He won't lose, the GOP candidates are all terrible even for GOP candidates.

George W. Bush.

he'll lose. He deserves to.

The GOP campaign will take the "hope and change" thing and sink Obama's poll numbers

Based on Montana's wisdom, Obama & Biden should just resign now and let Boner take over.

As the threat of another government shutdown looms large, the Democrats should once again prove how spineless they are by totally giving in to the GOP's demands. Middle class tax plan my ass.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- It looks like the millionaire surtax is going down again.

Democrats have pushed for weeks to impose a millionaire surtax to help pay for the cost of extending the payroll tax cut. Republicans have said it would be a job-killer.

Wednesday night, with time running out before Congress adjourns for the year, it appeared that Democrats were ready to give up in the name of getting a deal done. A source told CNN that Senate Democrats would propose a new plan that did not include the tax.

The demise of this version of the millionaire tax would not be a surprise. Lawmakers have already voted down a surtax of 5.6%, then 3.25% and most recently 1.9%.

But the idea of taxing the rich will come up again and again next year, since themes of income inequality and tax fairness will be sounded repeatedly on the campaign trail.

Urban Institute resident fellow Howard Gleckman points out that an extra tax on millionaires may make for great politics but it would make for awful policy, although not for the reasons that many in the GOP suggest.

Republicans still cleave to the notion that to ever ask millionaires to pay more in taxes will bring the economy to a screeching halt because it would hurt small business job creation.

But there are problems with that reasoning:

--A very small percentage of tax filers with business income make more than $1 million.

--There is no way to tell how many new jobs those millionaires create.

--And business income can come from activities that don't result in a lot of hiring, such as owning rental property or investing in a partnership.

For Gleckman, a big problem with the millionaire surtax is that it feeds the myth that the super rich can pay for everything. They can't. There are not enough of them.

And by applying a surtax here and a surtax there, soon you're talking serious rate creep -- to levels that could be counterproductive. The higher rates become the more likely it is that the rich will look for ways to avoid paying them.

If the Bush tax cuts expire, the top rate goes to 39.6% and the value of certain deductions goes down. Add in a new Medicare tax for high-income households starting in 2013, and the top rate could approach 50% if Congress passed a 5.6% surtax, Gleckman noted.

Despite the flaws in the parties' strategies -- Democrats always reach first to tax the rich and Republicans always rush to protect them even at the expense of everyone else -- each contains a bit of truth the other side will have to accept sooner or later.

Both the rich and the middle class eventually will have to contribute to efforts to spur the economy and stabilize the federal budget.

"Democrats today can't solve our nation's many budgetary woes primarily by taxing the rich, and Republicans risk alienating the middle class when they try to spare the rich from sharing the additional burdens most Americans soon must bear," former Treasury official Eugene Steuerle wrote in his public policy column "The Government We Deserve."

The rich will have to pay more in taxes, he notes, because even if spending is cut across the board, they won't feel the pinch since they don't rely on government spending to get by.

And the middle class will eventually need to accept some spending cuts and tax increases, Steuerle said, "not because the rich can't pay more, but because most income in the economy resides with that 80 percent of the population that is neither poor nor rich."

Doesn't this not getting done immediately go against the Grover Norquist pledge?

boehner says keystone pipeline rider to be attached to ANY payroll tax cut extension

And the "greatest moderate?" I don't see what makes him any more effectively moderate than Clinton.

I agree it was a good speech, but let's not go overboard. Saying you're for firing bad teachers once a year in a speech isn't really that gutsy of a move. He's been saying it for years now too. And the "greatest moderate?" I don't see what makes him any more effectively moderate than Clinton.

My favorite part of the evening was when Mitch Daniels offered the gem: "When the people of Indiana ask me what they can do to help our state, I tell them to make a ton of money and start hiring a lot of people." Great advice, Mitch!

so it seems the supreme court will rule that the federal gov can't force people to buy health insurance, but it can tax them to pay for health insurance that the gov provides. and that distinction will bring down obamacare. as the kids like to say, smh

Sounds like single payer, which is what OBama and the insurance companies didn't want. Weak democrats.

It was possible. He had one of the largest mandates in recent times, and fumbled it away on "let's be buddies".

I wouldnt characterize a Supreme Court ruling as a mere fumble. Iregardless, I never was a proponent for the mandate and I actually applaud the Court's ruling.

What ruling.

so it seems the supreme court will rule that the federal gov can't force people to buy health insurance, .....

The other thing too is that there are several avenues built into the bill that help people meet the requirements when they cannot afford coverage. The bill was so massive that things like that got lost in the message though.

It would've easily passed when the election mandate was at its peak. Instead, they dragegd their feet and didn't get going until months later. By that point the GOP and industry had a gameplan.

For the top news stories regarding legislative matters, I always rely on Dice.