Most of the ink spilled over negotiations surrounding the so-called “fiscal cliff” — the year-end set of tax increases and spending cuts — has covered the impending demise of the Bush tax cuts. But several other important tax provisions will also expire, some with severe impacts for the middle-class:

1. The payroll tax cut. A two point hike in the payroll tax — which affects every working American — would deliver one of the fiscal cliff’s biggest hits to economic growth. The Economic Policy Institute estimated that allowing the payroll tax cut to expire will lessen GDP by nearly one full percentage point.

2. The American Opportunity Tax Credit. Included in the 2009 American Recovery Act, this credit helps middle-class and low-income families pay for higher education. As CNN Money explained, this $2,500 annual credit ‘is scheduled to revert to the Hope Credit. At that point, the maximum credit will drop to $1,800. Also, families will only be able to claim the credit for two years and it will no longer be refundable.”

3. The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act. This expiration of this provision would force homeowners who receive debt forgiveness on their mortgages — like that included in the $25 billion foreclosure fraud settlement — to count that relief as income, and thus pay taxes on it. As Firedoglake’s David Dayen explained, “all principal forgiven will count as earned income for those underwater homeowners. This will kick them into higher tax brackets, and introduce a tax burden upon them that they are overwhelmingly likely not to be able to afford.”

4. The Child Tax Credit. Included as part of the Bush tax cuts and then expanded under President Obama, the child tax credits reverts to its 2001 level at the end of the year. Allowing that to happen would cut the credit in half and take it away from lower-income Americans.

Negotiations over the fiscal cliff have barely grappled with some of these issues, and completely ignored others.

Our guest blogger is Michael Linden, director of tax and budget policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

At a press conference this morning, House Speaker John Boehner said that he could accept a fiscal cliff deal that had equal amounts of new spending cuts and new revenues. Last night, media reports suggested that President Obama has offered him a deal which does just that.

According to those reports, the President’s latest offer consists of $1.2 trillion in new revenue, paired with $400 billion in health care savings, $200 billion in further discretionary cuts, $200 billion from other mandatory programs, $130 billion from switching to the Chained CPI, and about $300 billion in reduced interest payments on the debt. All those spending cuts add up to over $1.2 trillion, more than the President’s revenue request.

So why then, did Boehner, at the very same press conference, complain that the President’s offer was “unbalanced” because it contained only $800 billion in spending cuts? Because Boehner wants to pretend that reduced spending on interest payments isn’t really a spending cut. But that’s utterly at odds with reality, basic math, and common sense.

When the government incurs debt, say because it enacted huge tax cuts which reduced federal revenues below spending levels, it is obligated to pay interest on that debt. Every year, billions of federal dollars flow out of the treasury and into the pockets of those who previously lent the government money. Those dollars count as spending just as much as dollars that the government uses to pay employees, or to provide grants to schools, or to build highways. That’s why the Congressional Budget Office, the official non-partisan budget scorekeeper, includes interest payments in its totals for overall spending.

But don’t take my word for it. Just ask noted budget expert John Boehner! Last week, Boehner used a colorful chart to illustrate his point that “spending is the problem.” This chart showed total spending growing to nearly 40 percent of GDP by 2040. Scary! And guess what? Nearly 30 percent of all that spending was interest payments on the debt. Here’s a modified version of Boehner’s chart:

And Boehner’s not alone. Republican lawmakers often complain about how large federal spending is, and they always include interest payments as part of that “problem.” Here’s Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) last year: “Spending in this fiscal year is projected to be a record $3.8 trillion.” $225 billion of that spending was net interest payments. And here’s Paul Ryan (R-WI) complaining about spending in the President’s budget, “Spends too much: $47 trillion of government spending over the next decade.” Guess what? $5.7 trillion of that is interest. There are many more.

Boehner may not like President Obama’s latest deficit reduction proposal. But it is breathtakingly dishonest for him to complain about “out of control” spending one week, and then, in the very next week pretend that proposals to reduce that very same spending don’t count at all.

WASHINGTON, DC — If one doubted the power of lobbyist Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) provided a sterling example Tuesday.

ThinkProgress spoke with the Georgia Republican today on Capitol Hill about the fiscal cliff negotiations. When we asked about a possible deal that let tax cuts for the wealthy expire, Gingrey was initially open to the idea: “I hate to make a commitment on anything.” He didn’t want to rule anything out before consulting with constituents in his district.

But once reminded that he had signed a pledge to never raise taxes, Gingrey abruptly shifted his position and re-iterated that he would abide by the Norquist pledge when it came time to vote. “I don’t take that pledge lightly, so I won’t say that I don’t feel bound by it.”

KEYES: Do you think you could accept anything that lets the tax cuts expire for the top 1 or 2 % of folks?

