Jeffrey Feltman -- an assistant secretary of state who is the department's top official on the Middle East -- and National Security Council official Daniel Shapiro traveled to Damascus twice in recent months in an effort to improve ties with Syria.
"If only because of rent, it is hard to save a lot of money in top-tier cities for the middle class, " said Jeff Walters, a partner at Boston Consulting.
But we have been digging our way out of policies that were misplaced and focused on the top doing very well and middle-class folks not doing well.
The big problem is that the benefits of hard work have been increasingly concentrated at the top while earnings of lower- and middle-income workers have been stagnant for decades.
The race we want to win, the race we can win is a race to the top -- the race for good jobs that pay well and offer middle-class security.
Short of that, there has been a bill languishing in the House for months now that would extend tax cuts for all but 2 percent of the American people -- all the working Americans, all the middle class -- everybody except the top 2 percent.
On top of that, lower to middle-income Americans pay sales and other excise taxes and property taxes if they own their homes.
You're going to spend the money -- middle out, not top down.
Moreover, people at the top are almost by definition at least middle-aged.
Republicans, on the other hand, have nominated somebody who believes that we should actually significantly increase the tax benefits that go to those at the top of the income scale and ask middle-class families to pay more to subsidize those tax benefits for the wealthy.
If you remember, that was when we created 23 million new jobs, we went from deficits to surplus, and folks at the top did well, too -- because when middle-class families have money in their pockets, they go out and buy that new car, or that new appliance, or that new computer for their kids, or they go out to a restaurant, or, heaven forbid, they take a vacation once in a while.
WHITEHOUSE: President Obama on Extending Middle-Class Tax Breaks
It will see a programme of seven top races in five categories - sprint, mile, middle distance, fillies and mares and long distance.
Placing a seemingly incongruous space-age pod on a mountain top in the middle of the Alps is something Lovegrove has no qualms about doing.
Asked to rate their personal position on a ten-point scale of satisfaction, middle-class respondents are far more likely to put themselves near the top than are poor ones.
That spectacular Middle East-looking mosque at the top of this article is in fact in Dearborn, Michigan.
Neither found the middle of their bats, but numerous top-edges over a stacked slip cordon contributed to a run-rate of five an over.
Today, four out of five people with NCDs live in low- and middle-income countries, and the World Economic Forum has identified NCDs as one of the top four global risks and one of the most important threats to businesses and economies.
Nelson's injuries destroyed all three main skin layers - the epidermis, dermis and hypodermis (the top, middle and bottom), in some places right down to the periosteum, the membrane overlying the bone.
Young veteran quarterbacks Manning and Cutler are middle-of-the pack field leaders with top-of-the pack contracts.
By consistently pushing for higher tax rates on top earners, and tax credits and lower rates for lower- and middle-income earners, Democratic tax policies have unintentionally left the government dependent on the prosperity of upper-income taxpayers.
WSJ: Michael Solon: The Revenue Deficit From Progressive Tax Rates
In the episode we caught on Mar. 5, the emphasis was on a far more familiar theme in middle-class life: getting your daughter into a top college.
One provision could be overtly harmful to many middle-income earners: a redefinition in the "top-heavy" rule that says that when 60% of a company's retirement plan contributions are in the accounts of key employees, the company must make matching contributions of 3% to all workers with three years employment.
And on top of all this, you've got the underlying challenges that middle-class families were dealing with for decades.
Whether it's the gap between the top tenth and the bottom tenth, or between the middle and the bottom - they all got smaller in 2010-11.
And that's exactly the kind of top-down economics that is not going to work if we want a strong middle class and an economy that's thriving for everybody.
But Republicans in Congress have refused, insisting that millionaires and billionaires, the top 2 percent of wage earners in this country -- that the tax cuts of middle-class Americans should be held hostage to tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent.
Income taxes will fall by FFr43 billion over three years, with middle- and low-bracket taxpayers profiting more than those paying the top, 54%, rate, which will dip by only 1.5 percentage points over three years.
For the second Test in a row Strauss's bowlers tore through Australia's top order in the first hour of the match, retained their composure through a middle-order rally, and bowled them out for less than 300 inside the first day.
Middle-income earners did less well during the 1990s than those at the top and, to a lesser extent, the bottom (where people saw their incomes rise for the first time in many years).
"For all the drama and hand-wringing about China and Middle East investment, they haven't broken into the top 50, " says Todd Malan, OFII's president and chief executive officer.
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