The frustration with President Barack Obama over his tax cut compromise was palpable and even profane at Thursday’s House Democratic Caucus meeting.
One unidentified lawmaker went so far as to mutter “f— the president” while Rep. Shelley Berkley was defending the package the president negotiated with Republicans. Berkley confirmed the incident, although she declined to name the specific lawmaker.~~~Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) was also overheard saying that “we can’t trust him” not to cave to Republicans and extend the tax cuts again in two years, according to a Democratic source.
The anger aimed at the bill was widespread. As Democrats moved to block the bill from coming up on the floor, chants of “Just say no!” could be heard by reporters outside the room.
But I ain’t buying the faux outrage. This is all theater so that the class warfare nutjobs can go back to their nutjob constituents and say that they were against it.
What really has their panties in a bunch?
The change Democratic critics most want to make involves the tax treatment of inheritances. The federal tax on estates expired at the end of 2009 and is set to be reinstated from 2011 at a rate of 55% charged on estates over $1 million.
The new tax package would renew the tax at a rate of 35% on estates over $5 million. House Democrats want a higher tax rate, applied to additional estates.
What a great example of the Democrats desire for government control. Your money, already taxed, should be taxed some more because you died. In their wormy minds that money belongs to the government anyways. They were just letting you keep it for a little while. As Hugh Hewitt wrote, Republicans spent years working to get that “vampire” tax off the books and now it’s back:
“The deal” revives the death tax, an immoral “vampire tax” that sucks the blood from the dead, ruins family businesses and double taxes savings that were accumulated over a lifetime. It took ten years of gradual step downs to eliminate the tax, and now “the deal” revives it at 35% with a $5 million dollar exemption, a rate that looks and feels permanent and which will immediately impact tens of thousands of families in 2011 and when inflation works its way into the system, thousands more over time. The GOP has spent years making the case against the death tax on moral and economic grounds, and in the course of a weekend of secret meetings, it gave that issue away.
A great example here of what the Democrats want: (h/t Protein Wisdom)
Here’s an example. Say you inherited your mother’s home this year. She bought it for $200,000 and today it’s worth $4 million. If you had inherited it last year, you would’ve had to pay estate taxes on half a million (the value of the house, minus the estate-tax exclusion). But since you inherited it this year, you pay no estate tax and instead get taxed on a whopping $2.5 million gain (the $3.8 million gain on the house, minus your $1.3 million exclusion). The irony, of course, is that some people who never would’ve owed estate taxes now might take a capital-gains hit. See why you don’t want to kill off mom this year?
Hugh Hewitt also makes a great point, and why we should feel betrayed by the Republicans making this deal with the devil:
On September 23, all of the House GOP leadership agreed to the “Pledge to America .” A photo op was arranged at the Tart Lumber store in Sterling, Virginia, and the senior leaders of the would-be majority, with their shirt sleeves rolled up, took the pledge and asked America for the majority back. There are at least five provisions of the Pledge that are breached by “the deal.” In September the House GOP promised to:
“Permanently Stop All Job-Killing Tax Hikes” (p. 16)
“Act immediately to Reduce Spending” (p. 21)
“Cut Government Spending to Pre-Stimulus, Pre-Bailout Levels” (p. 21)
“Read the Bill” (p. 33)
“Advance Legislative Issues One at a Time” (p. 33)
“The deal’s” assault on “The Pledge” will make the latter a joke, and instantly impacts the credibility of all future efforts to propose agendas to the electorate.
This is just a bad bad deal and those up for re-election should take heed. If you vote for this deal you’re voting to resurrect the death tax.
Ten Republican senators are up for re-election in 2012: John Barrasso of Wyoming, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Bob Corker of Tennessee, John Ensign of Nevada, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
Of these 10, Senators Kyl and Wicker are safe bets for re-election, but the other eight cannot afford to begin their campaigns for re-election with a vote for this compromise. On the House side the damage will be even deeper. Every narrow victor begins their first day in office with this “deal” on their backs.
Added note: here is Rush Limbaugh’s take on the tax cut deal…and it ain’t pretty:
Obama has not had a come-to-Jesus meeting or event here. He has not changed who he is. There’s something else going on. Now all of a sudden this enthusiasm to extend the Bush tax cuts. And I think I’ve got this figured out. The key here is that there is nothing stimulative about them, and yet Obama is portraying them as stimulative. Why? ‘Cause he knows it’s gonna fail to stimulate. This is not a tax cut. And even if it were, two years is not enough for a tax cut to really indicate economic growth. It took four years for Reagan’s to kick in, three to four years. We’re looking here at just continuing tax rates. If there’s any tax stimulus here — and you tell me how big of one it is — it’s the 2% cut in the payroll tax for one year. At the end of the day that’s not stimulus, either.
Now, we were talking yesterday that the worst thing that could happen for Obama is if this worked. But maybe not. If it works, what does he get to say? He gets to say he crossed the aisle, he put the country first, he put aside things, he worked with the Republicans, and it’s working out, and he happens to be running for reelection. If it doesn’t work, in other words, if there is no economic stimulus tied to the extension of these tax rates, he can say, “You know, I went against my better judgment. I knew this wouldn’t work, but I thought for the sake of working with the other side to give it a try. Tax cuts don’t work, supply-side doesn’t work. I proved it in two years here. Supply-side doesn’t work.” Well, he’s taking positions on both sides so that he can say that he wins no matter what happens.
~~~This is all about how the table’s been set. How can it be said that the current tax rates that have been in place for ten years are gonna be a stimulus in the next two? It doesn’t make sense logically. The way the table’s been set people think they’re tax cuts. Why? Because they were gonna go up, they were gonna expire. It’s kind of like baseline budgeting.
Let me give you a better example. You go in to buy a car. You tell yourself when you go to the dealership that you’re not gonna spend anything more than $50,000 on your car. You go in there and you see a car you fall in love with for $75,000. But you don’t buy it. You buy the one for 50, and you tell your wife you just saved 25 grand. Even though you never intended to spend 75, you tell her you just saved 25 grand. Well, this tax business table has been set the same way. For whatever length of time the threat has been that these rates will expire, and everybody’s will go up. Now, that would happen if nothing was done on January 31st. But nobody’s taxes are going down. Nobody’s income taxes are going down, and nobody has ever contemplated anybody’s income taxes going down. And it is marginal income tax rates that are stimulative, lowering them, but they aren’t going to be lowered. Yet the table has been set to say tax increases are coming, but now since there aren’t tax increases coming, we’re being told tax cuts are coming, and then those tax cuts, which are not really tax cuts, and therefore will not stimulate the economy, two years from now, Obama will say, “Well, in the spirit of cooperation, I’m doing what I thought best. I wanted to try the Republicans’ idea, but it just hasn’t worked.”
