Bush tax cuts

Lawmakers have gotten in the habit of waiting until the last minute to extend many tax breaks, but last year, they ran out of time. Now, unless Congress acts soon, millions of Americans are face changes that could leave them sending thousands of dollars a year more to the IRS.

There has been a pleasant lull in reporting about the debt ceiling and budget debate, but don't let the quiet fool you. Right now, 11 men and one woman are crafting a plan to reduce the federal budget deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. They are the members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction -- aka, the Deficit Supercommittee.

Upon taking office in 2009, Obama inherited two costly wars and an economy that had violently imploded just months before. What's changed since then? Quite a bit -- some for the better, some not. Here's a midterm progress report for key indicators of the country's economic health.

President Barack Obama will likely name a new chief economic adviser to replace Lawrence Summers later this week as his administration looks for more effective ways to reduce an unemployment rate that remains near 10%, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

After months of "will they or won't they?" Congress finally committed. On December 16, 2010, the House pushed through H.R. 4853 -- The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 -- virtually without changes. President Obama signed it into law the next day. The...

If a compromise by definition is a deal that pleases no one, then the tax deal that cleared Congress Thursday was a rousing success: Conservatives and liberals both dislike it, but those who voted for it agreed that the alternative -- letting taxes rise for everyone -- would have been worse.

Now that President Obama has signed a sweeping tax bill into law, many Americans want to know how they'll be affected. The compromise deal extends Bush-era tax reductions on income, capital gains and dividends through 2012. But there were also some changes.

With a tax bill tilted to benefit the wealthiest Americans poised to pass Congress this week, U.S. income inequality is poised to set new records. One key to that shift -- a change in the tax rules that lets the rich pass their wealth on to their heirs at the lowest tax rates in decades.

The biggest question many investors have about President Obama's compromise tax cut deal is how it will benefit the economy. But so far, there is little agreement on Wall Street about what the stimulative effects of the deal will be.

Nearly half of Americans in a recent poll believe China has surpassed America as having the strongest economy in the world, and more than half blame outsourcing and the loss of manufacturing jobs for the shift.