“A key figure involved in designing the president’s signature health insurance mandate referred to as Obamacare has left her role at the White House to work for one of the very companies profiting off the bill she helped create.

Elizabeth Fowler will be leaving her role as the special assistant to the president for healthcare and economic policy at the National Economic Council and joining pharmaceutical giants Jonson & Johnson. The Washington, DC newspaper POLITICO confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that Fowler is leaving her position on Pennsylvania Avenue for “a senior-level position leading ‘global health policy’” at the pharma company’s government affairs and policy group.

While Fowler’s exit from the White House is but one more entry on the list of Obama staffers that have traded in their executive office access for a lobbying role, her use of the every-spinning revolving door is of particular significance since she is likely to benefit directly from the very legislation she helped create.

“If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer,” POLITICO’s Carrie Budoff Brown wrote in 2009.

When Fowler was profiled by the paper at the time, she was described as a key player in health care discussions, and not just under President Barack Obama either. POLITICO notes she worked from 2001 through 2005 with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) while he negotiated the Medicare Part D prescription drug program in Washington. During the second George W Bush administration, she left politics to pursue a position in the private sector, only to rejoin Baucus in 2008 to construct what became known as Obamacare.

“People know when Liz is speaking, she is speaking for Baucus,” Dean Rosen, health policy adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), told POLITICO at the time.

As the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald reports this week, Baucus was the “key legislator” involved in drafting the bill, which he himself went on the record to thank Fowler for….”

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“WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — There has been no progress so far in budget talks between the staff of House Republicans and the White House, House Speaker John Boehner said on Friday. In a brief press conference, Boehner urged President Barack Obama to make a new offer that moves toward congressional Republicans. Obama’s negotiating stance is now “my way or the highway,” Boehner said…”

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“The government that led the way two decades ago in establishing legal rights for the disabled has failed to ratify an international agreement based on the very same law.

The U.S. Senate this week took up the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a United Nations treaty that was inspired by the Americans with Disabilities Act, a landmark law adopted in 1990.

But in order to ratify the convention, 67 senators were needed to vote for it. Only 61 did, after a block of Republicans refused to endorse the treaty that they claimed would jeopardize American sovereignty.

Several GOP senators did vote “yes,” including John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Others, though, voted in opposition, even after former senator and majority leader Bob Dole appeared in the Senate chambers to encourage his party’s members to back the convention. Dole, 89, arrived via wheelchair, having come from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was being treated for poor health…”

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“With little to show after a month of posturing, the White House and Republicans in Congress dropped hints on Thursday that they had resumed low-level private talks on breaking the stalemate over the fiscal cliff but refused to divulge details.

A day after a phone conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared to kick-start communications, both sides used similar language to describe the state of negotiations but imposed a media blackout on developments.

“Lines of communication remain open,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when pressed on whether staff talks were taking place to avoid the steep tax hikes and budget cuts set for the first of next year unless the parties agree on a way to stop them.

Asked the same question, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel also said “lines of communication are open.”

The acknowledgement, even without signs of anything approaching a breakthrough, passed for encouraging news after a week of public maneuvering on the fiscal cliff by both sides to gain the maximum political and public relations advantage.

Republicans have worried publicly and privately that they are losing the war of appearances in the battle over the cliff.

On Thursday, another poll showed Republicans may have reason to worry about public perception. A Quinnipiac University survey found respondents trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on the cliff talks by a wide margin – 53 percent to 36 percent.

In both public statements and private encounters, Obama has tried to encourage Republicans wavering from the position of the party leadership.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, who last week broke ranks with his party and agreed to accept higher tax rates on the richest Americans, said Obama took him aside at a White House Christmas party on Monday and joked about the criticism Cole had received from Republicans.

“The president pulled me over and he said, ‘Cole, come closer, I want to see the bruises,'” Cole told Reuters. “He said, ‘Seriously, I will go further on this thing than you guys think. I know we can get something done.'”

While other Republicans have questioned Obama’s commitment, Cole said, “I take him at his word,” adding: “The best is to get to that discussion as quickly as we can.”

‘SOLVABLE PROBLEM’ ”

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“The Republican Party has long promoted itself as the party of business.

Republicans understand the needs of business, we are told, and if the country would leave the economy in their hands business would boom.