This way they don’t have to do revisionist history of the Reagan years to say supply-side or whatever doesn’t work. They just have to tell the American people who have lived through these next two years, “They said tax cuts would stimulate the economy, and we clearly see that they haven’t.” And then, of course, the Republicans, conservatives have to point out two years from now, “Well, there weren’t any tax cuts.” And then you’re into a situation where you have to convince voters after the fact what went on instead of saying what I’m saying to them now, before this happens. The reason economists are saying that a payroll tax cut would be stimulative is because for one year it is gonna result in people’s paychecks being larger. But it’s not a perpetual stimulus because after one year the tax rate goes back up. By the same token, two years of the same tax rates, if they haven’t been a stimulus up till now why are they all of a sudden gonna become a stimulus? The fact is, not raising them is the thing that needs to be pointed out.
~~~Now, do you believe that all of a sudden a lifetime of belief has just been thrown down the sewer and Obama all of a sudden has now become a true believer, a supply-sider? “Every economist that I’ve talked to or that I’ve read over the last couple of days acknowledges that this agreement would boost economic growth in the coming years”? Folks, if he really believes that, this is time for the Republicans to make this a tax cut! This is time for them to propose an actual marginal income tax rate cut. Put him on the spot. He does not believe this — and furthermore he’s got a ton of economists, Democrat economists, who don’t believe this.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, this deal is not a good thing. The Republican leadership buckled under instead of allowing the new Republican Congress to pass a permanent tax cut. Then it would of been up to the Senate Democrats to block the bill as the country clamors for relief from the increased taxes. A little over a month after the election and current Republicans are giving away the farm.
See author page
When Rep. Joe Wilson could be heard saying, ”You lie!” to Obama during the State of the Union message he was forced to apologize.
We heard all about it for weeks.
An apology was not going to be enough, according to Dems.
But this, today, one of their own, we don’t even know which one of them it was!
Shame on all of them, then.
Wrong, it is a “good deal” for the Republicans. This is a loser issue for the Dems and they’ll be forced, again, to re-fight it in 2012.
Way to go Republicans!
You guys have to accept that we won.
Hugh Hewitt is a loon.
The Republicans currently for this congress are a MINORITY. A small minority.
This is an enormous win for the Republicans given how small their numbers are.
The pledge concerned what the Republicans will do in the NEXT congress.
Don’t listen to “There’s a Mormon in the White House” Hewitt. He is really out of touch with the electorate.
This is one of your *best*, Curt!
Thanks Curt. You have showcased a complicated situation well.
Thanks guys….very high praise coming from you two.
As a frustrated progressive, I am excited to see a spinal cord emerge among Democratic reps. Perhaps if this were a natural phenomenon the November results would have been different. Liberal voters lost much faith in the Democratic majority who failed to show any stones for two years, and as a result many progressives failed to show at the polls. I sadly expect this to backfire as their weak knees win out…but I can still have Hope can’t I??
There…fixed that for ya.
Essentially, republicans have bought high-end tax cut extensions that will run up the debt by making concessions to the democrats that they’ve consistently asserted will also run up the debt.
Republicans could have gotten tax cut extensions for 97% of all taxpayers without making any concessions at all. They probably could have even gotten concessions.
I guess we all have our priorities.
Nan G is RIGHT!! where is the apology from one of their own Democrats saying such an awful comment about his president? Thanks for refreshing our memories on Joe Wilson & how much trouble he was in after his comment.
i dont see why we are attacking this plan. its the best were going to get while holding none of the chambers and only 1 after the new congress comes in. It may set up the dems in good political situation at a later date, but thats something we have to give in to in order for taxes not to go up 50% on some people. lets take what we can get here and not completely screw over a good portion of the country.
I think Charles Krauthammer has gone insane. In his latest editorial, Swindle of the Year, he proposes that the money we earn actually belongs to the government and we are swindling the government by refusing to give more of it to them. Further, he proposes that leaving the tax rates where they are is “the biggest stimulus in American history”. Then he proposed that “Obama put one over on the Republicans.” He’s clearly lost it.
Obama honors Nobel winner with statement about himself
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/12/obama-honors-nobel-winner-statement-about-himself
This article in the WSJ highlights some of the other complaints.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703766704576009684148164872.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
The GOP has already reverted back to it’s previous submissiveness. I know some want to say Obama outsmarted the Reps. Not really. The Reps rolled over and played dead giving the victory to O by default. It’s clear the current batch in the House just don’t understand why the GOP won the midterms. Hopefully the new blood will make a difference come Jan 1. Let’s hope the dems succeed in quashing the deal.
Mata, Hard Right and others —
I see that some of you cons are starting to realize, as I said three days ago, that you got punked on the deal! Obama got extension of his stimulus plan tax cuts, he got the estate tax cut that the Congressional Black Caucus screams about*, got his middle class Bush tax cuts, and he got the unemployment comp insurance extended. He had to give up two years of tax cuts above $250,000, but I truly wonder whether that was just a bargaining chip all along.
This deal does, however, point out the delusions of the right. The deal costs about $800 billion in CBO scoring; about a quarter of that is from the spending, 3/8ths of it from new Obama tax cuts and 3/8th of it from extending tax cuts draining revenue. But I heard Tim Coburn criticizing the bill because the unemployment comp spending, about 1/4 of the total, was not being offset by other spending cuts. Huh? The total cost is $800 bill and you are pissed because $200 bill is not offset, but you ignore the other $600 billion in deficit impacts?
The math makes no sense and neither does the logic. But the GOPer cons cannot oppose the whole $800 bill because that would require them to acknowledge that tax cuts bleed the treasury of dollars and increase deficits. So they will have their criticism revolve around a quarter of the bill, ignoring the other 3/4 of the spending . . . similar to their reflexive refusal to even consider cutting the waste, fraud and abuse in defense spending. You cannot be serious about deficits if your outrage is selectively based on your ideological bent.