GINGREY: I want to wait and see what’s presented to me. I hate to make a commitment on anything. The people of my district probably don’t know about this last offer. I want to hear from them first. I’ll be doing a lot of calling over the next few days into the district.

KEYES: You wouldn’t feel bound, for instance, by the Norquist pledge to never raise taxes at any point?

GINGREY: Well, uh, up until this current second, I’ve felt very much bound by that pledge I made in 2002. I don’t take that pledge lightly, so I won’t say that I don’t feel bound by it.

KEYES: So still on board with the pledge then?

GINGREY: Pretty much on board with the pledge!

Listen to it:

Though some in the media have opined that Norquist’s pledge doesn’t actually hold any sway because Republicans all oppose taxes anyway, this episode shows how the pledge affects their ability to compromise. Un-pledged, Gingrey is a man who might be willing to deal in good faith. Pledged, he has virtually no option but to adhere to Norquist’s strict parameters.

With time dwindling before the scheduled tax increase on all Americans on January 1, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has switched to his “Plan B,” allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on income in excess of $1 million. Originally, Boehner refused to consider any deal without an extended tax cut for the top 1 percent of earners, claiming it would kill jobs and hurt businesses.

Bohener’s new baseline is still far higher than Obama’s latest limit, which revised the income bracket up from incomes of $250,000 to $400,000. But the Speaker has changed his tune since May, when Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tried to hold the same vote.

At the time, Boehner refused to let Congress pass a tax cut for middle-class families without one for millionaires, calling Pelosi’s offer “bullshit” at a closed meeting. He cited a popular GOP myth that small businesses would be affected by the expiration of the tax cuts on individuals making $250,000 or more, claiming it was “a big mistake” that would “kill jobs.”

“I believe that raising taxes at this point in our recovery is a big mistake,” Boehner said at a Capitol press conference when asked about Pelosi’s letter. [...] “Even under Ms. Pelosi’s argument, half of those who would get this higher tax are small-business people that are sub-Chapter S or other types of pass-through entities,” Boehner said. “At a time when we are trying to help small businesses create jobs, this proposal would kill jobs.”

In fact, only 3 percent of small businesses would be affected by the tax increase. Before the Bush tax cuts, small businesses grew twice as fast under Clinton rates.

Boehner’s fiscal cliff deal is full of pseudo-compromises. Besides his new willingness to allow tax cuts to expire for millionaires, the Speaker’s deal also promises not to bring the nation to the brink of default again for at least one year — in exchange for devastating spending cuts.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that grew out of the housing crisis and financial collapse includes new homeowner protections and a rule aimed at ensuring that borrowers can repay their mortgages. The qualified mortgage rule, also known as “ability-to-repay,” requires lenders to consider whether someone can afford to repay the mortgage before it is issued. In exchange, banks and lenders will get special protections from legal liability in the rule that is scheduled to be finalized in January.

Banks are now pushing to make those legal protections as strong as possible, telling policymakers that they could curb mortgage lending without the new protections, the New York Times reports:

As regulators complete new mortgage rules, banks are about to get a significant advantage: protection against homeowner lawsuits.

The rules are meant to help bolster the housing market. By shielding banks from potential litigation, policy makers contend that the industry will have a powerful incentive to make higher quality home loans. [...]

The legislation mandated that loans be affordable, but Congress conceded that banks might fear the legal consequences if the mortgages did not comply. So lawmakers created a type of home loan that would have legal protection, called a “qualified mortgage.” In practice, the protection will make it harder for borrowers to sue their lenders in the case of foreclosure.

Both banks and consumer advocates favor a broad definition of the qualified mortgage, but they differ in their stances on legal protections. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in charge of writing the rule, has two options: it could provide strong legal protections for banks under a “safe harbor” rule, which raises the standard for a lawsuit, or it could pursue a path that gives borrowers expanded legal rights in challenging banks. While banks argue that they will cut lending without tough legal protections, consumer advocates are skeptical.

Even as they fight for legal protections, banks are still dealing with the fallout of their legal abuses before, during, and after the housing crisis. Before the recession, banks used discriminatory and predatory lending practices, and after the collapse, they have used fraudulent practices to push foreclosures through en masse.

Meanwhile, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have raised concerns over the biggest banks’ ability to avoid punishment for illegal activity. Prosecutions for financial fraud hit a 20-year low in 2011, and after a recent settlement between the Department of Justice and mega-bank HSBC, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) slammed the “get-out-of-jail-free card” many big banks seem to hold. Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley (D), meanwhile, said America’s biggest banks have simply become “too big to jail.”