All we need to do is to give those at the very top of the income distribution – the “job creators” – more income through tax breaks, and then sit back and wait for the magic happen.

Our investment in the wealthy will produce remarkable economic growth, and everyone will be better off.

The Bush tax cuts were a test of these claims about supply-side economic policies. To justify the tax cuts the nation was, in effect, given a business prospectus from the Republican Party.

We were promised that cutting taxes on the wealthy would result in much higher economic growth and broadly shared prosperity. For those who wondered how we would pay for such a large cut to the government’s revenue stream, the Republican prospectus had a remarkable claim.

The tax cuts wouldn’t cost us anything. Growth would be so strong that the tax cuts would more than pay for themselves. Even those who admitted that the tax cuts might not be fully self-financing still made strong claims about faster economic growth offsetting much of the lost revenue from the tax cuts.

The reality, of course, has been quite different. There is little evidence that the Bush tax cuts, or any other tax cuts directed at the so-called job creators, have had a noticeable effect on economic growth. And the promise of broadly shared prosperity has not been realized.

Most of the gains from economic growth in recent decades have gone to the top of the income distribution while the inflation adjusted wages of the working class have been relatively flat. Furthermore, the tax cuts have not paid for themselves as promised, and it hasn’t even been close. The Bush tax cuts have already cost us trillions in revenue, and if they are extended for high income tax payers, they will cost us roughly another trillion over the next decade….”

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“In “off-the-cuff” remarks at the Business Roundtable in Washington, D.C, today, President Barack Obama was firm in a stance that he would not be “playing that game” of negotiating the raising of the debt ceiling. He said a rise in the debt ceiling would have to be a part of a deal to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

Obama quoted John Engler, the president of the Business Roundtable, who charged in November that it’s “not a good weapon for anything except destroying our own credit rating.”

“That is a bad strategy for America, it’s a bad strategy for your businesses and it is not a game I will play,” Obama said. “We are not going to play that game again next year. We’ve got to break that habit before it starts.”

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“WASHINGTON — Nearly two years after Wall Street waged a successful campaign to keep consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the incoming senator will be tapped to serve on the Banking Committee, according to four sources familiar with the situation. It’s a victory for progressives who battled to win her a seat on the panel that oversees the implementation of Dodd-Frank and other banking regulations.

Warren knocked out Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts in the most expensive Senate contest of 2012, with Wall Street spending heavily to beat Warren, a former Harvard law professor.”

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“Seeking to jump-start stalled talks on avoiding the “fiscal cliff,” House Republicans on Monday proposed a new 10-year, $2.2 trillion blueprint to President Barack Obama that calls for increasing the eligibility age for Medicare and lowering cost-of-living hikes for Social Security benefits.

The proposal from House Speaker John Boehner and fellow Republicans comes in response to Obama’s offer last week to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion over the coming decade but largely exempt Medicare and Social Security from budget cuts.

It was presented shortly after Obama took to the Twittersphere to lobby for his proposal, which drew scorn from Republican leaders last week.

The GOP plan proposes to raise $800 billion in higher tax revenue over the decade but it would keep the Bush-era tax cuts — including those for wealthier earners targeted by Obama — in place for now.”

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“The International Monetary Fund endorsed nations’ use of capital control measures in certain circumstances, making official a shift in the works for almost three years that will guide the fund’s advice to member countries.

In a reversal of its historic support for unrestricted flows of money across borders, the Washington-based IMF said controls can be useful when countries have little room for economic policies such as lowering interest rates or when surging capital inflows threaten financial stability. Still, it said the measures should be targeted, temporary and not discriminate between residents and non-residents.”

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“House Speaker John Boehner lashed out Friday at President Barack Obama, saying negotiations to avoid the “fiscal cliff” are “almost nowhere.”

Boehner spoke after Republicans disclosed that the White House was $1.6 trillion in tax increases up front, as well as $50 billion in additional stimulus spending. (Read More:Speaker Boehner Discusses ‘Fiscal Cliff.’)

Boehner said the plan would be a “crippling blow” to an economy that is still struggling to find its footing.

“There’s a stalemate. Let’s not kid ourselves,” the Ohio Republican told reporters. “Right now, we’re almost nowhere,”

Even so, he added, he was determined to continue working with Obama.”