* Interesting bedfellows. The CBC recognizes that the $1 million estate tax hits unmarried people hard because, unlike married people, they cannot shield assets unless they have trusts. Blacks tend to be unmarried at a higher rate than Whites. And for a number of complicated reasons, Black entrepreneurs tend not to do comprehensive estate planning; those unmarried entrepreneurs are the people who would be most likely to have their estates hit by the estate tax. So CBC has been hammering on the estate tax for a long time. So a $5 million cutoff is a good deal for the CBC, which has been “tepid” toward Obama for a number of reasons.
No you moron, we didn’t get “punked”. While you should be an expert on getting punked, you still get it wrong. If obama had shown ANY negotiating skill during his presidency you might have something. Allow me to ‘splain.
A car dealership gets a used car for 8k. Market value is 10k which they price it as. I go in and offer 5k, and they accept. Does that make me a master negotiator? Hardly. In this case the automotive salespeople are the GOP.
I’m sure you’ll continue to blabber on as not even totally embarrassing yourself has ever shut you up.
Well, Billy Bob… since we are all well aware you are reading challenged, math challenged and chart analysis challenged, it’s no suprise that you attempt to read something into comments you are desperate to see. After all, the hallmark of your POTUS’ grassroots movement is to think up a talking point that’s disconnected to reality, say it often enough, and hope the masses buy it.
Well, they did in 2008. Unfortunately, after two years the bright lights stopped blinding their eyes, and they delivered a sound spanking to “duh one” and his cronies.
Your problem with your hope for being “punked” is you so desperately want to portray Obama as a winner for political talking points. There is no winning here… Both parties lost, and the reality of their continued spending frenzy will come back to haunt them both.
Obama’s cronies and his base are livid – hysterically for $75 billion (playing along with your idiocy that the government is allowed to count tax money they are not currently stealing from the breadwinners as a “loss”). The fiscal conservatives are livid with the GOP for breaking the commandment of “stop spending!” just a little over a month after sending that message via midterms.
And we, the taxpayers of all political stripes, are the ones truly taking it in the shorts. The job was to keep the taxes status quo, and not raise them for anyone in a recession. Period. They couldn’t even do that without piling on.
I would feel sorry for you, also being one of the punked, Billy Bob. But when one is so blinded by politics – blissful in his ignorance and happy to be the water bearer of yet another spin job for your lib/prog beliefs – it’s just hard to muster up the sympathy.
Obama was intervied on NPR…….
Obama says his compromise with GOP leaders was just a framework, not a bill.
He says he’s confident the final version will look like the deal he struck with Republicans.
So, I guess his promises all come with expiration dates.
Wasn’t it only yesterday that he promised Republicans that their ”deal” would NOT be changed?
At least he said they would all have to agree.
So, I’m guessing noting will be done before that Dec 15th unofficial deadline.
Mata and Hard Right —
You guys continue to be an embarrassment for your side. Your inability to acknowledge simple math is stunning. At first, I thought it was an ideological thing; now I question whether you even have the intellectual horsepower to understand the issues you insist on commenting on.
I will do this about as slow as I can, using as small and non-complex a set of words that I can muster, so that even you two can get it.
Mata —
When one sets a budget or makes a deficit projection, one estimates revenues and estimates expenses. The current US budgets and deficit projections RELY ON THE ASSUMPTION that tax rates will increase to pre-Bush levels in 2011; likewise, the revenue estimates are based on those higher tax rates.
In the budgeting process, if you LOWER THE TAX RATES, then the revenue projections also decrease. This is math, as practiced by the CBO and any economist with a functioning brain. (Aside — GOPer con “dynamic scoring” is a b.s. “voodoo economics” process whereby you lower the tax rates but increase the revenue projections, because the Magic Tax Cut Fairy will make up the difference between REAL revenue projections based on the lower tax rates and “dynamic scoring” b.s. voodoo economics projections.)
The Bush era CBO report that I have linked to before, and the Bush budget analysis I linked to before, showed that you do not get increased revenues when you lower tax rates; you don’t even get the same revenue stream; you get lower revenues. This is Bush administration math, not con ideology, speaking. Not a liberal was even in the room when Douglas Holtz-Eakins and company came to these conclusions. Indeed, another Bushie era budget analysis which I have also linked to before ADMITTED IN PLAIN ENGLISH that the 2003 deficit was due to “income tax relief”, which is Con-speak for “tax cuts”.
Mata, when you write sentences that read “the government is allowed to count tax money they are not currently stealing from the breadwinners as a ‘loss'”, it is clear that you simply don’t agree with, or understand, how budget estimates are done. You think they should be done some other way where, I guess, we do not count as “a loss” revenues that disappear even as the expenses don’t disappear.
Only that is how budgeting works in the real world: analogy — if a company is discontinuing a product, they do not make future revenue projections relying on revenues from a product they will no longer sell. Likewise, when you cut tax rates, you WILL, due to simple math, take in less money. If I am earning $100,000, at a 25% tax rate, I will owe and pay the government $25,000. But if my tax rate drops to 20%, the government will not be getting $25,000 from me. Any budget based on that $25,000 assumption would be wrong from the get-go! Conversely, if my tax rate were to go from 20% to 25% in 2011, I will owe and pay $25,000, which is more than the $20,000 I would owe and pay at the 20% rate. This is math, not ideology!
You CANNOT BUDGET based on an impossible assumption, that cutting tax rates will result in the same or more revenue. It makes no sense, it is not mathematically sound, and it just does not work.
THAT IS WHAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE: con magical thinking that if you cut rates from 25% to 20%, more money will magically appear! As if the Magic Tax Cut Fairy will provide the extra dollars if only we close our eyes, click our heels three times, and believe believe believe “There’s nothing better than tax cuts! There’s nothing better than tax cuts!”
Hard Right —
As you always do, you string together a bunch of abusive adjectives and insults and act as if they are somehow meaningful, or that you have made a rational argument. Well, you didn’t — you just spewed forth, not unlike an incontinent three year old.
