Free Talk Live

While the nation’s eyes are affixed firmly on the future tax implications of the fiscal cliff negotiations, few people realize that they stand to pay larger tax bills in 2012 courtesy of a little something Congress could have — and should have – taken care of long ago: the exemption to the alternative minimum tax (AMT). As a reminder, the AMT is a parallel tax system that was originally designed in 1969 to guarantee that 155 wealthy, enterprising taxpayers would pay some amount of federal income tax.

As we slide towards the “fiscal cliff,” President Obama’s stance seems pretty clear: Americans want lots of stuff but shouldn’t have to pay for it. (It’s a position the GOP has also often taken.) A new education survey suggests the President’s position is politically smart.

when you hear congress and their media cronies come out whining about how they need to squeeze a little more money out of your pocket or they’re going to have to lay off police and fire fighters, and throw old people into the snow, and let children be educated by wolves, and the roads, the roads, for God’s sake WHAT ABOUT THE ROADS!!! … Keep in mind that while the whole nation teeters on the edge of that fiscal cliff, Obama and Congress just gave themselves a raise.

Insanity abounds! An old suggestion has resurfaced that was originally made during the debt ceiling crisis in 2011. Cullen Roche, writing for the Pragmatic Capitalist, shared a suggestion sent to him by one of his readers, and the unusual idea had made it all the way to the desks of Yale law professors and court economists. Now the suggestion has resurfaced, this time from Brad Plumer, writing for the Washington Post. To solve the economic crisis all they have to do is issue two shiny new platinum coins worth … wait for it … $1 trillion dollars each!

Warning that our nation's fiscal health has deteriorated appreciably since the onset of the financial crisis and the recession, Bernanke called upon lawmakers to confront the long term fiscal challenges sooner rather than later. If lawmakers don't confront them, they'll find themselves confronted *by* them.

With Congress spending all its time trying to avert the fiscal cliff, a slew of other legislative matters are going unattended. One of them is the agriculture bill which, if not addressed, could lead to a doubling of the price of milk early next year. It works like this: In order to keep dairy farmers in businesses, the government agrees to buy milk and other products if the price gets too low. The current agriculture bill has a formula that means the government steps in if the price of milk were to drop by roughly half from its current national average of about $3.65 a gallon.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes:
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 "Ten Most Corrupt" list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential

A deputy was injured as he fell off a cliff Tuesday, pulling another deputy with him and injuring him as well, during a marijuana grow raid in California.

The Kern County Sheriff's Office Major Violators Unit (damn, they sound important) and the Kern Narcotics Enforcement Team were trying to serve a search warrant for a cannabis grow operation in the remote area of Bald Mountain, in the Havilah, Calif., area, reports KERO 23

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached its highest number yet of companies audited for undocumented immigrants on their payrolls this past fiscal year. Audits of employer I-9 forms increased from 250 in fiscal year 2007 to more than 3,000 in 2012. From fiscal years 2009 to 2012, the total amount of fines grew to nearly $13 million from $1 million. The number of company managers arrested has increased to 238, according to data provided by ICE.