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“The White House is seeking $1.6 trillion in tax increases up front, as well as $50 billion in additional stimulus spending, as part of any “fiscal cliff” deal, Republican aides said Thursday, as talks aimed at averting the economy-rattling cliff turned testy.

President Barack Obama also wants a permanent increase in the federal debt ceiling, a one-year expansion of jobless benefits, and an extension of the payroll tax credit, these aides said.

The latest proposals were presented by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who visited Capitol Hill Thursday to discuss the so-called fiscal cliff with leaders of both parties.

After Geithner’s visit, Republican House Speaker John Boehner publicly lambasted the Obama administration, saying “the White House has to get serious.”

Boehner added, “No substantive progress has been made between the White House and the House” in the two weeks since Obama welcomed congressional leaders at the White House.

“I was hopeful we’d see a specific plan for cutting spending,” he said, but added that he “remained hopeful” a deal can be reached before the Dec. 31 deadline. “Jobs are on the line, the American economy is on the line, and this is a moment for adult leadership,” Boehner added.”

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“The European Central Bank will be allowed to keep private files showing how Greece used derivatives to hide its debt after defeating the first court challenge using the bloc’s freedom of information rules.

“Disclosure of those documents would have undermined the protection of the public interest so far as concerns the economic policy of the European Union and Greece,” the EU General Courtin Luxembourg said today, rejecting a request by Bloomberg News initially filed in August 2010.

Today’s ruling by three judges denies European taxpayers, on the hook for the cost of Greece’s 240 billion-euro ($311 billion) bailout, the opportunity to see whether EU officials knew of irregularities in Greece’s public accounts before they became public in 2009. The decision underscores the ECB’s lack of accountability as it expands its powers to become the euro area’s chief banking regulator, said Georg Erber, a research associate at the German Institute for Economic Research.

“The courts are bending the rules to legalize the policies of the European institutions and help stabilize the region,” said Erber, a specialist in financial-market regulation. “It reveals implicitly that the EU was well-informed about what was going on and didn’t take steps to avert the crisis.” ”

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“The European Union is quarreling over thresholds on how big euro-area lenders must be in order to be designated for direct oversight by the European Central Bank, according to draft proposals.

Nations are at odds over three different size thresholds, according to the document drawn up by Cyprus, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency. Some countries are seeking to set the bar as low as banks with more than 2.5 billion euros ($3.2 billion) in assets, while others are calling for divisions at 20 billion euros or 60 billion euros, according to the text, dated Nov. 27 and obtained by Bloomberg News.”

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“The Obama administration put a temporary stop to new federal contracts with British oil company BP (BP) on Wednesday, citing the company’s “lack of business integrity” and criminal proceedings stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.

The action by the Environmental Protection Administration bars BP and its affiliates from new government contracts for an indefinite period, but won’t affect existing contracts.”

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The EU has now paved the way for the restructuring of Spain’s banking system along with financial aid to follow. Now we look to Italy as the next shoe to drop and fix….

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Talk about managing a crisis; perhaps disguising and hiding it is more like it…..

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“Two of the top Congressional Democrats today emphasized that any deal to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” must also address the debt ceiling, which will need to be raised by February.

The top two Democratic Sens. leading the cliff negotiations — Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin — both said that the ceiling is an issue that needs to be tackled in any upcoming deal.”

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“A tax break that has long been untouchable could soon be in for some serious scrutiny.

Many home buyers deduct their mortgage interest when assessing their tax bill, a perk that has helped bolster the income of millions of families – and the broader housing market.

But as President Obama and Congress try to hash out a deal to reduce the budget deficit, the mortgage interest deduction will likely be part of the discussion.

Limits on a broad array of deductions could emerge in any budget deal. It is likely that any caps would be structured to aim at high-income households, and would diminish or end the mortgage tax break for many of those taxpayers.

“This is definitely a chance worth jumping for,” said Amir Sufi, a professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. “For a fixed amount of revenue, it’s better to remove deductions than increase marginal tax rates.”

Such a move would be fiercely opposed by the real estate industry. The industry has played a crucial role in defending the tax break, even as other countries with high homeownership have phased it out.”

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