By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
The Obama administration amped up its offensive Sunday with Republicans over the $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts scheduled to kick in Friday, releasing fresh warnings of a "real impact on people's lives" despite GOP claims the White House is exaggerating the potential ill effects.
While he now demands that higher tax rates for the wealthy must be part of a "fiscal cliff" deal, President Obama took a very different line just over a year ago in the last major clash with Congress over a long-term budget deal.
Obama administration officials refused to say Wednesday whether anybody would be fired over the decision to award solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra LLC a half-billion dollars in loans before it went bankrupt and saw its headquarters raided by the FBI.
In his second major staffing announcement of the week, President Obama on Friday said he's tapping another former Clinton administration official to head his National Economic Council.
President Obama will name Gene Sperling as director of the National Economic Council on Friday, a move that will place a veteran policy and political player in the White House to work with a divided Congress.
Among the first announcements President Obama will make upon returning from his Hawaiian vacation is his choice for top economic adviser, a decision that could signal a new direction for the administration as it struggles to jump-start the economy and wrestle down unemployment.
Top White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers will step down at the end of this year, the administration said Tuesday, marking the departure of yet another key player on President Obama's financial team, which has struggled to right the U.S. economy.
"The notion here is to delay these very severe impacts that I've described so that you have time to work out a deal that can delay and avoid them more permanently," Mr. Furman said.
Placing the limit on households making more than $250,000 would generate only $800 billion, Mr. Furman said, and would create an immense "cliff," in which someone whose income rose to $251,000 could suddenly owe thousands of dollars more in taxes.
