Allahpundit @ Hot Air:
I didn’t believe this when I saw it at WaPo yesterday, then I started to wonder when I read Ed’s postthis morning, and now Ezra Klein claims Democrats are telling him the same thing. I thought the GOP’s big Plan B alternative to a grand bargain was to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, let them lapse for the rich, and then go home so that they can fight another day when it’s time to raise the debt ceiling again in the spring. The automatic tax hikes on January 1 have deprived them of leverage in this negotiation, but they’ll have more once that’s over with and the debt ceiling is all that’s left on the table.
Change of plans: Now the GOP’s going to agree to raise the ceiling for another year, right up front. Wait, what?
Boehner offered to let tax rates rise for income over $1 million. The White House wanted to let tax rates rise for income over $250,000. The compromise will likely be somewhere in between. More revenue will come from limiting deductions, likely using some variant of the White House’s oft-proposed, oft-rejected idea for limiting itemized deductions to 28 percent. The total revenue raised by the two policies will likely be a bit north of $1 trillion. Congress will get instructions to use this new baseline to embark on tax reform next year. Importantly, if tax reform never happens, the revenue will already be locked in.
On the spending side, the Democrats’ headline concession will be accepting chained-CPI, which is to say, accepting a cut to Social Security benefits. Beyond that, the negotiators will agree to targets for spending cuts. Expect the final number here, too, to be in the neighborhood of $1 trillion, but also expect it to lack many specifics. Whether the cuts come from Medicare or Medicaid, whether they include raising the Medicare age, and many of the other contentious issues in the talks will be left up to Congress…
As for the debt ceiling, that will likely be lifted for a year, at least. In contrast to a week or so ago, when the White House was very intent on finishing the debt ceiling fight now, they’re sounding considerably less committed to securing a long-term increase in these negotiations. The argument winning converts, I’m told, is that since the White House won’t negotiate on the debt ceiling now and won’t negotiate on it later, there’s little reason to make it the sine qua non of a deal.
So in exchange for a tweak to Social Security’s benefit formula, Boehner’s agreeing to tax hikes on the rich and limits on deductions and a mere promise of future spending cuts and a debt-ceiling increase that would formally abandon the live-to-fight-another-day strategy? Note the “at least” part, too. Matt Yglesias is entirely right about this:
The cloud of stupid over DC is ever-growing, now adding the establishment GOP to the stupid already swirling from the Democrats. Lovely.
Do these people not know how to do math?
An event coming to a city near you, . . . .
When government gets out of hand as has occurred in France, and unreasonableness prevails, it is inevitable that push-back on overreach will be swift by those who can, . . . . as one of France’s most famous actors demonstrates by leaving the country under the horrified glare of the new Marxist leadership:
“Depardieu, 64, retorted that he had worked since he was 14 and paid €145 million in taxes over the last 45 years including 85% of his revenue in 2012 alone.”
Depardieu has decided “enough” and is relinquishing his French citizenship. The best that the culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti can respond is that she is “scandalized,” by such action.
@james raider:
What the h*ll is a “culture Minister”? Since when is that an important job of a government? Stupid french surrender monkeys.
And ‘scandalized’? Why? Because a man has said enough is enough of supporting people in his country who only wish to take advantage of him? Stupid french surrender monkeys.
Our own idiots in DC cannot do math. Not even simple math. And they will avoid doing the necessary math to solve the fiscal problem, come to an agreement, clap themselves on the back for “a job well-done”, and watch with a stupid questioning look on their face as the US promptly flies off the proverbial cliff in spite of the DC politician’s great “accomplishment”.
This was written in 1985 – The more things change the more they stay the same…this is worth repeating:
THE 545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S WOES
By Charley Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?? Have you every wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices – 545 human beings out of 235 million – are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
I exclude all of the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing! I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.
No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY
Don’t you see now the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up an criticized Ronald Regan for creating deficits.
The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.
O’Neill is speaker of the House. He is the leader of the majority party. He and his fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.
REPLACE SCOUNDRELS
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted – by present facts – of incompetence and irresponsibility.
I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise complete power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it’s because they want them in Lebanon.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose job they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like ”the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them form doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses – provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.
This article was taken from the Orlando Sentinel Star newspaper dated: 1985
Here are the numbers;
1.3% growth in federal revenue, per year, per 1% growth in GDP, during the prosperous years of Clinton, with the Clinton tax rates.
1.7% growth in federal revenue, per year, per 1% growth in GDP, during the prosperous years under Bush, with the Bush tax cuts.
1.7% is greater than 1.3%. Keep ALL of the Bush tax cuts in place, and the government will gain more revenue per year.
Are you willing to give up a large portion of government revenue per year, to pay for everything you want the government to do for you, simply for the sake of some arbitrary idea of “fair”?
The media is going overboard lying about cuts in spending. The meme is that any cuts will affect the economy negatively.
The persistent lie that these “cuts” aren’t cuts continues. These limits in INCREASED SPENDING will not be cuts, and the FEAR game the White House and its media are spreading is hypocritical, noxious, and no one is calling them out on it.
This spending problem is NOT going to turn out well.