Time May Be Right to Talk Raising Taxes

Treasury secretary says he's done after election

(NEWSER) - Tim Geithner is pretty sure he's going to be joining the ranks of the jobless after the election: The Treasury secretary—the longest serving member of President Obama's economic team—tells Bloomberg that Obama is "not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident. I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury." The White House announced in August that Geithner would stay put through the election, amid Beltway rumblings that he would step down. More»

Nope, says spokesman: event reports, pics are online

(NEWSER) - At the nadir of the economic crisis, the Obama White House held a lavish Alice in Wonderland-themed Halloween costume party, organized by Johnny Depp and Tim Burton and full of Star Wars character. But with unemployment at 10%, the Tea Party at its apex, and the economic downturn still rocking the country, officials feared the 2009 party would look terribly decadent, so kept it a secret, reports the New York Post . “White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans—or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care—that the event was not discussed publicly, and Burton’s and Depp’s contributions went unacknowledged,” alleges Jodi Kantor in her new book, The Obamas . More»

Bill Daley says Congress won't let Obama be a chief executive

(NEWSER) - Roger Simon of Politico has an entertaining interview with White House chief of staff Bill Daley. Some highlights:

• How it's going: “It’s been a brutal three years. It’s been a very, very difficult three years, an incredible three years. And we are doing all this under the overhang of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. F--k! It wasn’t like all this was happening in good times."
• On 'we can't wait': "Both Democrats and Republicans have really made it very difficult for the president to be anything like a chief executive. This has led to a kind of frustration," and to the president's push for the executive branch to do as much as it can without Congress.

John Fleming attacks Obama deficit plan

(NEWSER) - Welcome to the tragic world of Rep. John Fleming: Sure, he pulled in $6.3 million last year from his Subway and UPS franchises, but "that's before you pay 500 employees, before you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food." After coughing up those expenses, the Louisiana Republican tells MSNBC 's Chris Jansing that he's left with a paltry $600,000—which gets slashed to an even more austere $400,000 "after I feed my family." Which leads your Newser to wonder what exactly he's feeding his four grown children. More»

'Washington Post' bares early details of president's plan

(NEWSER) - Details of President Obama's new debt-reduction plan to be unveiled this morning are emerging—and it's not a pretty sight for the rich. The president will likely outline a plan to cut the federal debt by $3 trillion over the next decade, with half of that coming from an increase in tax revenues, sources tell the Washington Post . Nearly half of the new tax revenue is expected to emerge from next year's expiration of former president Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Most of the rest will spring from a special new tax for the wealthy , and axing or cutting back on loopholes and deductions, according to administration officials. More»