taxes

AIA Keeps Slugging Away At Sequestration; Blakey Distances Group From Tax Rate Boost

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WASHINGTON: Sequestration, sequestration, sequestration — that was the one note the Aerospace Industries Association struck over and over at its biggest annual public event.

Flanked by AIA’s now-iconic clock counting down 27 days before the sequester destroys “two million jobs” (a disputed figure), President Marion Blakey declared: “I’m an optimist and we have to prevail.” But with automatic budget cuts slated to take effect Jan. 2, unless Congress and the White House reach an increasingly unlikely deal, just how forestalling the sequester isn’t entirely clear. Nor did Blakey endorse the bold proposal of one of its member CEOs to raise corporate and individual tax rates as part of a deal. Keep reading →

Published December 5, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Delay Sequestration By Six Months; ‘We Need To Know What We’re Doing,’ Sez Sen. Feinstein

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CAPITOL HILL [updated 12:40 with Feinstein, Inouye remarks and results of amendment vote]: Sequestration drama roiled an otherwise pro forma mark-up of the Senate’s defense appropriations bill this morning, with a precious flicker of bipartisanship over the need to avert the sequester soon overtaken by disagreement over the legalities of layoff notices.

If the automatic cuts go into effect in January, “everything you achieved in this mark up is going to be wiped out,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned his fellow Senate appropriators. Graham said that averting the sequester was so important that he and his fellow Republicans must “readjust” their no-new-taxes pledge and make a deal with Democrats to raise revenues. Keep reading →

Published August 2, 2012 at 11:50 AM

GOP Must Move On Revenues Or Sequester Happens: Sen. Murray

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WASHINGTON: If Republicans don’t agree to a “balanced” deal that raises revenues, Democrats are willing to let sequestration strike on Jan. 2nd — and the Bush tax cuts expire on Dec. 31st — Sen. Patty Murray said this afternoon in a major escalation of Congress’s ongoing game of chicken.

“If we can’t get … a deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013,” Sen. Murray told an audience at the left-of-center Brookings Institution today. “I think my party and the American people will support that.” Keep reading →

Published July 16, 2012 at 3:30 PM