Guest Analyst: Kevin T. Jacques, Boynton D. Murch Chair in Finance at Baldwin Wallace University
Congress and the President managed to avoid the ‘fiscal cliff’ but the tax bill for most working Americans is going up. A deal that raises marginal tax rates on the highest wage earners also allows a payroll tax break to expire, affecting wage earners at all income levels. Also going up are taxes on business and investors. Without a deal marginal tax rates would have gone up for most workers. Still looming are new debates over the federal debt ceiling and discretionary spending.
Roundtable: Michael Heaton, columnist, The Plain Dealer; Jill Miller Zimon, blogger, Writes Like She Talks; Ned Whelan, Whelan Communications.
Fiscal Cliff
The panel continues discussion about the fallout from the fiscal cliff resolution on New Year’s Day.
Browns Seek New Field Management
The new ownership team is shopping for a head coach and a general manager after the house-cleaning that followed the end of another losing season. Team president Joe Banner is busy interviewing head coach candidates, including University of Oregon’s successful coach Chip Kelly and Ken Whisenhunt, who once lead the Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl.
Armed Teachers?
Hundreds of Ohio teachers signed up for firearms training in the wake of the latest deadly school shooting that took 26 lives in Newtown, CT. The gun owners’ advocacy group Buckeye Firearms Association offered free training for teachers and administrators, with the first class expected in the spring. The Association’s president says interest has exceeded expectations.
On the Way Out for Good
The Plain Dealer’s Minister of Culture, Michael Heaton, writes that many cultural icons are headed for the ash heap of history. Among utilitarian items on their way out are wristwatches, replaced by a multitude of tools that tell time; alarm clocks, made redundant by cell phones that have built-in alarm functions and the local post office, a business model that’s quickly fading in a digital world.