• • A picture is worth a thousand words....
• • Boehner could face rocky vote for speakership amid Republican angst
• • Fiscal-cliff deal no recipe for a robust economy
• • Fiscal Deal Kills New Funding For Health Law's Co-Ops
• • Which Obama Executive Order Did the House Overwhelmingly Overturn Yesterday?
• • Deductions Limits Will Affect Many

Stunning Graphic Shows Possible Reason the House GOP Balked at Senate’s Fiscal Cliff Bill

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John Boehner could be in for a fight Thursday when the newly seated House votes for the next speaker, with conservatives grumbling about his leadership and a report surfacing about a supposed plan to challenge him. 

The 11-term congressman, who's endured his share of political turbulence, presumably enters the election with the upper hand. So far, a single viable Republican challenger has not emerged and the rules of the vote tend to work in Boehner's favor. 

But Boehner's potential troubles were compounded by a late-night flare up with outraged northeast lawmakers over a decision by the speaker to postpone a vote on an aid package for Superstorm Sandy victims. 

For the near term, the speaker appears to have weathered those complaints, assuring members in a closed-door meeting Wednesday afternoon they will vote by Jan. 15. Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., who initially described the postponement as a "betrayal" and threatened to abstain from voting for Boehner, said after the meeting he would back Boehner. 

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who earlier lashed out at the GOP leadership in a string of interviews and remarks, said the same. 

But a spate of other flare-ups over the past several days and weeks among House Republicans has stoked threats about resistance -- or at least some drama -- Thursday. Conservatives were already miffed that Boehner, early on in talks over the fiscal crisis, had agreed to new revenue. Boehner suffered another blow two weeks ago when his "Plan B" fiscal bill failed to garner enough Republican backers. But the final fiscal-crisis bill, which arrived from the Senate early Tuesday morning, ultimately garnered thin support from the GOP ranks. While Boehner and 84 other Republicans voted for it, 151 Republicans opposed it -- more Democrats than Republicans voted for the bill. Read more here.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Housing is rebounding. Families are shrinking debts. Europe has avoided a financial crackup. And the fiscal cliff deal has removed the most urgent threat to the U.S. economy.

So why don't economists foresee stronger growth and hiring in 2013?

Part of the answer is what Congress' agreement did (raise Social Security taxes for most of us). And part is what it didn't do (prevent the likelihood of more growth-killing political standoffs).

By delaying painful decisions on spending cuts, the deal assures more confrontation and uncertainty, especially because Congress must reach agreement later this winter to raise the government's debt limit. Many businesses are likely to remain wary of expanding or hiring in the meantime.

One hopeful consensus: If all the budgetary uncertainty can be resolved within the next few months, economists expect growth to pick up in the second half of 2013.

"We are in a better place than we were a couple of days ago," Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, said a day after Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid sharp income tax increases and government spending cuts. But "we really haven't dealt with the debt ceiling or tax reform or entitlement spending."

Five full years after the Great Recession began, the U.S. economy is still struggling to accelerate. Many economists think it will grow a meager 2 percent or less this year, down from 2.2 percent in 2012. The unemployment rate remains a high 7.7 percent. Few expect it to drop much this year  Read more here.

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Going, going, gone.

The fiscal cliff deal, approved by Congress on New Year’s Day, eliminates most of the more than $1.4 billion in remaining funding from the federal health law for new nonprofit, customer-owned health plans designed to compete against the major for-profit insurers.

Photo by Aaron Sumner via Flickr

That means the Obama administration won’t be able to approve loans to any additional co-ops. In the past two years, the Department of Health and Human Services has awarded nearly $2 billion in loans to 24 proposed state co-ops. Those loans won’t be affected by the cut.

“We were  blindsided by the elimination of funds,” said John Morrison, president of the National Alliance of State Health Cooperatives. “The health insurance industry is getting its way here by torpedoing  co-ops in the 26 remaining states. This is not about budgets; it is about those health insurance giants killing competition at the expense of millions of Americans who will pay higher premiums because of it.”

But some House Republicans have said the co-ops were a way for the administration to reward its political friends. Sponsors of the co-op plans already underway include the Freelancers Union in New York, a farmers’ union in Colorado and the Connecticut State Medical Society.

