What does it mean that the U.S. no longer has a permanent tax code? That every major tax American pay, including income tax and the payroll tax covering Social Security, is now a temporary measure subject to – effectively – mandatory revision by Congress in the next one to two years? With passage of the Obama-McConnell “stimulus” package by the House imminent, American government is about to enter a fun-house period like no other in its history.

This is one step along the road to the Norquistian dream of endless low taxes, starving the government of revenue, and the necessary reaction to that of cutting services.

President Obama, like all presidents, often says he “wants” or is even “fighting” for something, but in fact puts no real effort into actually making it happen. It could be he doesn’t want to spend political capital because he thinks it is a lost cause, thinks it is fairly unimportant, or even doesn’t really want it, but thinks it is smart politics to pretend he does.

That is why it is important to recognize what a president acting as a “fierce advocate” actually looks like so you can distinguish the real thing from empty rhetoric. We are seeing a what a real full-court press from the administration is when it comes to the START treaty.

Washington Post: “Triumphantly raising his arm as he walked out of the central London courthouse, Assange declared: “If justice is not always an outcome, at least it is not dead yet.”"

Bobby Jindal shows Washington what wasteful spending is all about.

Bruce Willis — Devil Woman.

So, Mr. Banana Holder was happy to do his job when that job was getting Chiquita cleared from funding death squads, but now that his job says he should prosecute a former president for torture, he refuses to do it. Why won’t Mr. Banana Holder do his job and prosecute Georgie B.?

Not that this post will penetrate the bubble around economists such as New York Times Economix blog contributor and economist Casey Mulligan, but let’s play with some numbers here.

The bill will extend all the Bush tax cuts for two years, add an employee-side 2% cut to the payroll tax (about 1/3 of the employee responsibility), bring back the estate tax at a 35% level for estates over $5 million for two years, extend unemployment benefits for 13 months, enact a series of small business tax provisions on bonus depreciation and R&D, and extend a slew of other small tax breaks, including one for ethanol producers. All in all, the bill will cost $857 billion dollars over a two-year period. It will effectively raise taxes on 1 in 3 workers, those at the poorest end of the income scale making under $20,000 a year (or $40,000 for households), and will give a $139,000 tax cut to every millionaire in America.

The Federal Reserve issued rules that would cut debit fees significantly, fulfilling the promise of Dodd-Frank that these interchange fees would get reduced. This provides a boost to retailers and ultimately consumers and employees, who would see lower prices and reduced pressure to cost-cut. It really impacts the credit card industry, who has been making lots of money off of these debit card fees, even though the transaction for the back costs next to nothing.