Partisan Gridlock Erupts Over Payroll Tax Cut (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | The House has passed a bill that would extend the payroll tax cuts for another year, causing outrage among Senate Democrats and in the White House. The Democrats are mad about two aspects of the bill, according to Bloomberg.

The first thing the Democrats are mad about is that the House would offset the payroll tax cut by enacting spending cuts. The Democrats would prefer to slap a surtax on all incomes over $1 million. The Republicans respond such a surtax would dampen economic growth and job creation.

The other thing about the payroll tax cut bill that upsets the Democrats is it calls for the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would take oil from the tar sand fields of Alberta to refineries in Texas. President Barack Obama has deferred approval of the pipeline until after the election to appease his environmental supporters.

Republicans point out the pipeline would create jobs and would open up a source of oil from a friendly country that would offset oil now being bought from unfriendly Middle Eastern countries.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is vowing to block the House version of the bill and President Obama has promised a veto. And so, once again, the government is at an impasse over a bill that almost everyone says they support.

It should be noted the Senate, run by Democrats, has yet to pass any version of a bill that extends the payroll tax cuts. As much as Democrats like to posture about making the "rich" "pay their fair share" they have been unable to pass legislation that includes a millionaire's surtax.

The politics of this outbreak of gridlock are interesting to observe. President Obama and his allies will blame the Republicans for any increase of payroll taxes that occur next year. Republicans will point out the House, which they run, has passed a bill extending the payroll tax cut. It is the Democrats, they will point out, who are holding things up.

Somewhat diluting the class warfare stance of the Democrats is a plan by Reid to insert some extensions to business tax breaks, due to expire at the end of the year, to mollify House Republicans. But a bill that does not include the Keystone XL provision might not be acceptable.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politicsopinion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111214/cm_ac/10679145_partisan_gridlock_erupts_over_payroll_tax_cut

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Nokia Lumia 710 official on T-Mobile: HSPA+ 14.4, 3.7-inch ClearBlack display, available January 11th for $49 on contract

Go ahead and take that holiday and even some time to celebrate because Espoo's ushering in the new year with the stateside bow of its Lumia 710. This lower-hanging Mango phone, which we first met at Nokia World, has already begun rolling out to markets worldwide in recent weeks and, now, is poised to enter the U.S. brandishing a Magenta banner and $49 on two-year contract price. That's right, T-Mobile has snatched up exclusive rights to the 3.7-incher, which is mostly unchanged from its initial unbranded incarnation, with the same 800 x 480 ClearBlack LCD display, 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB RAM, 8GB of storage, 5 megapixel rear camera with single LED flash, WiFi and Bluetooth on board. Naturally, both parties have loaded the device up with a fair share of pre-installed apps like Drive, MS Office, ESPN, T-Mobile TV and Netflix, but you don't have to let that clutter up your clean live-tiled look -- it's all uninstallable. The mid-range handset also runs along the operator's HSPA+ 14.4Mbps network, so you're in store for some heady "4G" speeds should you decide to take the plunge this January 11th when it hits stores. Head on past the break for the official presser.

Gallery: Nokia Lumia 710

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 710 official on T-Mobile: HSPA+ 14.4, 3.7-inch ClearBlack display, available January 11th for $49 on contract

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Obama beseeches supporters to stick with him (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Imploring supporters to stick with him, President Barack Obama acknowledged Tuesday that his re-election is "not a slam dunk" ? despite his administration's achievements ? because of understandable public skepticism over the economy.

Addressing donors at a hotel near the White House, the president drew attention to his efforts to heal the economy, save the auto industry, end the Iraq war and overhaul health care.

But he said: "All those things don't mean that much to somebody who's still out of work right now. Or whose house is still underwater by $100,000."

Obama said his campaign will have to fight to take its message to voters. "This is going to be tough," he said.

Obama spoke hours after his top campaign advisers said they are uncertain about which Republican will emerge to challenge him next year but predicted a long GOP primary contest that they say will produce a weaker opponent in 2012.

Democrats have been targeting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the Republican most likely to challenge Obama but now say former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's surge in the polls has made the GOP contest very unpredictable.

Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said in a briefing in Washington for reporters that he was unsure "what kind of candidate will be in the general election." He said he anticipated a lengthy primary contest that would eventually hurt the party's nominee.

Of the Republican candidates, Axelrod said: "They're being tugged to the right every day. I think they're mortgaging themselves for the general by tacking as far as they are." He said that would make it more difficult for the nominee "to scramble back" to the center and appeal to a broader base of the electorate for the November general election.

Romney and Gingrich remain locked in a close contest in early Republican voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina with less than a month before voters begin assessing the GOP field.

The campaign officials said the president's speech last week in Kansas offered a glimpse of what his message will be next year: His argument that the middle class has faced numerous challenges during the past decade and that the country's economic policies must give everyone a "fair shot and a fair share."

Obama made that case again in his remarks to donors, telling them "we're all in this together."

