Negotiators say they have a deal on a $150 billion bill to extend the payroll tax cut, some unemployment insurance benefits and the “doc fix” to the end of the year, a bill that will sacrifice some health care prevention money, several weeks of unemployment eligibility, and at the very end, pension contributions for new federal employees.

The Obama budget is proposing to tax dividends for high-income taxpayers as ordinary income. This is not a change on capital gains, it’s on dividends, the money earned through corporate payouts of profits to shareholders. The capital gains tax rate would rise to 20% from 15% under the Obama proposal, consistent with prior years.

Conservatives are ready to suffer to avoid taxes on themselves and others. My advice: stop listening to right-wing radio. Those people make you feel bad about yourself, when the problems aren’t your fault.

I guess it all depends on how you look at it…

Bush II chief economist and CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin attacking the millionaires tax:

The payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits expire on February 29. And though the House-Senate conference committee charged with figuring out a year-long extension met yesterday, there really isn’t a lot of movement toward a solution. Pay-fors seem to be the biggest stumbling block.

I often have conversations with people who don’t exist to illustrate real conversations I know about and have a 93% confidence level have actually happened. Here’s a conversation I had last night about Mitt, taxes, GE and strippers.

I don’t know if anything’s going to get done in Congress in 2012, but one thing is becoming clear – Senate Democrats will try to put Republicans up against the wall on taxes. They already have on the record multiple instances of Republicans voting almost in unison against millionaire’s surtaxes. Now we’ll see votes on fossil fuel subsidies and that alternative minimum corporate tax the President mentioned in the State of the Union and other tax fairness issues.

Today is Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) awareness day!

I’ve noticed this tension among politicians for a while. On the one hand, they want to say that they favor a “simpler” tax code, and they like to talk about how many thousands of pages the tax code is, and how byzantine it is to understand, etc. At the same time, they boast about all the goodies they give out to this or that business or individual using the tax code, which of course only makes it more complex.

I’m just spit-balling here but, according to an old IRS schedule I found under my desk along with some fancy guesstimating taking into account the longitude and latitude of Ft. Knox times The Number of The Beast divided by the current price of the Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity® at IHOP, Warren Buffet’s secretary must make like a hundred bajillion dollars and change per year.