NUMBER OF THE WEEK: $450 billion.
The cost (over 10 years) of a bipartisan deal to extend
the majority of the 55 expired or expiring tax provisions known as
extenders, making a select few permanent. The deal, which would not
have been paid for, appeared to have legs last week... until the
Obama administration, with support from some Senate Democrats,
cried "veto" over the deal's alleged inequitable
allocation of benefits among poor people and
corporations.
LEGISLATIVE LANDSCAPE
Extenders Deal Fumbled Inches From Goal Line.
President Obama's preemptive veto threat sacked the extenders
deal that began emerging last week, and with the clock ticking,
lawmakers are now forced to coalesce around a retroactive one-year
deal of all the tax breaks that expired at the end of 2013. The
House could vote on such a bill as early as Wednesday, and we
expect it will be a clean extenders bill, but for the likely
addition of a package of technical corrections. Some expected