Hard Right, you have shown, time and again, that you are like the anti-Reagan lefties I went to college with: immature simps, disconnected with the fundamental realities of governance, pining, instead, for some kind of ideological pure nirvana where you and your ilk call all the shots and get your way and everyone lives happily ever after. The End. Yours is, of course, a fairy tale world, not anything having to do with reality. Which is why you continue to believe the Magic Tax Cut Fairy will fly down from the clouds and shower us with higher tax revenues if ONLY we will cut taxes. Only the math world and the economics world call “b.s.” on that.
But even so, you cons also believe that one day, while walking down a path, you will stumble upon the Magic Spending Cuts Genie in a Bottle. With three rubs of the bottle, the Genie pops out. The Genie will look at the $3.3 trillion in projected spending, and the $2 trillion in projected revenues, set aside the $2.6 trillion in spending that cons like, clap his green genie hands three times and VOILA! — a balanced budget!
All the other spending disappears, without a single con ever having to actually cut a program, or deal with a taxpayer who likes or relies on that magically disappearing program! Socialistic farm subsidies (which, of course, are popular in Red States)? The costs magically disappear! Research spending that cons don’t like? Disappeared! Without any con ever getting his hands dirty! Massive bankrupting projected increases in Medicare? The Genie will take care of that, too!
This lunacy is why Tom Coburn was on Hugh Hewitt crowing yesterday about “We will find $150 billion in spending cuts!” What? $150 billion is all the so called “conservatives” can find in useless spending? The projected deficit attributable JUST TO THE TAX CUTS YOU GOPER CONS WANT is about $700 billion! And what the hell difference does $150 billion make when you just signed on to an additional $800 billion in deficit spending? And this from the SAME PEOPLE who want to add back in $500 billion in Medicare spending that Obama cut! You cons are digging the deficit hole 10 cubic yards at a time, then adding back a bucket full of dirt and calling that “progress”! It’s not “progress”; it’s a delusion!
Billy Bob, small, non complex words are usually all you can muster at best. We don’t expect much from you, so don’t sweat the small stuff. I assure you, we can keep up with your spin, and when we pick ourselves off the floor from laughing our proverbial butts off, we respond.
Well, you know what they say about the opening three letters of the words, ASSume…. Because of Senate debate rules and any legislation that is deemed to affect the deficit, all measures are temporary.. and no more than 10 years. If Congress did nothing, they would return to previous levels. I am not a supporter of many things “permanent” because different economic times require different solutions. But “doing nothing”, and allowing sunsetting is not necessarily the original intent, nor the mandate. In other words, the choices are not just allowing it to sunset, or extending it as it is. Therefore the “assumption” made to use figures is as imaginary as your purported understanding of economic budgeting. Any CBO figures (which the ones you are using are old, and do not address the entire “framework” as presented) should be based on the proposal.
And no bill should be passed without equal cuts in spending, adjusting it to projected incomes based on the new bill. You see, you all like to look at the lost revenue, add spending without cutting, and then pronounce it evil. I see it a different way. Look at the anticipated revenue, then adjust the spending waste to adapt to the revenue stream.
Any “deficit” that is a result of leaving taxes the same, and compounded by Dems demands for further spending and revenue “loss”, as you like to call it, is a result NOT of lack of government theft. It’s a lack of government spending cuts. Period. You are continually viewing the wrong side of the coin. Income can only be what the market conditions can bear. You use that, and adjust the spending DOWN, as is logical.
*Neither* party has done this. The GOP caved by allowing the Dems to pile on to spending, and not insisting on some expense cuts. As far I’m concerned, I’d like another election now, and remove a few more.
Again, the US Treasury study in 2006 shows you to be the fiscal fool you remain. I know even pictures that show increasing revenue in the wake of tax policies that center around cuts is tough for you to grasp, so I shan’t bother humoring your continued lack of comprehension. As many here say, you just can’t fix stupid. But again, we’re not talking about cutting the 2001 taxes, but leaving them status quo. If you want to talk tax cuts, then address what your precious Dems added to the mix. GOP was lobbying for status quo. Dems wanted to pile on with tax cuts, while ignoring their years railing about tax cuts. Laughable…
Well duh, Billy Bob. It’s the part about the expenses that don’t disappear that is the problem.
Gee… you come so close, then veer away. LOL A company is wise enough to adjust their expenses down for revenue they don’t anticipate. And Congress doesn’t do this, why?
And again, we are not “cutting” tax rates… except with the – ironically enough – added Dem demands to cut taxes for payroll, etc. (ain’t that a hoot…. another lib/prog forked tongue selling point… LOL) We are leaving them status quo. The bill should be simple… we leave tax rates the same, or we don’t. No piling on with more spending. If we don’t, Obama/Pelosi/Reid will continue to extend any slow recovery because the taxpayer market cannot bear a tax increase.
First of all, you cannot predict, with any certainty (a phrase your legal butt should be familiar with), that revenue will not increase because you cannot predict either business growth and increased revenue, and the consumer spending habits. The US Treasury study shows it does increase. But I would base any revenue figures on a GDP projected increase, with a minus fudge factor built in for safety. In other words, you don’t spend more than you anticipate bringing in.
Money “magically” appears when you spend less than you take in. This really is a tough concept for you, isn’t it?
Why don’t you talk about the
$250… correction, that’s $463 billion tax increase on the Joe Blow citizen that you lib/progs really want to do by sunsetting the 2001 tax policies, Billy Bob. Too painful a reality? You think you want to stick it to “the wealthiest of Americans”, when the bulk of the cash you want to steal from the taxpayers are those you supposedly represent. Hypocritical, is a kind way of putting it. Shafting and lying is probably closer to the truth.Nan G. —
The president does not write the bill, nor vote on the bill. And the minority GOPers can’t dictate what the final product looks like, either. So far from having an “expiration date’ on his promises, as you pejoratively claim, he is stating the obvious: he cannot control the final product because it is not within his power. Don’t believe me? Then just ask Bush II how his Social Security privatization plan worked out . . . .
The problem with your claims braindead, is that they have been disproven economically time after time. As has been repeatedly shown tax cuts increase revenue. Several here including myself have posted quite a bit of proof of this. Just because moonbats like yourself are incapable of facing reality doesn’t make it any less so.
