Inside the Beltway: Anti-DeMint press strikes

DELUXE INAUGURATION

Do the math, and it comes to more than $500,000 a night. Certain price tags for ultimate true-blue fans of the upcoming presidential inauguration are, well, cosmic. Situated on Pennsylvania Avenue and a block from the White House, the JW Marriott hotel is offering a $2.7 million custom-tailored guest package “brimming with spectacular revelry, pomp and circumstance.”

Indeed. Here’s what the money buys: a tented party atop the hotel, four nights in two luxury Presidential Suites and two luxury “Running Mate” suites, 300 guest rooms for friends, $800,000 in food and beverages, “nightly keepsake inaugural amenities,” and access to the inaugural parade route.

“During the last presidential inauguration, a similar package was created, purchased and enjoyed by a charitable organization who offered the rooms to the underprivileged,” the hotel advises.

ONE MORE TRILLION

“There is a hidden $1 trillion net tax hike in the fiscal cliff that no one is talking about. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare’s twenty new or higher taxes amount to a net $1 trillion over the next decade, 2013-2022,” Americans for Tax Reform notes in a brief reminder missive.

“These tax increases are already permanent law due to Obamacare. They include the medical device tax, the surtax on investment income, the individual and employer mandate non-compliance penalty tax, the medical itemized deduction ‘haircut,’ the hike in the Medicare payroll tax rate, and others. These tax increases total exactly $1 trillion over the next ten years.”

GORETOPIA

Uh-oh. The wind may be kicking up between a certain former vice president and President Obama.

“I deeply respect our president and I am grateful for the steps that he has taken, but we cannot have four more years of mentioning this occasionally and saying it’s too bad that the Congress can’t act. Our democracy has been hacked. And when the large part of polluters and their ideological allies tell the members of Congress to jump, they do say, ‘how high?’ And we need leadership in the executive branch as well.”

(Al Gore, complaining about the lack of concern for climate change at the White House and elsewhere, in a speech before the Regional Plan Association and the New York League of Conservation Voters.)

POLL DU JOUR

• 81 percent of Americans are concerned about “racking up big bills” while Christmas and holiday shopping this year.

• 55 percent will give cheaper gifts; 31 percent are looking at more practical presents.

• 29 percent will agree with friends or family not to spend as much on each other.

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