memeorandum: Wishful Thinking and Middle-Class Taxes (N. Gregory Mankiw/New York Times)

10:05 PM ET, December 29, 2012

Top Items:

How the fiscal cliff fight will end (unhappily for Republicans) … The word among some Senate Republicans is that a fiscal cliff deal is likely to be struck by Sunday, or Monday at the latest. (And Monday, being December 31st, is in fact the latest a deal could be struck to avoid January 1 tax increases.)

Discussion: National Review, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Power Line

Politico:

GOP unlikely to oust Boehner as speaker of the House — It's a truth that fire-breathing conservatives will have to handle: John Boehner isn't going anywhere as speaker of the House. — Boehner's grip on leadership is no doubt weaker after a faction of his caucus blocked his “Plan B” to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Erik Wasson / The Hill:

Congress, federal workers to get raise — Members of Congress will be getting a small pay increase next year. — Under an executive order issued by President Obama on Thursday, members of Congress will join federal workers in seeing their pay rise by 0.5 percent after March 27.

Discussion: BuzzFeed and Addicting Info

Politico:

Sunday showdown: Reid, McConnell try for small deal — Senate leaders are headed into a critical Sunday session of Congress with a singular mission to avoid historic tax hikes, setting the stage for a high-wire final act of fiscal cliff negotiating just two days before the country is hit with a series of tough austerity measures.

Discussion: Power Line

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:
Obama Gives Republicans A Tough Ultimatum On Taxes

Discussion: Alan Colmes'Alan Colmes' and Washington Monthly

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Fiscal Cliff Deal Not Reached, Leaders Agree To Continue Talks

Discussion: The Hill, Hot Air, Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Impolitic, Addicting Info, Politico and The Daily Caller

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Reid, McConnell working on fiscal cliff deal after meeting Obama

Discussion: Hot Air, Saint Petersblog and New York Times

Marc Santora / New York Times:

Woman Accused of Hate-Crime Murder in Subway Push — A 31-year-old woman was arrested on Saturday and charged with a hate crime in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of an elevated subway station in Queens and crushed by an oncoming train.

Discussion: Atlas Shrugs, The Other McCain, The Gateway Pundit, The Hinterland Gazette and The Raw Story

Shushannah Walshe / ABCNEWS:

Dick Armey Defends His $8 Million Deal to Leave FreedomWorks — Former House majority leader Dick Armey says he took an $8 million consulting deal in return for leaving the conservative organization FreedomWorks because the group was “dishonest” and because he “couldn't leave with empty pockets.”

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Washington Monthly and Talking Points Memo

Mary Ellen Godin / Reuters:

Claim seeks $100 million for child survivor of Connecticut school shooting — Reuters/Reuters - A U.S. flag hangs over stockings left as a memorial for victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, along a fence surrounding the Sandy Hook Cemetery in Newtown, Connecticut December ...more

Discussion: Addicting Info, The Hinterland Gazette, The Right Scoop and Outside the Beltway

N. Gregory Mankiw / New York Times:

Wishful Thinking and Middle-Class Taxes — IN the continuing fiscal negotiations between President Obama and House Republicans, both sides have, from the very beginning, agreed on one point: Taxes on the middle class must not rise. But maybe it's time to reconsider this premise.

Discussion: Business Insider, American Power, Greg Mankiw's Blog and The Lonely Conservative

Josh Barro / Bloomberg:

When Getting Your Butt Kicked Is the Strategy — Buzzfeed has one of many pieces about anonymous Republicans bemoaning their party's strategic incompetence, this time about the debt ceiling deal. They report: … Here's what Buzzfeed is missing: For Republicans, losing the political fight isn't a downside of the strategy.

Discussion: National Review and BuzzFeed

Bloomberg:

French Court Says 75% Tax Rate on Rich Is Unconstitutional — President Francois Hollande's 75 percent millionaire-tax is unconstitutional because it fails to guarantee taxpayer equality, France's top court ruled today. — The tax, one of Hollande's campaign promises …

Discussion: PERRspectives and National Review

Jerusalem Post:

Egypt to pursue relationship with Hezbollah — In shift from Mubarak-era policy, Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon says Brotherhood-dominated Egypt will engage terror group. — In a dramatic policy shift, Egypt will seek to forge “tight” relations with Hezbollah, Egyptian Ambassador …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers and Israel Matzav

Mark Steyn / National Review:

Laws Are for Little People — A week ago on NBC's Meet the Press, David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine. To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts.

Discussion: Belmont Club, Twitchy, The Other McCain, The Jawa Report, Ed Driscoll and Althouse

Joe Weisenthal / Business Insider:

There's Only One Way To Fix The Deficit — And Actually It's Totally Painless — People who insist that the US has a gigantic “spending problem” are ignorant of what really drives the deficit and the national debt, as Henry Blodget easily demonstrated in a series of charts.

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Washington Monthly and Paul Krugman