"That vision can contrast to a vision that basically says you are on your own," he said. "It's what this election was about in 2008; it's what this election is going to be about in 2012."

The campaign officials also claimed an organizational advantage over the GOP. They said they have more staffers on the ground in Iowa than the Republicans and have had about 1 million conversations with supporters and about 90,000 in-person meetings with volunteers since Obama launched his re-election campaign in April.

Obama's campaign outlined several potential paths to victory that would build upon states that Democrat John Kerry won in 2004 and winning in Western states like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada or holding onto Southern states Obama captured in 2008, such as Virginia and North Carolina.

Obama's session with top campaign donors came ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline for the current fundraising quarter. Obama has raised more than $150 million for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the end of September.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111213/ap_on_el_pr/us_obama_campaign

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Romney intensifies criticism of Gingrich (AP)

IOWA CITY, Iowa ? His attacks growing ever more personal, Mitt Romney on Wednesday questioned chief rival Newt Gingrich's temperament, spending habits and allegiance to both the GOP and the middle class while hecklers confronted Gingrich in the lead-off caucus state.

During a series of interviews while fundraising in New York, Romney told one media outlet that "zany is not what we need in a president" and another that Gingrich had "an extraordinary lack of understanding of how the economy works." To yet another, Romney mocked Gingrich's past accounts at a tony jeweler, saying: "He's a wealthy man - a very wealthy man. If you have a half-a-million-dollar purchase from Tiffany's, you're not a middle-class American."

Romney's campaign also rolled out an Internet video describing Gingrich as an unreliable conservative and using a clip of a climate change ad that the former House speaker filmed with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

Gingrich, in turn, sought to stay above the fray.

"They should run their campaign the way they want to and we're going to run our campaign the way we want to," Gingrich told reporters after an event at the University of Iowa.

During a speech on brain science research, Gingrich stuck to his usual campaign pitch and made no mention of Romney's charges. But the thrice-married Gingrich, who has admitted infidelity, faced criticism from his audience.

A handful of protesters drowned him out for at least three minutes, assailing Gingrich for what they called a "callous attitude toward poor people." He watched impassively from the podium in a university auditorium while the protesters shouted. But he couldn't resist responding when one person accused him of making millions of dollars on book deals and earning a "Ph.D. in cheating on your wives."

"Other than personal hostility, how would you know anything about how I publish my books?" Gingrich retorted.

The latest attacks from Romney ? and the criticism from Iowans ? come as the candidates prepare to square off Thursday at the final debate before the Jan. 3 caucuses and pressure increases on Romney, the one-time GOP front-runner, to curb Gingrich's rise. There's only one week for Romney to make his pitch ? and tear down Gingrich ? before many voters tune out over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Much of the Iowa campaign is being waged on the air, with campaigns and their allied super PACs spending millions in TV advertisements this week alone. Meanwhile, campaigns are readying get-out-the-vote operations to ensure supporters turn out to precinct meetings on what's likely to be a frigid Midwestern winter weeknight.

Polls show most Iowans are undecided about which candidate to support or at least willing to change their minds, underscoring the volatility of the race.

For now, Gingrich, whose campaign imploded earlier this year, leads the field in Iowa surveys even as he races to build a campaign infrastructure. Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul trail him in surveys, while others ? Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum ? are working to break through with aggressive face-to-face campaign efforts.

To that end, Perry started a thousand-mile bus tour on Iowa's western edge Wednesday, telling a small group of supporters in Council Bluffs that the nation needs an outsider as president ? hitting both Gingrich and Romney at the same time.

"Changing one Washington insider for another Washington insider isn't going to change a thing. Sending a Wall Streeter to Washington is not going to change a thing," said Perry, who is scheduled to campaign in Iowa daily except for a short break around Christmas as he looks for a late-game surge.

In Des Moines, Santorum expressed confidence that voters would come into his fold even though polls show him near the back of the pack.

"I'm sort of the guy at the dance, when the girls walk in they sort of walk by, and they take a few turns at the dance hall with the guys that are a little better looking, a little flashier, a little more bling," he told about 300 Nationwide Insurance employees. "But at the end of the evening, old steady Eddie's there. He's the guy you want to bring home to mom and dad."

Bachmann, too, was preparing to start her own bus tour this week, one expected to take her to all 99 counties in the state.

Rounding out their day, Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry and Santorum were scheduled to attend the screening of an anti-abortion documentary from Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who won the GOP's 2008 presidential caucuses but lost the nomination.

Romney's attacks ? and his newfound willingness to talk with the media ? continued to shape the race.

"Zany is great in a campaign. It's great on talk radio. It's great in print. It makes for fun reading," Romney told The New York Times in an interview. "But in terms of a president, we need a leader, and a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together."

Earlier, Romney told Fox News that Gingrich had "an extraordinary lack of understanding of how the economy works." In an interview with CBS, Romney raised Gingrich's Tiffany's account and suggested that the former House speaker leveraged his name to earn a fortune after leaving office.