Several conservatives, desperate to develop a response to the shooting in Connecticut that doesn’t involve restricting access to deadly weapons, have proposed improving mental health care or hiring more police officers. These ideas aren’t necessarily bad ones, though it’s worth noting the mentally ill aren’t actually more prone to violence. Nor are these ideas mutually exclusive with common-sense gun control.

The real problem with them is that they have little chance of becoming law, because national and state level Republicans have consistently attempted to slash government spending on mental health care and public employees like police.

The biggest expansion of mental health care in recent years came in the Affordable Care Act, which, of course, Republicans tried to fully repeal. Many House Republicans also voted against a Bush-era move towards requiring insurers to treat mental illness like physical illnesses.

State Republicans have frustrated another major attempt to increase access to mental health services: the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Medicaid is the single largest payer of mental health care in the country, as treatment remains prohibitively expensive for many poor and middle-class Americans. But only one Republican Governor has agreed to accept federal funding for expanding Medicaid services.

The Congressional GOP’s plan to block grant Medicaid would only exacerbate this problem. Moreover, budget cutting during the Great Recession has slashed state funding for mental health care, a steep decline that Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) proposed to accelerate after the shooting in Connecticut.

The GOP record on funding police departments in recent years is equally dismal. Red states have been responsible for the bulk of cuts to public sector jobs during the Recession, which result in significant cuts to police forces (and teachers, incidentally).

The American Jobs Act would provide significant support for state hiring of more police, but House and Senate Republicans have obstructed the bill for over a year. And the House Republican budget could very well cut federal grants that allow states to hire new police officers.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) threw a new twist into the debate over the so-called “fiscal cliff” today, announcing that he’ll move forward with a vote to allow the Bush tax cuts on income in excess of $1 million to expire. That’s a step back from President Obama’s latest proposal to raise taxes on income above $400,000, which was a step back from his previous threshold of $250,000.

Boehner already said that the president’s latest offer “cannot possibly be considered balanced.” The “balance” complaint is one Republican lawmakers have lambasted the White House with throughout the negotiations: Boehner raised it with the President’s mix of spending cuts and tax increases multiple times last week, as did Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

But that complaint treats the current fiscal cliff debate as if it’s occurring in a vacuum. Since the Republicans took over the House at the end of 2010, multiple rounds of spending cuts have already occurred. Between the budget deal in the spring of 2011 to avert a government shutdown, and the Budget Control Act to avert the debt ceiling crisis later that year, spending for the next decade has already been cut by $1.5 trillion, according to a round-up of the numbers by the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities.

Obama’s offer yesterday evening would raise $1.3 trillion in new revenue over the next ten years. It would also cut spending by $930 billion over the same time period through spending reductions and a recalculation of Social Security benefits. Add it all up and it comes to $2.4 trillion in spending cuts versus $1.3 trillion in new tax revenue. So yes, decidedly unbalanced, but not in the way Boehner implies.

And it doesn’t end there. Deficit reductions mean less debt, which means less interest payments on the debt. The above numbers exclude those savings. Including them adds roughly another $500 billion in savings, bringing the “spending cuts” side of the ledger to nearly triple the “tax revenue” side.

Even if Obama’s offer from last night were passed immediately in all its particulars, the final result for the country’s deficit reduction efforts over the last two years would still be grossly skewed in the GOP’s favor. Boehner’s latest gambit merely adds insult to injury.

In response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, major businesses are rethinking their relationships to firearms. As the bodies of the 26 dead are lowered into the ground this week, three companies have announced they’ll break from the sale or association with the lethal weapon that took their lives.

Here are the companies that are reassessing guns in the wake of the tragedy:

Walmart takes the Bushmaster off its website. The gunman at Sandy Hook used a military-style Bushmaster gun in the assault. Authorities have not disclosed the model of weapon, but Walmart — one of the largest companies in the world — pulled the Bushmaster Patrolman’s Carbine M4A3 Rifle from its website on Monday without releasing any statement on the decision. Walmart is one of the biggest ammunition and gun sellers in the country, and has been profiting off — and encouraging — growing gun sales in recent years

Dick’s stops selling some semi-automatic weapons. Not only has sporting goods store Dick’s removed all guns from its stores around Newtown, Connecticut, but, in a much larger step, it has also stopped selling certain semi-automatic rifles at all of its stores across the country and on its website. The company made a public statement about the move, saying it was meant as a sign of respect “during this time of national mourning,” but it is also worth noting that some reports show the gunman tried to purchase a weapon at a Dick’s store last week.

Cerberus Capital Management will divest from Bushmaster. The private equity company that owns the maker of Bushmaster said it’s selling off its investment in the company and returning any profit to investors. In a statement, Cerberus Capital Management was forthright about its decision, saying, “It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level….It is not our role to take positions, or attempt to shape or influence the gun control policy debate. That is the job of our federal and state legislators. There are, however, actions that we as a firm can take.”