According to the Huffington Post, because of the structure of the nearly $900 billion Obama-McConnell tax deal, roughly a third of all workers will actually see their taxes increase next year. How anyone can defend this deal as smart politics for Obama is beyond me. From Ryan Grim: The tax deal reached between President Obama [...]

This is a pretty scary number for any White House political operative. According to a new Bloomberg news poll, over half of Americans think they are worse off now than when Obama took office. From Bloomberg: The survey, conducted Dec. 4-7, finds that 51 percent of respondents think their situation has deteriorated, compared with 35 [...]

Using projections from Moody’s analyst Mark Zandi, Paul Krugman came to the conclusion that the Obama-McConnell tax deal could end up hurting President Obama’s 2012 re-election bid by reducing growth rates in the critical months leading up to the election. From Krugman: Look at the Zandi estimates: they show a boost to the economy in 2011, [...]