The gerrymandering was the trap this time for the Republicans. They should have lost enough seats in the House not to have to be involved in the solution to the fiscal cliff issue. Instead they won enough that they must do things that their rank and file are not capable of doing. That's what's going to make 2014 so interesting. Lots of people sitting at home who voted for their conservative lawmaker are going to get absolutely screwed over the next 18 months. Lots of people who voted for their liberal lawmaker will also but that's what they expect to happen. Just wait until Joe Indiana realizes what federal funds were actually doing for him. Won't happen until the funds dry up though.
We have known for over a week now that their would be no spending cuts in the final bill, because the the House GOP refused to play ball on a "grand bargain". Since the House couldn't get their act together they went home for Christmas and told the Senate to come up with a bill. They did, and it passed 89-8.
There are/were spending cuts, they're just insufficient. You mean the White House and Mitch McConnell.
yes Vice President Biden (aka the President of the Senate) negotiated a deal with the Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell. Who else did you expect negotiate the deal?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertl...x-increases-on-the-rich-later-obama-promises/ this is the kind of agenda that will continue to fester class warfare in this country. while i am all for taxing the ultrarich (fairly) athletes, executives, and hollywood yoohoos - to continue to include other comfortable and well off folks that are not in the above groups is going to scar this country for a very long time. its really unbelieveable a sitting president continues to single out a subset of the population that is a very important cog in our economy. make no mistake - i clearly understand signalling out those hefty wall street exec pay parachutes and all but mr obama is unfairly including those hard working, upper middle class professionals with these wall street crooks. hey barry - u should also be calling out those "fat cats" in hollywood as well, and maybe the ones in the media, or all the lawyers in congress that continue to trade and get wealthy on inside information despite ur "stock act" sorry for the venting here folks but reading these quotes has me fired up. i've worked my ass off getting to where i am, accumulating 6 figure loans in the process, the last thing i want to read is a sitting president and his followers continuing to threaten my hard earned money.
And we'll find out if there are 40-odd Republicans willing to vote for the bill knowing they risk a primary challenge from their right for doing so.
Great post Jil. Great post. In additoin..I have had these discussions with my lefty friends who I truly respect and heres the thing I do not think a lot of people think of. And if I insult anyone...im truly not trying to. I do not fit into the very wealthy but one thing..ONE VERY SIMPLE THING..has to be remembered. The very wealthy..those that provide jobs..will always continue to be super wealthy. You can tax the shit out of them. Tax them until you grab 80 percent of their income...but they will still have their shore house..their boats..their toys. How will they keep those things? By cutting every cost they possibly can..including many jobs. You want to tax the crap out of those insulting bonuses on Wall Street etc...I have no idea how you single crap like that out. But going after the guy or girl making over 250..or over 500....a mill...millions....will costs jobs in the long run. It has to. There will be no toys sacrificed over John Smith and his 35k a year job.
The median household income in this country is around $50,000. If you make $400,000 a year, you are not "upper middle class." You are rich. Not wanting to raise taxes on the top 2% of earners is a perfectly defensible political position, but don't sell me that "class warfare" junk. Income inequality is at the highest level since the Great Depression; if there's a class war in this country, then the rich have already definitively won it.
Trickle down will occur any day now...:rofl: It's time they suffer for their voting decisions...I've had enough of paying for the ungrateful assholes in this country. The two biggest GOP voting blocs in the country are the South and Seniors...Both of these groups are heavily dependent on welfare...The next fight will affect them the most... Both of these groups listen to multi millionaires for their "news", so blind that their own party is the one that is going to screw them in 2 months...Should be real entertaining! If its me paying higher taxes or the ungrateful assholes going with less welfare, option 2 every time.
The flat tax would be paid on an income tax return so the illegals wouldn't pay for that directly as they don't file returns. They do pay in towards SS/Medicare when they are taken out of their paychecks when they used fake SS numbers... A direct tax where these people pay would be a VAT on everything... You need a federal entity to administer your tax code, collections, and enforcement...I don't understand the outrage against the IRS...You make money you owe taxes... Just like the Federal Reserve is in charge of monetary policy... Anyone want the useless Congress directly in charge of Monetary Policy or administering the tax code?