As I have stated ad naseum, you are projecting. You are a leftist and facing reality is an alien concept to you, but not for me or Mata. Unable to face that flaw about yourself you “project” said inability onto us. So for an idiot like yourself to question anyone’s intelligence or grip on reality is rather amusing. Dr. Sanity has your kind pegged. You are narcissists suffering from pathological denial of reality. Everything you do is really about making yourselves feel good and stroking your egos. If any of you really took an honest look at what your “policies” did you’d realise how harmful they are and that you are NOT the intelligent, insightful, morally superior, or tolerant people you think you are. You never will tho. That is why someone like me has more insight into you than you do. You’re nothing more than an arrogant, unintelligent, hateful little joke.
Mata and I don’t need to “punk” you since you do it to yourself almost daily when you post here.
This debate in the MSM reminds one of Slick Willy’s “depends on the definition of what ‘is’ is,” discerning speech.
Repealing a tax cut would mean RAISING taxes, so this isn’t about Income Tax Cuts but is about Not increasing Income Taxes. . . . . Given that these Income Tax Cuts have already been in place for years and have been well digested and assimilated by the economy, the bad news is that their continuation will have little positive economic impact, IMHO. The good news? . . .
On the other hand, if an Income Tax Increase prevailed, the concussion would be felt from New York to Modesto. It would create both an economic and psychological rupture, further retarding the already stagnant employment engines. It would also augment the serious lack of confidence in Washington.
All of the blathering about a $200 billion or an $800 billion increase in deficit, or “stimulus” as Krauthammer inappropriately calls it, is a misrepresentation, since it’s NOT an income tax cut, but leaves income tax as it is.
The other good news is that the outcome of this NOT RAISING TAXES, if it comes to pass, . . . Washington will have absolutely no choice but to take an AX to Federal Government spending.
Meanwhile, it’s comical to watch trolls evade the real concern that Taxing The Rich, is in fact a Tax Small Business concept, which ensures that non-union employment continues to stagnate.
It is unfortunate that we are not hearing more from Washington about stimulating small to medium sized businesses with serious incentives. We’re also not hearing much from States other than perhaps NJ, about lifting the government imposed bureaucratic burdens stifling businesses of all sizes.
Nail on head, James… Here’s something for Billy Bob to ponder, as he rails about “deficits” and loss of revenue that doesn’t exist…
The tax increases on Joe Blow citizen account for $463 billion. The tax increases on the ugly and evil “wealthiest of Americans” is $81.5 billion. (Using CNN Money’s figures) Assume the Dems got their repeal of the 2001 tax rates only for the ugly rich American.
In Billy Bob budgeting, we’ve increased the revenue by $81.5 billion, decreased the revenue by $463 bil (on the backs of Joe & Josephine Blow). The extended UI benefits cost alone is $56 bil. Add the other Dem measures for SS, extended individual tax credits and estate tax, and they’d still run a huge deficit… by their own definition… with their own desired proposal.
Why? It still comes down to not increasing spending, and cutting what we already do spend.
James is right… Congress needs to be forced to take an axe to spending. And we should watch how and what they are doing to do to accomplish needed austerity measures. They were idiots when they implemented welfare spending programs. I don’t think they’ve become magi over time, and will no doubt be the same idiots when they attempt to reverse what they have wrought.
@ B-Rob, #19:
You’ve obviously forgetten that Lowering taxes increases revenue. You need to whisper that simple phrase to yourself repeatedly, until the fundamental Truth of it becomes so self-evident that it overrides both logic and arithmetic.
@Greg:
Does lowering the retail price of a product increase revenue?
@ Aye, #25:
Not if you’re selling something that nobody wants.
Assuming you’re selling something people do want, the answer would often be yes. Although if you’re boosting revenue by selling your goods at a loss, you’ll only be able to continue for so long. Sooner or later you’ll go broke. It all has to do with that pesky matter of arithmetic.
Things that make you go “huh”?
Is it my imagination, or is Greg now arguing that if taxpayers keep more money in their pockets (i.e. lowering the retail price for a product), and if they are fruitful and multiply that additional revenue kept to increased personal income (selling something that someone wants, and at a profit), that it would result “often” as increased revenue?
By heavens, I think we’re getting somewhere…
Wow!
An old-fashioned filibuster!
Sen Sanders (I-Vt) is doing it the real way!
You know………by TALKING non-stop!
@ MataHarley…the Kool Aid must have an expiration date like Obama’s Promises.
Lets see now…Club GITMO is still open and is still accepting Guests…
Maybe the Wiki Leaks guy can get a reservation. Great food and recreation there. Great weather and Free Medical too. The Australians wouldn’t care if he took a
brief vacation there. I spoke with a couple of them today. He would be safe from Putin as well.
A Win/Win all around. Holder will take forever to figure out how to try him. Maybe Billy Bob would like a trip there to defend him? A Resume builder.
The sweeping tax cut bill introduced Thursday night by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is chock-full of sweeteners which could serve as a legislative pacifier for Democrats outraged over the concessions President Obama has handed to Republicans.
Reid has set up a test vote on the package for Monday, which could clear the way for a final vote as early as Wednesday. The bill stands a good chance of passage in the Senate, but the House is less predictable as rebellious Democrats accuse the president of caving and clamor for changes.
House Democrats voted in a closed-door meeting Thursday not to allow the package to reach the floor for a vote without changes to scale back tax relief for the rich.
Among the extra provisions are a tax credit for biodiesel, a tax credit for ethanol, extensions of tax credits for energy-efficient homes and appliances, and credits for training mine rescue teams.
It would allow millions of dollars worth of expensing for film and production companies doing work in the United States, give breaks for the rum trade in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, provide incentives for investment in the District of Columbia and provide other benefits for the battered Gulf coast.
Fox News Dec 10th, 2010.
When a baby is crying out of control, put a pacifier in its mouth.
I guess Dems are admitting to being babies.
Nan G,
Kind of reminds us about how Congress tacked on billions of irrelevant spending onto the bills funding the war effort and then complained about the cost of funding the war. Now that they’ve started with this crap, it’s probably time to scrap the whole bill and wait for the new Congress to come in and hopefully show some backbone and shut down the candy store.
Obama just walked out of a press conference with Bill Clinton!
Former President Bill Clinton gave a statement after his meeting with President Obama about his tax compromise with the Republicans.
However, after his statement, Clinton began to call on and take questions from the press with Obama at his side.
