Republicans in the grassroots have become more strident against the bill in recent days, and noted weather vane Mitt Romney has an op-ed today where he slams the bill, mostly because it doesn’t make the Bush tax cuts permanent and because it adds to the deficit (yeah, I don’t get it either). He also wants to create “unemployment savings accounts,” which sounds fine until you realize that would mean that individuals, not businesses, would pay for unemployment insurance with their own money. I don’t think House Republicans will necessarily cater to the base on this one, but you may see some erosion of support. But that only matters if House Democrats use the opportunity.

The reason some of us were insistent that what Bernie Sanders was doing on Friday was not really a filibuster was that it did nothing to stop or even slow down the advance of the tax cut bill. Today, the Senate will hold the first cloture vote, on the motion to proceed, and it’s expected to pass with up to 70 votes.

For most of the year, Washington is overrun with deficit hysteria, but right now is that special, magical time of the year. No I’m not talking about Christmas! I’m talking about the joyous season of the January 1 scheduled end of temporary tax provisions that would increase rates for the ultra wealthy and end select corporate welfare programs!

Joyous for lobbyists, at least.

Now that President Obama has reach a “compromise” with the Republicans on tax cuts for the rich — which are even more generous to the ultra-wealthy than any George W. Bush passed — it’s time for predictions.

I don’t think we should jump on this fully until we see a full solution. But enough of the usual suspects have signaled that a tax cut deal is imminent, with the same broad contours, that we should take a look at the particulars. Here’s Jon Ward (although others have corroborated): The deal will extend [...]

Ever the unprincipled opportunist, Joe Lieberman announces he’ll obstruct the growing consensus and demand we give income and estate tax breaks to the richest Americans, even though it will make the economy worse.

What’s important to understand is that this reversion to 2009 rates permanently would cost the country $292 billion dollars, according to the Tax Policy Center. If we made it retroactive to capture the tax on estates in this holiday year of 2010, maybe it’s closer to $250 billion. But it’s still a large hole in the budget relative to current law, in a time when every deficit hawk is screaming about long-term debt.

The CBO released their budget estimates for the next ten years today, under current law. It shows that this year’s deficit is estimated at $1.342 trillion dollars, certainly a very high number and almost entirely attributable to the low tax receipts and high automatic stabilizers of the Great Recession. But by 2014, the deficit actually shrinks by well over 60%, to $438 billion dollars, before gradually increasing again. That 2014 deficit is just 2.5% of GDP.

The operative word here is “current law.” Because that assumes a whole host of tax cuts will expire and revert back to their previous state. It also assumes that Congress will not meddle and change those tax laws. If they do what is expected, just for the year 2014, they will double the federal deficit.

People have a generally dour outlook on the state of the economy because they’re responding to signals of their personal struggles with it. They aren’t spending any money out of concern for the near future and their personal security. This isn’t all that complicated.

However, another reason that the public has soured on the economy, and in particular the current ruling party’s ideas for fixing it, is that they’re not hearing anything substantive or new from those in the ruling party, or allies nominally on the Democratic side of the ledger. They believe that a new group of people are pushing the same rotten, stale ideas, and that faced with the choice between a limp status quo and something “fresh” and “new” like limiting spending (boy they’ve really sold the same crap in a new toothpaste tube, huh?), they’ll jump for it.

Maybe it’s time to highlight the strong voices on the liberal side, and the ideas which really would represent a change.

I had a chance to talk briefly with Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) last night, and we discussed a variety of issues. Udall’s here at Netroots Nation today for a panel on his effort to change the Senate rules at the beginning of the next Congress, an initiative for which he is getting “a lot of support,” not just from members of the Senate Democratic caucus but from incoming candidates. Talk of changing the Senate rules is hanging over this conference, most recently from Speaker Pelosi, who basically could have summed up her hourlong remarks in the morning session by saying “the Senate sucks.”