In a blog post on the White House's website, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling and Deputy Director Jason Furman argue that the math of limiting deductions for high-earners dictates that an insufficient amount of revenue will be raised.

Some commentators have advocated for a position of going over the fiscal cliff to leverage a better compromise.

Yesterday, we discussed the myth that the poor would be spared by the fiscal cliff, with one of the reasons being the large tax increase at the end of the year. According to the Tax Policy Center, the poorest 20 percent of people would face a tax hike of $412, or a 3.7 percent reduction in their after tax income.

As was the case two years ago, the 2001/2003 tax cuts will be a hot topic in the lame duck session. Democrats would like to extend the full tax cuts only for people making less than $250,000, while Republicans would prefer to extend them fully for most everyone (leaving out refundable tax credit expansions from 2009).

Yesterday, the AARP published a report and sent an accompanying letter to members of Congress and President Obama in opposition to switching to the chained CPI for calculating cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) f

First off, CRFB would like to congratulate President Obama and all of those who were elected and re-elected to the Senate and the House. CRFB is looking forward to continue working with policymakers from both sides of the aisle to help make deficit reduction a reality.

Decision Time – Election Day is tomorrow and the stakes are high. Not only is control of the White House and Congress at stake, but the election will also have repercussions for the federal budget and national debt. Although it will be the current group of policymakers that will address the fiscal cliff (or not) in a post-election lame duck session of Congress, the results of the voting will no doubt play a role in the deliberations, which could very likely spill into next year.

Over at Wonkblog, Dylan Matthews and Ezra Klein have worked with analysts at Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy to create an individual tax reform calculator. The calculator comes in versions for both Governor Mitt Romney's plan and President Obama's plan.

Recently, we released an analysis demonstrating that it is indeed possible to substantially reduce tax rates while still cutting the deficit. Despite some claims that repealing all tax expenditures could reduce the top rate to only 38% (or by only 4 percent), we showed that doing so would allow the top rate to fall to 23 percent while still allowing for over $1 trillion in deficit reduction.

Up for Debate – Election 2012 is entering the final stretch and it is still up for grabs. The presidential contest has been marked more by missteps than by anyone stepping up and observers are waiting to see who will mimic the Washington Nationals and Redskins and give it away at the end. The third and final presidential debate is tonight at 9 pm Eastern Time and is the last time the contenders will go head to head.