Obama promptly after a few moments and said he had to see Michelle, as he was keeping her “waiting.”
“I don’t want to make her mad, please go,” Clinton told Obama.
Video here.
Greg and Aye —
When you decrease the price of something, it does NOT necessarily translate into more or less revenue (I assume you mean “sales”) because you don’t know what the demand reaction will be.
For example — gasoline. If gas sells for $2.40 per gallon and drops to $2.10, do you sell more? No. Because demand is rather inelastic; it tends to be what it is UNLESS there is a dramatic swing one way or the other and substitutes become much more or less attractive. When gas peaked at $4.00 per gallon in the summer of 2008, you saw people substitute public transit for driving. Similarly, dropping wages by 10% will not result in 10% more employees being hired. Why? Again, demand does not move with price, it moves with capacity. Just because the price of labor drops 10% or even 30% does not mean you will hire more labor; you may just hire the same amount of labor at a cheaper price. At SOME point, however, if labor prices increase too much, machines start to look better, even given the sunk costs associated with buying a machine. Conversely, where labor is too cheap (as in the quasi-slavery sharecropping South) you see an underdevelopment of mechanized solutions to problems. Think “prison labor.” But if you have a business where machines simply cannot do the job, then you suck it up and raise prices of your end product, if your can, or maybe you shift jobs overseas, if that is possible. But, no, a decrease in price, even a steep one, does not necessarily result in a single additional sale of that good or service.
If you sell drinks for $5 that are normally $6, though, you will sell more because demand for liquor is quite elastic. “I’ll have another” happens for a 13% reduction in the price of 5 ounce drinks; it does not happen for a gallon of milk, though. Your milk demand is what it is UNLESS it gets so expensive that it invites substitutes.
But, Aye, I have no idea what you are using the example of a price change where the discussion is taxes. Again, I use a simple example of me earning $100,000 and having my tax rate drop from 25% to 20%. I owe government $5,000 less than I would otherwise owe and government will not get MORE money from me; they get quite a bit less. Multiply it by a million people and you still get a smaller revenue number.
Please explain, using math, why I am wrong. Hint — you can’t.
Mata and Hard Right —
You schmoes are arguing ideology still. I am arguing accounting and economics. My point is quite simple: for any given level of spending, you need cash. You can get the cash by taxing today or borrowing (i.e., taxing tomorrow), or some combination. Cons seem to believe in cutting tax revenue but NEVER cut spending.
I repeat this: cons NEVER cut spending! Instead, they excuse the purpose of spending (“That was for Defense”) as if that makes it not qualify as “deficit spending”, or they pledge to “slow the rate of growth” of some itty bitty percentage of the overall spending (like “domestic non-defense discretionary spending”). Or in Michele Bachmann’s case, she simply refuses to acknowledge a deficit is a deficit if it is caused by a tax cut. Amazing . . . .
You falsely ascribe to me the “liberal” attributes of a free spender. But you are lying and you know it. I have consistently advocated cutting EVERYTHING: defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, domestic spending . . . everything needs to be cut to the bone, prioritizing every nickel spent. Does the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps and the Air Force all need different guns? No. So we stop buying four different guns to do the same job. Ditto helicopters and the 300 ship navy. Prioritize spending and conserve dollars the same way liberals would conserve energy: harshly and totally! No farm subsidies (Red State welfare), no urban enterprise zones, no dredging projects in non-militarily important waters . . . and no second jet engine that the Pentagon doesn’t want, Mike “fiscal conservative” Pence, even if it would be built in your district!
That is why I find you cons so maddeningly useless on spending: you don’t really believe in less spending; you only believe in spending less on people who are not of your ilk! You will do the easy work of cutting taxes but you run like hell and make all kinds of excuses when it comes to cutting spending dollar for dollar . . . the dumbest excuse being the idea that the Magic Tax Cut Fairy will deliver higher revenues if you cut taxes . . . a contention that is factually unsupported and non-sensical. There is no free lunch, cons, and there is no Magic Tax Cut Fairy, either. If you are not willing to cut spending dollar for dollar as you cut tax revenues, then you are in favor of deficit spending. Simple as that . . . .
Your problem, Billy Bob, is that you consistently attempt math at all. Instead, it’s the same ol’, same ol’. You really do have a concept problem of not spending more than you bring in, don’t you? You also have the comprehension problem that those bulking up the spending are not the GOP. Your problem, not mine.
First of all, the $81.5 bill would be the *increased* non-existent, future revenue by
not[correction] increasing taxes on “…the wealthiest of Americans”. Big deal. Still doesn’t balance out the spending in the original framework, combined with the rest of the pork they are busy ladling into the soup of spending today. Second of all, the $483 would be your precious “revenue lost”… but what the heck do you care? Slam Joe and Josephine Blow against the wall in a recession by advocating (as you are) that they get the tax increases too.Tell me, Billy Bob… do you factor in the economic repercussions for that tax increase? Secondly, do you factor in the business/employment repercussions for that tax increase? But no… you assume “revenue” remains status quo in the wake of tax increases.
Try having another gander at the US Treasury charts, with the declining revenue during the Clinton years, despite a rosy economy. Doofus
You’re pathetic as a lib/prog. Talk about callous, hard hearted and an economic doofus.
Second of all, I will accept no lectures of either math or spending from you. Until you can actually grasp the concept of not spending more than you bring in, you are simply another lib/prog loser, playing the spin game. And badly at that. Indicative that you totally ignore my comment that even if the lib/progs got their way, increased revenue by the $81.5 bil (assuming they would actually continue with current earnings…), that it still didn’t cover the added cuts, credits, UI and pork they are busy adding today. Can you say deficit, deficit, deficit?
Then, of course, you may want to pick up on Obama, finanally sliding in a recognition that *tax cuts create revenue*, with his hope that we can reform the tax codes by eliminating tax credits and lower the tax levels across the board so we can garner more revenue yesterday. No… I’m not going to provide the link for your lazy butt. Try reading the NYTs, and do your own homework for a change. Guess you’re behind the times of Obama’s “mea culpa”, eh? So inconvenient to your talking points…. LOL. Revelation! It’s something I can actually get behind… and there are few of those agendas in this admin. But with a GOP Congress, it will be a race to the finish line to do that so that one political party gets credit over the other just in time for the next POTUS election.
