ABCDE BUSINESS sunday, september 12, 2010 CAR PAGES
No vroom-vroom, no zoom-zoom
The Mazda2 Touring hatchback is not a high-performance automobile.
IN OUTLOOK
Stop making exceptions Americans don’t hate taxes; they hate the loopholes in the tax code. B1
Fourth and goal for
Team McNabb
Selling the city on a quarterback hoping to land a big score on the field and in business
by Rick Maese
On the 12th and top floor of an Arlington building, the quar- terback wore a sharp, five-button suit and led a huddle that numbered nearly five dozen. The windows measure 12 feet tall in the Top of the Town ban-
quet room and reveal one of the best views of Washington — the Iwo Jima Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument — but everyone was focused on the front of the room, where the quarterback sat next to a placard that read “Down to Business with Donovan McNabb.” “This isn’t just, ‘I’m coming here for a year or two and then
I’m out of here,’ ” McNabb told the crowd of area businessmen, government leaders and inside-the-beltway movers and shak- ers in late July. And when McNabb finished outlining his beliefs, his charac- ter and his goals, the Greater Washington Board of Trade recep- tion adjourned to the back of the room and the sandwich-and- cheese platters in the middle. The Washington Redskins we- ren’t scheduled to report to town for two more days, but his oth- er team — Team McNabb — began working the room aggressively. The guest list included people from Bank of Amer- ica, Verizon, the Smithsonian, Kaiser Permanente and the White House. Team McNabb wanted to shake every hand and let each guest know that the quarterback is going to be active in
mcnabb continued on G4
BY EDDIE GUY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
MICHELLE SINGLETARY The Color of Money
A Roth redo? It can be done.
level meant you couldn’t put money in a Roth IRA, which has some fabulous perks. Go to any retirement savings seminar and you’ll find that a Roth individual retirement account is all the rage because, unlike a traditional retirement account, there is no minimum withdrawal requirement at age 701
I ⁄2
f you have a high income, you’ve probably been particularly frustrated that your earnings
t’s been a long week of stimulus proposals here in Washington. Our anti-business White House proposed hundreds of billions in tax cuts for businesses, reiterated its support for $30 billion to support lending to small businesses, and proposed $50 billion in new infrastructure investment — money that would go, ultimately, to pay private businesses to build things. Marx would be so proud. But the more interesting action was on the Republican side of the aisle. On Thursday, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner released a “two-point plan for immediate, bipartisan action on jobs and spending.” Boehner’s proposal? Extend the Bush tax cuts and pass a budget holding spending at 2008 levels. That’s a bit back to the future
I . And best of
all, because Roth IRA contributions are taxed going in, withdrawals are not taxed coming out (as long as you meet certain holding requirements). But earn too much and you are shut out from contributing to a Roth. This year, a back door to Roth investing was opened for high earners. As of Jan. 1, there will be no income limits for investors who want to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. It used to be that only taxpayers with modified gross
singletary continued on G2 GROWN-UPS MAKE
TRADE-OFFS. PASS THE BRANDY,
THEN LET’S GET BUSY.
Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.), on the economic stimulus
A Republican stimulus that just might work EZRA KLEIN
Economic and Domestic Policy
— or at least back to the Aughts. The worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and all we need to do is extend some tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 and hold down spending a bit? This doesn’t require any new thinking at all? The most stinging counterpoint
didn’t come from Nancy Pelosi, though. It came, quite inadvertently, from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a wonkish Republican who led George
W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2003, and who, that same Thursday morning, published a plan that put to shame the proposals from both the administration and the House Republicans. “A stagnant, impoverished America will not be a greener or safer or fairer place,” Daniels warned. “Grown-ups make trade-offs. Pass the brandy, then let’s get busy.” And get busy he did: Daniels proposed a one-year suspension in the Social Security payroll tax for workers. In an interview, he estimated that this would raise about $350 billion. He also envisioned a tax break allowing businesses to fully expense their capital investments for the next year. As it happened, the administration proposed exactly that this week, though Daniels
klein continued on G5
Long arm can’t reach
everyone Executives with criminal records slip through FHA crackdown
by Brian Grow Center for Public Integrity A crackdown on reckless mort-
gage lenders by the Federal Housing Administration has failed to root out several executives with criminal records whose firms continue to do business with the agency in vio- lation of federal law, according to government documents, court re- cords and interviews. The get-tough campaign has also been hamstrung because, even when the FHA can ban mortgage companies for wrongdoing or an ex- cessive default rate, the agency does not have the legal power to stop their executives from landing jobs at other lenders, or open new firms. After the collapse of the home loan market, the FHA launched an effort aimed at reducing losses on mortgages it insures by weeding reckless lenders out of the program.
fha continued on G5 G AX FN FS LF PW DC BD PG AA FD HO MN MS SM MARKETS Another good week on Wall St.
U.S. stocks continued to rise, boosted by better-than-expected jobs numbers. G6
YTD: Dow NASDAQ S&P 500 +0.33% -1.18% -0.50%
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