you must, thereis no escaping it — you wonder if it is not just the same old,same old. Is this just another “most important election of ourlifetimes,” or something, actually, a tiny more important thanthat? Is it business as usual or are we…

Related Topics: Mitt Romney

source : www.realclearpolitics.com

The signs look hopeful for a short-term accord in Congress on extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits.

But right after Election Day, a lame-duck Congress will face a horrific fiscal train wreck: sharp tax increases, combined with automatic spending cuts – and scanty reserves of political goodwill to help clinch a deal to avert that outcome.

A House-Senate conference committee met Thursday to try to push ahead with a full-year payroll tax cut. The committee will keep working next week as Congress heads to a Feb. 29 deadline.

Also as part of that deal, there’s bipartisan accord on the committee to not grant Medicare spending cuts enacted in 1997 to take effect. The payroll tax cut package will include another in a long series of postponements of the cut in Medicare payments to doctors.

Two of those five senators, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, voted against the Budget Control Act; but three of the five, McCain, John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, voted for it.

Graham painted picture of a Budget Control Act that was beginning to unravel – and not a moment too soon, from his point of view. “I think there will be a lot of bipartisan support to abandon the sequestration provisions” in the Budget Control Act, he said, “because they are unwise and quite frankly dangerous.”

Because the Budget Control Act mostly exempts entitlement spending from automatic cuts, it’s the other huge item in the budget, defense, which must bear the brunt of the cuts.

The GOP senators’ proposal was to avert the sequesters for one year by slicing the cost of the federal government elsewhere: hiring only two workers for every three who retire or leave federal employment.

They’d also maintain the freeze on federal employee pay until mid-2014. (The House voted Wednesday night to keep the federal pay freeze for this year and next year.)

McCain stated even before the automatic cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act, the Obama administration plans to slice $487 billion from defense outlays over the next ten years. McCain and the other Republicans cited Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s warnings that the additional sequesters on top of the already planned defense cuts would be “devastating.”

While the GOP senators cited Panetta as authority for averting the defense cuts looming in January, they slammed him for the comment he made Wednesday that U.S. forces in Afghanistan would end their combat role as early as mid-2013, the first time that he has pinned a date on the end of combat. American troops are scheduled to be out of Afghanistan by 2014.

But the GOP senators may face a public perception challenge: if the average taxpayer knows that U.S. troops have departed from Iraq and if he hears Panetta’s end-of-combat in Afghanistan forecast for 2013, he might wonder: Why can’t Congress cut defense spending further?

 Graham gave a nod to the presidential politics, saying, “This administration is focused on leaving because of the November elections.” President Obama, he said, “wants to tell the American people ‘I got us out of Iraq and Afghanistan.’”

That might be a more crowd-pleasing campaign message than what Graham sketched out: a U.S. commitment in Afghanistan until 2014, followed by a security agreement with the Kabul government “where you would have three to four airbases left behind… with American airpower, helicopters and Special Forces units, that would be available to Afghan security forces as far as the eye can see….” He estimated this would take 15,000 to 20,000 U.S. forces on the ground “and the Taliban would never come back.” And at that point “then you sit down and negotiate” from a position of strength.

For now, Republican hawks don’t want to speak about tax increases as a way to avert defense cuts.

“Let’s not let a domestic issue such as a tax increase interfere with what could be ‘devastating’ in the words of our secretary of defense to our nation’s security,” McCain said.

“Defending our country is not the cause of our fiscal crisis,” Ayotte said. “The notion that defense spending is the driver of the bigger fiscal crisis is not the case. Roughly 60 percent of our spending is entitlements.”

The 2012 figure for the three biggest entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) is 44 percent of total federal spending, but the CBO’s annual budget report this week stated entitlement spending will nearly double in the next ten years.

The three huge entitlements will go from 44 percent of total outlays to 55 percent, while defense outlays slip from 19 percent of federal spending to 13 percent.

But that entitlement growth is significantly understated because the CBO “baseline” forecast assumes that Congress will do exactly what the House-Senate conference committee Thursday had already concurred to not do: cut Medicare’s payments to doctors.

There was a bit of good news in the CBO forecast: revenues are improving. The CBO stated that in 2011, individual income tax revenues jumped by $193 billion, or 21 percent. Even with high unemployment those who are working are earning more and paying more in taxes. Overall, revenues were up 6 percent in 2011 and CBO anticipates them to increase by 9.6 percent in 2012.

And then between 2012 and 2014, revenues are scheduled “shoot up by more than 30 percent,” the CBO report said, but that, again, assumes that Congress will do what it’s nearly certain to not do: grant the scheduled expirations of the current income tax rates and the scheduled increase in the reach of the alternative minimum tax.

 A Democrat who serves both on the payroll tax conference committee and on the Armed Services Committee, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, sees room for progress toward averting a fiscal train wreck.

“If we can successfully conclude this (payroll tax) conference,” he said, “that’s a good sign that we can begin dealing more constructively, cooperatively and effectively with the whole set of budget issues.” This would, he said, “set a good precedent” for dealing with the looming sequesters.

Democrats and Republicans can concur to at least discuss both spending and additional revenues, he said, “so that we don’t get into austerity measures that are leading to zero or negative growth and making deficit problems worse” in countries such as Greece and Spain.

source : nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com

BLITZER: Senator John McCain has been actively campaigning for Mitt Romney. That’s making him a target of Romney’s main rival, Newt Gingrich. Of course, Senator McCain has been down this road before as the 2008 Republican… more ››

Exactly one year ago today, I stood in front of the Lawyers Syndicate in downtown Cairo and watched as a few thousand protesters suddenly streamed into the area from the north, overwhelmed Egypt’s notoriously violent riot… more ››

source : www.realclearpolitics.com

President Barack Obama talks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House January 31, 2012 in Washington, DC. Obama has recently been discussing his efforts at job creation as the Republican presidential candidates vie in the Florida primary today.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to approve a $5 billion to $10 billion effort to help U.S. home owners refinance as part of a wider package of proposals to shore up the depressed housing market.

Obama had sketched out the proposals in his State of the Union address last week, including a tax on banks to pay for the plan that Republicans quickly rejected.

The White House offered more details on Wednesday ahead of a speech by Obama to expand on his initiative, which some Republicans have derided as an election-year ploy.

Nearly 11 million Americans are underwater on their mortgages, meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. Millions more have lost homes to repossession in says that will be up for grabs in 2012.

“While the government can’t fix the housing market on its own, the president believes that responsible home owners should not have to sit and wait for the market to hit bottom to get relief,” the White House stated in a statement.

The White House is seeking to contrast Obama’s stance with that of Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, who has stated U.S. foreclosures should be granted to run their course.

The next contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination is in Nevada, the say with the highest rate of foreclosure filings for the past five years.

The White House stated the refinance program would be run by the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA has already been hard hit by rising defaults on mortgages it had insured, and its cash reserves reached a record low last year.

Many Republicans are likely to resist a bigger role for the bureau out of concerns taxpayers could be left on the hook for losses.

Obama’s proposal, which needs congressional approval, would be open to borrowers who have been current on their payments for the last six months and have no more than one missed payment in the prior six months.

The administration also wants to broaden its Home Affordable Refinance Program, which seeks to provide refinancing options to underwater borrowers who have no equity in their homes.

The White House stated the housing regulator overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has exhausted its efforts to make HARP more widely accessible to lenders and borrowers, and now it will ask Congress to make changes. Among those requested changes, it will seek to eliminate the costs of appraisals.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

source : nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com