Now, I’m a bit busy with things tonight, and so far, I’m the only one around to bail you out of your time-out spam comments. Like don’t you work for a living?? I suggest you wait until any of us has time for your babble, guy.
Mata —
You wrote the following —
I wonder if you are really that obtuse, or just trying to entertain me this lovely Friday evening. This is the easiest way to explain this:
Let’s assume your $463 billion and $81 billion figures are the lost revenue costs for one year. If the baseline revenue under current law is $2 trillion and spending is $3.2 trillion (leaving a projected $1.2 trillion deficit), then cutting taxes by $463 bil for the “middle class tax cuts” will reduce revenues to $1.537 trillion and the projected deficit, all things being equal, will clock in at $1.663 trillion instead of $1.2 trillion. Add in the tax cuts for the high rollers and that adds another $81 billion to the projected deficit, which would then total $1.744 trillion, a $544 billion increase over your original projection.
If you add more spending on top of that, that increases the deficit projection; if you cut more taxes on top of that, that increases the deficit, too. This is math.
If you want to be deficit neutral, you need to find $463 billion in spending cuts to offset the middle class tax cuts and another $81 billion to offset the high roller tax cuts. You need to find offsets for all the other spending, too, and for all the other tax cuts. Otherwise, you grown the projected deficit. This is math.
If you and your man, Mata (assuming you have one) have a projected deficit spending of $10,000, you adding on a new more expensive cable plan and buying Gucci slippers will make the problem worse. Likewise, if he decides to work less in the coming year and dedicate more time to D & D, you will have an ever worse deficit because there will be less revenue. This is math.
There are three different ways to get into a deficit problem — one is spending faster than you earn, one is reducing your earnings but not your spending, the other is a combination of the two.
Voodoo con math, as practice by you, Mata, and Michele Bachman, either just ignores the deficit impact of tax cuts altogether, or just rails against the fact that there was $3.2 trillion in projected spending in the first place! Yeah, spending is a problem and leads to deficits if you don’t have the revenue to meet it. But when you take more revenues out of the equation, as you GOPer cons insist, you make a bad problem worse!
I don’t understand why you cons don’t grasp this fact, Mata! It’s not that complex. Which makes me thing that GOPer cons simply don’t care about deficits, or, for some reason, they WANT to make them worse.
And yet you still ignore that the Dems are the ones packing on the spending to the bill. Interesting.
And then you also ignore that, as Obama himself admits, you can increase revenue when you lower taxes. Yet you stubbornly insist upon desperately clinging to fixed numbers… first for assuming that revenues will be as healthy as they were in prior times when you raise taxes (disproved), and second for assuming there isn’t an increase in revenues when you reduce the tax rate (proven they do, and admitted by Obama himself).
You say the words, and yet still miss the reality. Big disconnect, Billy Bob.
Wall Street and the uber wealthy love their taxes not going up
What is the cost of just the ethanol sweetener to the tax compromise?
IBD breaks it all down.
100 million gallons of ethanol creates 70 jobs.
Extending ethanol subsidies at a cost of $6 billion for one year would result in an extra 600 million gallons.
600 million gallons would result in 420 jobs, or about $14 million per job.
This came after a bipartisan group of 17 senators led by Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., penned a letter arguing that ethanol subsidies are “fiscally irresponsible and environmentally unwise.”
And although former Vice President Al Gore made a recent reversal of his long backing of corn ethanol.
Declaring the subsidies bad policy, Gore admitted that his presidential ambitions had skewed his motivations and had made him feel a “certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa.”
Nevertheless, thanks to 11th-hour horse-trading that restored the full 45-cent credit, the tax bill may be able to count on one extra vote to clear the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle on Monday: Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin.
The cost of getting that one vote?
$1.2 billion.
Nan G.,
#31
Thanks for pointing out what are significant and expensive sideline changes to the legislation, . . . very typical of the way Washington works.
I agree with Another Vet that these “sweetener” provisions should be rejected. IMHO, if Republicans don’t stand firm, they should be shown the next door out. Either you do what you believe is right, or go home. If you’re a member of Congress and you don’t believe in anything, have no principles, no backbone, it matters little what party you’re part of – you’ll cave at some point to some influence that moves you off your track. There should be No Pacifying. Pacifying (buying votes) is exactly what has bloated government and expanded waste to a degree that it is no longer controllable.
#33
I noticed that Obama looked very pissed at Clinton. Obama was also very evidently afraid to take questions since he understands so little of either business or economics, and he had to find an excuse, so he made up a lie. His facial and body language said, “I’m lying.” The whole scene was embarrassing – 2 outsized egos trying to control the podium. At least Clinton seems to understands some of the problem. He’s just clueless as to what to do that panders to his ideological support base.
Here’s more good news – news that will force the new Congress to take government cutbacks seriously:
The Treasury Department said that in November, outlays rose to US$299-billion from US$286-billion in October and compared with US$254-billion in November 2009. Receipts totaled US$149-billion compared to US$134-billion a year earlier. This is the longest budget deficit on record (25 straight months.)
Ideology? You really can’t read, can you Braindead? We have presented facts and figures repeatedly about tax cuts increasing revenue. Yet you are to mentally ill to see otherwise. It’s clear you are just trolling as you know you are overmatched and wrong.
I too have noticed you spend A LOT of time on here. Not working are we?
Mata, want to bet that if braindead was making a touch over 250K he wouldn’t be calling for a tax increase?
Mata, in another thread I, too pointed out that the “middle class” tax rates “cost” more than the top tier rates. But to no avail, Greg or Braindead Rob or whoever it was didn’t understand the concept.
Mata and Hard Right,
Sometimes you can have an intelligent discourse with someone and in the end agree to disagree, other times it is hopeless. This is hopeless. When someone tries pulling this crap with me now I just tell them to drop it and get out of my face. They are not worth getting the blood pressure up over.
anticsrocks, I think we’ve all figured out Billy Bob doesn’t “get it”. When I point out that even the $81.5 bil alone still wouldn’t cover the Dems mandated additions and spending, not to mention the porking up they’ve been doing all day today, he merely goes back to just the 2001 tax increases alone to play a numbers game. You gotta be kiddin’ me! He’s not even good at “selective math”…
another vet, this isn’t raising my blood pressure an iota. This is sport… it’s called “shooting fish in a barrel”. LOL
And oh, BTW… while the continuing resolution for funding Congress was passing in the House (212-206) (*and* includes funding for HHS for sections 4001, 4004, 4201 and 4301 of O’healthcare), there’s also the whispered rumors in the halls of Congress that a mother of all omnibus bills is about to hit the chambers as well. Apparently, the we-aren’t-spending-enough disgruntled lib/progs are trying to pack it up with all Obama’s pet projects for a final hoorah.