"Newt Gingrich has wealth from having worked in government," Romney said, in what is likely a preview of lines of attack for Thursday's debate in Sioux City.

___

Elliott reported from Council Bluffs. Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111214/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Romney now backs payroll tax cut plan (Star Tribune)

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Hungary not playing "Turkish game" with IMF talks (Reuters)

BUDAPEST (Reuters) ? Hungary hopes that credit rating agencies Fitch and S&P will wait for the results of its talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU) before taking any rating action, a top government official said on Sunday.

The country, whose economy is seen among the most vulnerable in central Europe, returned to the IMF for help after more than a year without a financing backstop, only to see its debt downgraded to "junk" by Moody's this week, triggering a market selloff.

The right-of-center government, which called the downgrade part of a speculative attack against the country, performed a dramatic about-face and agreed on Friday to mend ties with the EU, the IMF and the country's banks to stabilize the economy.

Hungary expects to conclude the talks on a precautionary arrangement by late January or early February, to draw what it called a safety net around its currency and bond markets amid the turmoil in the euro zone.

"We are not playing the Turkish game," Economy Ministry State Secretary Zoltan Csefalvay told Reuters in an interview, referring to the stop-go game which helped Turkey retain market confidence some years ago.

Hungary is also on the brink of non-investment grade credit status at both Fitch and Standard & Poor's, both of which attach a negative outlook to their ratings.

"I hope that the two agencies will wait for the negotiation (with the IMF) and what the outcome will be and how this safety net will help Hungary in this turbulent time," Csefalvay said.

He said the spike in government bond yields, which rose above 9 percent across the curve on Friday, was temporary and said he was confident the yields would recede.

"I think it is an immediate reaction and certainly we should wait how the market will react on it," he said. "As we have seen in other countries, it will stabilize at a lower level."

He said it was up to the National Bank of Hungary as to whether it hikes interest rates at its next policy meeting on Tuesday, even if a hike would further hinder growth.

"The central bank is independent in Hungary," he said. "If it (hikes rates), it is the independent decision of the National Bank of Hungary. We accept it."

RATE HIKE

The government has criticized the central bank's rate increases between November 2010 and January 2011, which brought rates to their current 6 percent level.

The rate has been unchanged since January, but in the wake of the downgrade analysts expect the bank to hike the rate by 25 to 200 basis points on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban ended aid negotiations with the IMF last year in what he said was an economic "freedom fight."

Although it has been forced back to the international lender the government has insisted it will aim for as much flexibility on economic policy as possible during the talks.

However, Csefalvay said Budapest would not shy away from discussing controversial policies, including windfall taxes on banks, as well as other policies that hurt the financial sector, such as mandatory below-market exchange rates to repay foreign currency mortgages.

"We can discuss certainly ... these crisis taxes, the bank levy or the FX mortgage repayment scheme, whether this is right or not," Csefalvay said. "But all of Europe faces new problems and to solve these we need risk and burden sharing."

He noted that the crisis taxes, the bank levy and other such measures were temporary and the government was in the middle of executing reforms that he said would allow phasing out the taxes from 2013.

"The market sees some uncertainty as to what will happen when these (crisis) measures are abolished. We have more than one year to that time. We are in the middle of many important reforms, and we should push (them) through," he said.

Csefalvay said the government would continue to pursue a growth-centered agenda even as it planned next year's budget with a growth estimate in the 0.5 to 1 percent range, below a prior target of 1.5 percent.

However, if the cabinet sees any fiscal slippage next year, it will not hesitate to take steps to raise more revenue, much like September's excise tax hike, he said.

(Reporting by Marton Dunai; Editing by David Holmes)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111127/bs_nm/us_hungary_imf

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SKorean official travels to NKorea to monitor aid (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea ? A South Korean official will help monitor the distribution of humanitarian aid to North Korean children for the first time in three years, the Seoul government said Friday.

He is the first South Korean government official to travel to Pyongyang to monitor aid distribution since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008 with a tough policy toward North Korean aid. The visit is seen as a key sign that relations are improving after years of tension.

The divided Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war because their three-year conflict ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Relations have been particularly tense during Lee's presidency, culminating in a North Korean artillery attack on a front-line island a year ago that killed four South Koreans.

The South Korean official left Friday for Pyongyang along with four aid workers, the Unification Ministry said in a statement. He is expected to remain in the North until Tuesday to help monitor the distribution of 300 tons of flour for North Korean children. The flour is being provided by a South Korean civic group.

Some 6 million North Koreans, about a quarter of the population, will go hungry without outside food aid, according to the World Food Program.

South Korean officials have not traveled to North Korea to monitor food aid since Lee took office with a tough policy on linking assistance to North Korea's progress in dismantling its nuclear program.

However, in recent months, officials from both Koreas have met to discuss ways to resume nuclear disarmament-for-aid talks. Seoul has also allowed religious and cultural figures to visit North Korea.

On Thursday, South Korean scholars visited a North Korean border town to join a project to recover and preserve an ancient Korean palace.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/nkorea/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_tension

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