Your customized news for Thu, Feb 23, 2012

President Obama proposed a major overhaul of the nation's corporate tax code on Wednesday, an election-year gambit that aims to draw a contrast over a key policy issue with the Republicans vying to replace him.

The private debt relief plan negotiated for Greece might make it impossible for the nation to borrow money for years to come and leave it dependent for that much longer on its neighbors or the International Monetary Fund, the IMF warns in an analysis of the new rescue program.

The world's economic powers won't consider pumping more money into the International Monetary Fund until Europe puts up more cash to battle its own problems, Lael Brainard, undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said ahead of key meetings in Mexico this weekend.

Five companies that sell replacement windows agreed to stop making "exaggerated and unsupported" claims about their products' energy efficiency as part of a settlement announced Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission.

Through stock offerings in the United States, investors poured $115 million into a China-based coal mining company that was actually an empty shell, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.

President Obama and Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney offered competing proposals Wednesday for how the government should tax citizens and companies, previewing the ideological clash over taxes that is likely to be at the forefront of the general-election campaign.

- Newsweek's Andrew Romano on why having (many) Republican presidential debates matters.

- How waiters read your table.

- Swedish pop star Robyn's hit, "Call Your Girlfriend," gets broken down by the Hairpin.

Between President Obama's framework for corporate tax reform and Mitt Romney's revised tax-reform plan, it seems like a big day for tax wonks. So I asked Donald Marron, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, whether they would be scoring either plan. "Neither plan offers enough detail for us to model in its entirety," he replied.

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it's sending $229 million to 10 states to set up health insurance exchanges, where individuals will buy subsidized health coverage come 2014 (think of them as an Expedias for insurance). So far, the federal government has spent nearly $1 billion to get the exchanges up and running by 2014.

It seems like Ash Wednesday came early this year; I feel like I have been swallowing ash for weeks, anyway.

The ferocious controversy engendered by the Health and Human Service department's new contraception mandate has launched a thousand vitriolic press releases and ignited uncountable Internet flame wars and blog skirmishes. Leaving aside the moral, practical and political variables that are supercharging the "debate," the deportment of many of the good Christians "dialoguing" about the matter should be a source of distress in its own right.

Christians mark Ash Wednesday February 22, a holy day that launches the liturgical season of Lent, the 40 days of prayer and repentance before Easter Sunday.

Traditionally during Lent, Christians fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstain from eating meat on Fridays, out of reverence for Jesus' death on Good Friday.