Timothy P. Carney - After tax deal, liberals boo and Obama talks trash
Liberals are getting a taste of what conservative critics saw close up during the 2008 campaign and the health care fight: Obama's intolerance toward dissent, perhaps rooted in a personal arrogance and too much self-regard. His personality leads him to call names and question critics' motives, and it also makes him bristle at outside pressure.
"He knows he kicks ass, and he doesn't need any other validation," one liberal former Obama administration official told me this week.
When his base disagrees with him, then Obama apparently believes it's because they're too "purist" or too "sanctimonious" and just don't appreciate the political realities of compromise and negotiation.
Susan Ferrechio - House OKs path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants
The House passed a bill Tuesday that would speed the path to citizenship for people brought to this country illegally as children.
The measure passed 216-198 but now faces a nearly impossible hurdle in the Senate on Thursday, where it is unlikely to garner the 60 votes needed to block a GOP filibuster.
The bill, known as the DREAM Act, would allow people younger than 30 who came to the United States before the age of 16 to be granted conditional resident status if they have earned a GED or been admitted to college. Excluded would be those with three or more misdemeanors.
Byron York - Dems slip Indian gambling measure into spending bill
A little-noticed provision inside the bill, pushed hard by Democrats, could also lead to a massive expansion in the number of casinos run by Indian tribes.
The measure would give the Secretary of the Interior the authority to quickly, and without approval from anyone else, take lands into trust for new tribes. What that means is this: A group of people with some native American background petitions the Secretary for recognition as an Indian tribe. That is approved. The new tribe owns a parcel of land and offers the land to the Interior Department for the purpose of the U.S. government taking title to the property -- taking it into trust -- and then allowing the tribe to use the land for its own purposes. That way, the new tribe doesn't have to pay taxes on the land and is also protected from legal actions against them. Then the new tribe, enjoying those benefits of federal land ownership and not having to answer to any state or local authorities, opens a casino.
Julie Mason - Obama to Democrats: Tax compromise 'right thing to do'
As angry Democrats beat a path to television cameras Wednesday to denounce a White House tax compromise with Republicans, President Obama was making a show of being presidential.
He dispatched Vice President Biden to Capitol Hill to deal with lawmakers. He summoned his Cabinet for a meeting. He met with the president of Poland and, for a rare second day in a row, took questions from reporters.
Throughout, Obama was brusque, businesslike, delegating and in control. In short, he was very unlike the conciliatory, deliberative, consensus-seeking leader he has largely been until now.
Susan Ferrechio - Democrats focus anger on lowering of estate tax
The tax would be lowered from the 2009 rate of 45 percent to 35 percent, with up to $5 million per person or $10 million per couple exempted from the tax. The exemption in 2009 was $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for couples.
Democrats view the proposed estate tax rates as a giveaway to the wealthy and say it could doom the entire package in the House. Lawmakers estimated that about 40 percent of the Democratic opposition to the package was focused on the estate tax.
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