Critics also have been skeptical the co-ops could compete with more established insurers, such as Aetna and UnitedHealthcare.

“Starting a new health plan is a risky proposition,” said Peter Kongstvedt, a McLean, Va.- based health care consultant. He said consumers already have sufficient choice of plans in most markets and won’t miss having the additional co-ops.  Read more here.

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President Barack Obama made waves last Friday when — amid a fierce fiscal cliff debate — he signed an executive order ending the pay freeze on certain federal workers.  Beneficiaries to see a pay boost included Vice President Joe Biden and members of Congress.

Though the raises were relatively modest (at least for a government that runs trillion-dollar deficits)– about $900/year for members of Congress and $6,000/year for Biden– the Weekly Standard writes that the executive order would cost the taxpayer roughly $11 billion over the next ten years.

On Tuesday night, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation blocking the pay raise.

“Unbelievably, in the middle of talks this week on tax rates and sequestration revision, in the midst of high deficits and a growing national debt, the president has proposed pay increases for members of Congress,” Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) summarized. “I have to say that nobody in this town saw this coming, and very few think it is warranted.”

The measure received immense bipartisan support, passing 287-129, with 55 Democrats voting with Republicans against the president’s proposal.  Read more here.

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WASHINGTON—One of the biggest tax increases in the fiscal-cliff bill is also one of the least understood: a set of limits on tax deductions and other breaks that will hit far more households than the bill's rate increases for top earners.

The bill that cleared Congress Tuesday boosts the tax rate for single filers making more than $400,000 and married couples filing jointly making more than $450,000, or roughly the top 1% of filers.

But provisions that reduce the value of personal exemptions as well as most itemized deductions, including those for mortgage interest and state income-tax payments, will affect about twice as many people since they carry a lower income threshold—$250,000 for singles and $300,000 for married couples.

Those new limits drew complaints from some groups that benefit from deductions, particularly charities that depend on tax-deductible donations. They worry that new curbs on deductions, coupled with other taxes on higher-income Americans, will put a damper on giving.

"We are concerned," said Diana Aviv, president of Independent Sector, a coalition of foundations, nonprofits and other charitable groups. "The big question for us now is, if we are [also] increasing rates on folks…does the combination create a greater disincentive for people to give?"

The debate foreshadows bigger fights in 2013, when Congress likely will try to overhaul the federal tax code, in part by further narrowing tax breaks.

The new limits are "like another cannonball being fired across our bow," said Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders. "Clearly, it shows that the notion of limiting deductions is still one that's being considered by policy makers."

But a J.P. Morgan analyst, Michael Feroli, predicted that the new tax-break limits "should not directly affect…giving to charities or taking on more mortgage debt."  Read more here.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- With its purchase of left-leaning Current TV, the Pan-Arab news channel Al-Jazeera has fulfilled a long-held quest to reach tens of millions of U.S. homes. But its new audience immediately got a little smaller.

The nation's second-largest TV operator, Time Warner Cable Inc., dropped Current after the deal was confirmed Wednesday, a sign that the channel will have an uphill climb to expand its reach.

"Our agreement with Current has been terminated and we will no longer be carrying the service. We are removing the service as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement.

Still, the acquisition of Current, the news network that cofounded by former Vice President Al Gore, boosts Al-Jazeera's reach in the U.S. beyond a few large U.S. metropolitan areas including New York and Washington nearly ninefold to about 40 million homes.

Gore confirmed the sale Wednesday, saying in a statement that Al-Jazeera shares Current TV's mission "to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling."

Al-Jazeera, owned by the government of Qatar, plans to gradually transform Current into a network called Al-Jazeera America by adding five to 10 new U.S. bureaus beyond the five it has now and hiring more journalists. More than half of the content will be U.S. news and the network will have its headquarters in New York, spokesman Stan Collender said.

Collender said there are no rules against foreign ownership of a cable channel -- unlike the strict rules limiting foreign ownership of free-to-air TV stations. He said the move is based on demand, adding that 40 percent of viewing traffic on Al-Jazeera English's website is from the U.S.  Read more here.