I agree the rhetoric is uncalled for the reality is our country is in trouble. Those who have money, both those who earn high incomes and those who have saved and invested and have money will have to be the ones to pay the tab. You can't get blood out of a stone. At some point taxes are going to have to go up on a much broader base of the public, for right now those with high incomes and savings get the honor of being first in to bail out our country. Hopefully we will get real tax reform that taxes benifits like SS, Medicare, Health Insurance along with getting rid of deductions like charity, home mortgage deductions, etc., etc., etc. as well as unearned income, savings and purchases so that a more efficient tax code that is also progressive in nature will help the individual make sensible decisions about spending and savings unimpeded by the elites who garner their power by manipulating the tax code to favor voting blocks with agenda's that have no real benifit to the long term pursuit of happiness that all of us as individuals should be able to seek as we see fit. The Bush tax cuts have been vindicated by the Democratic Party who overwhelmingly voted to make them permanent. The Republican party overwhelmingly voted against doing just that. It's a crazy world we are living in.
Any businessman who does that is a dumb businessman and we'd want to cull those dumb businessmen out of the economy, anyhow. Business owners don't hire employees for tax purposes. They hire employees because they add value to the business. I hire someone for $35K/year when I believe they will add $80K/year of value to my business. I don't let them go - hurting my business in the process - because my marginal rate on the upper portion of my income might go up. And remember, we're not talking about an obscene tax increase, either. If you make over $400K per year - and that's taxable income, after deductions and what not - then every $1000 you earn OVER that $400K will cost you $46 more than it would have last year. The horror. You make it sound like the goal is to take their boats or beach houses or toys. It's not. Never has been... although I know that's a nice story to tell.
As a businessman with employees I disagree. I have employees that I grossly overpay based on their return to the company because I believe down the road they will add value to my company. Since all of my earnings are taxed as income when my tax rates go up and I have to pay more taxes I have less working capital. Less working capital may impede my ability to finance more business or have the cash on hand to invest in additional employees or even to maintain my current employees and have the kind of cash flow I need to maintain my business. You can't look at small businesses that are taxed at the individual rate the same way you look at large C Corps. Taxes at the individual rate have a direct impact on cash flow to S Corporations. That doesn't mean I shouldn't pay more or less in taxes one way or another. However the argument that this will not impact the ability of small companies to hire or maintain their employees isn't true.
Interestingly the Democratic Party is supporting Medicare and SS benefits while the Republicans support means testing them. Seniors are either voting against their self-interest or understand that runaway spending in general is going to impact their benefits directly or they are just racist assholes? Seems to me we should simply tax all benefits as income including SS and Medicare for everyone. The owners of every major media operation are millionaires including the ownership of the Times and CNBC. Most people with the exception of those at GG who read the BS section get their media from Millionaires and billionaires. As an aside my grandmother who lived through the depression was extremely grateful for her Medicare and SS benefits as are my surviving parent and in laws. My wife and I will be especially grateful to get those benefits that we paid into for all our working lives although I have no problem paying taxes on those benefits as ordinary income. Don't be so angry paying taxes is a privilege.
The right have convince themselves that growing income inequality is not an issue in itself, but it is. As you point out, it is ludicrous for them to complain of class warfare when income inequality has been growing and growing, and is now equivalent to what it was before the Great Depression. I do have sympathy for people in high tax states who make less than $500,000 per family and cannot deduct state and local taxes due to the AMT, however. But yeah, if you live in say Arizona and make around $400k, you have plenty of money.
Looking at the Clinton tax rates in a vacuum is not really very helpful. We were allready coming out of a mild recession caused by the Bush tax increases when Clinton raised taxes and it did slow the recovery which lead to losses by the Democrats in Congress a new tax deal that had a sharp reduction in Cap gains along with NAFTA, Tarrif reductions and Welfare reform. We need more revenue if the country wants to continue to fund the military and social welfare at expanding levels. We need to pay more taxes no doubt about it.