Rumor also has it that several GOPers, who are also on their way out, are set to side with the Dims on it because they want to bring home some pork for Christmas, and redeem themselves in the home town.
Don’t know if, in the last days of the dying… er, lame… duck session, the GOP can stop this – along with a few Dems who may have gotten the midterm commandment stone tablet from the voters. But if they lend a hand, there will be hell to pay. They don’t have much room to move with me after this “compromise”. Mind you, I’m laughing my butt off that Obama’s figured out that since their stimulus, and Bernanke’s QE II ain’t working, tax cuts must be the way to go since he and the Dims demanded so many in the framework. But any attempt at that logic is completely negated by their piling on a lot of extra spending measures (and still piling as of this writing). Apparently Congress not only never learns, they also don’t listen or have short term memory from the midterms message.
Not sure what it is about the two simple words, “stop spending”, these these guys can’t understand… either party. But as I said before, count me unimpressed thus far. If this crap sneaks thru as well, you can count me livid.
This is a huge looser for the GOP.
* The Dems got a huge stimulus
* The GOP look like they were just fighting for the rich
* The GOP will now share the blame with the Dems for increasing the deficit
Why negotiate from weakness when you can act from strength in a month? I just don’t get it!
anticsrock, that’s exactly it. Tax cuts for the middle class add up to more than cut to the rich, yet the GOP allowed the MSM to frame the debate just in terms of the wealthiest costing the country more
Yes that’s the ‘reality’, but how is the issue being framed in the MSM? It’s almost only about Tax Cuts! Everything else is collateral, if it is even acknowledged!
So when it comes time for needed spending cuts, the Dems (with the help of the MSM) are going to frame the reason as the extra money GOP required for the Tax Cuts for the rich
I am so upset. Why did the GOP negotiate from weakness with the Dem!?
Then there’s the issue of rightfully being opposed to more massive debt and negotiating to massively increase the debt. Clearly the GOP hasn’t got the message we don’t want more debt
If you notice Obama’s comments since the “deal” was made, he is advocating any number of positions so that come ’12, he can say, “I told you so” no matter how the economy turns out.
Don’t fret. All they have is the frame work for this bill. Much can be changed in the interim.
Lots of regressive progressive pork stuffed into the framework.
But obama went to see his wife to go to a Christmas party while Bill Clinton acted as president with the press corp.
Hardly anyone sees obama as a real president. Everyone knows he is ineligible in many ways.
When you have to have help from an impeached former president it’s time to resign. 🙄
Oh and this is NOT a TAX CUT ❗
This stops the death tax from increasing beyond 35%.
This stops my taxes from being raised.
You can always tell who doesn’t pay taxes.
They are for the tax bill to expire and taxes to be raised.
Looks like MSNBC is spewing a meme that this is a tax cut. IT’S NOT.
But then again MSNBC just got their payoff for getting slowbama voted into office.
They got nearly a trillion dollar bribe from stimulous funds. That’s where our money went.
Banks too……20% minimum base unemployment and stimulous money never really intended to fix the economy. It all went for bribes.
Try getting a commercial RE or business loan with perfect credit. It won’t happen. There is no money for loans….
Good Luck boosting the economy when the credit market is frozen. 💡
Mata #46,
You won’t be running out of ammo anytime soon!
Hang no, @another vet… the joy of barrel shooting is that the shells are easy to retrieve and reload. 😆
I sent an email to the Tea Party Patriots long before the elections suggesting that they ask any politicians they intend to support to sign a contract saying what they will and won’t do with a date to do certain things. The contract would state that if the politician doesn’t do what they said they would do (introduce a certain bill for example) by a certain date, that date would be their notice of leaving office, effective on that date. They would also have to guarantee that if someone else introduces such a bill, and it doesn’t have too much attached to it, then they would vote for the bill. Just because the politician says they will INTRODUCE the bill doesn’t mean they will VOTE for the bill.
I knew that once the politicians got in office that most of the promises they made wouldn’t be kept. After all, they are politicians. How many politicians can you think of who kept their promises, republican, democrat, or independent?
Mata —
I just don’t get you sometimes
This coming from the woman who refuses to acknowledge that DECREASING revenues makes the deficit worse?! What big hairy stones you have, Mata!
Not to be outdone, “Communist Red” Rage chimes it with
Again, cons refuse to take any responsibility for their own undoing. Under current law, the taxes for everyone were set to increase on January 1. Obama and the Dems arbitrarily set $250,000 as the “rich person” cutoff. Where they got that figure from, I don’t know. Maybe it was chosen because it is about five times the median household income, and thus unfathomable for the vast majority of America. But what did the GOPers do in response to this artificial cutoff? They declared that NO ONE will get an income tax cut in 2011 unless the “rich” got a tax cut! How dumb was that?
See, you cannot blame Obama for saying you cons were holding middle tax cuts hostage if you, in fact, condition middle class getting tax cuts on the rich wetting their beaks, too. Cons then compounded that problem by declaring that “the rich” were “the most productive Americans” (read “most valuable”). So not only did the GOPer cons declared that “the rich much get their taxes cut or nobody gets a tax cut”, the GOPer cons then made it worse by implying that the rich were just oh so much more special than everyone else and deserved that extra special attention. Great.
And the final straw? That letter of last week that basically said “No tax cuts for the rich? Then nothing else is getting voted on this year.” Think about that: if there is no extension of the Bush tax cuts, there would be no unemployment comp extension, no vote on the military budget, no continuing resolution on operating the government, no vote on Obama judicial nominations, no vote on the DREAM Act . . . nothing.
In that sense, Obama was right: everything was being held hostage to your con “holy grail” of tax cuts for “millionaires and billionaires.” You cannot blame “the media” for framing the question this way, because the cons did to themselves.