The tax cuts deal

[Bull Moose Base]

It makes it a 2012 issue.  I would argue it hurts the GOP by saddling them with an unpopular position in an election year.  But they'll be raking in donations from millionaires and billionaires in the form of hard to limit front groups.  And I can't recall Obama's base being as mad at him as this.  I do think it ups the odds of a Feingold primary.  As far as the GOP primary, I think it boxes in Daniels (who I remain skeptical will ultimately run).

[pbrower2a]

It's what the GOP does after it takes over the House that matters most. If it offers nothing more than right-wing culture wars and plutocratic economics, then the GOP stay in the majority in the House could well be one term. With a lame-duck President, that could be far more significant.

[Whacker77]

It makes it a 2012 issue.  I would argue it hurts the GOP by saddling them with an unpopular position in an election year.  But they'll be raking in donations from millionaires and billionaires in the form of hard to limit front groups.  And I can't recall Obama's base being as mad at him as this.  I do think it ups the odds of a Feingold primary.  As far as the GOP primary, I think it boxes in Daniels (who I remain skeptical will ultimately run).

Yeah, because the GOP hates to have a campaign with taxes as the main issue.  I love how the term "millionaires and billionaires" gets thrown around, but this bill affects those who make as little as 250,000 per year.  In some portions of the country, that's not a lot of money.  In Alabama or Kentucky, that is a lot of money.

Pushing the tax issue down the road just forces Democrats to fight this same fight two years from now.  Obviously, they lost the fight or Obama wouldn't have gone against the central pledge of his 2008 economic platform.  He and Democrats remain politically scared of taxes just as Republicans remain politically scared of entitlements. 

[Iosif]

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Those poor peasants! Only $250k a year?! How do they get by?!?!

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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Those poor peasants! Only $250k a year?! How do they get by?!?!

we drive a wrecked 1997 Corolla because over $100k a year of our money is taken by the government, even though we're supporting a family of six.  we fully fund our SEP-IRAs and give generously to charities.  we penny pinch what is leftover.  that's how we get by.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

...and we sleep next to a gauge and leave the house packing a nine

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

...while clinging to our bibles

[Keystone Phil]

I believe Feingold ruled out a 2012 run last week. Here's hoping he changes his mind.

[redcommander]

I seriously do hope he gets primaried now. Extending the Bush Tax cuts is one of the most fiscally irresponsible positions either party could be pushing, but especially Republicans. If they are so concerned with trying to reduce the deficit, they shouldn't be easing the tax burden on the top income earners in the country. BTW I love how people like Hannity keep saying its a middle class tax hike. Since when is the middle class defined as being people making 250,000 a year? Republicans are trying to use class warfare rhetoric, when in actuality they support helping the rich with this tax cut. Obama has given up principle on one of the biggest concerns to his base, and if he think he can win reelection by trying to become the second Bill Clinton he better think again.

[tpfkaw]

[redcommander]

It doesn't make me a Democrat to point out a stupid policy decision of the Republicans.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Every sane economist said extending the tax cuts at all was a risky venture, let alone extending those above $250k, which I saw referred to this morning as 'beyond stupid'.

This isn't based on actual analysis... just political BS to satisfy the TP whackjobs, and that set that believe cancer could be cured by tax cuts.

If you saw someone in your family, who was haemorraging money.. obviously the first thing people in this position would be suggesting is cutting their income? right?

- the smarter option would have been for Obama to offer to make the below $250k tax cuts expire in... 2020 or something like that (or even permanent) - and not extend the $250k+ bracket ... which most people, according to polls, agree with.

[tpfkaw]

Every sane economist said extending the tax cuts at all was a risky venture, let alone extending those above $250k, which I saw referred to this morning as 'beyond stupid'.

This isn't based on actual analysis... just political BS to satisfy the TP whackjobs, and that set that believe cancer could be cured by tax cuts.

If you saw someone in your family, who was haemorraging money.. obviously the first thing people in this position would be suggesting is cutting their income? right?

- the smarter option would have been for Obama to offer to make the below $250k tax cuts expire in... 2020 or something like that (or even permanent) - and not extend the $250k+ bracket ... which most people, according to polls, agree with.

Hmm . . . every sane economist?  I hear that every True Scotsman is of the same opinion.  Unfortunately, there seems to be an epidemic of insanity among economists, as economists favor extending them for all taxpayers by 54-33%.  Although I'd love to hear what your "actual analysis" is.

If I had a member of my family who was going bankrupt because he or she was spending all of his or her money on useless sh*t, I'd tell him or her to stop spending money on useless sh*t.  If said member of my family derived his or her entire income from stealing money from people, I would advise him or her to cut down on that habit, although perhaps a more reasoned analysis would suggest that he or she should steal more, while stealing a greater percentage from wealthy people.

[TomC]

I'm OK with compromise and don't care for "soak the rich" rhetoric, but this move was a huge failure primarily in communications. Obama's humility or whatever it is has got to go.

[Lincoln Republican]

The wealthiest Americans do not need a tax break.  Many of them do not even want a tax break.  The Republican Party has made a fundamental error in judgment.  They could have become the party of common sense and the party of middle America by extending the tax cuts only to those earning less than $250,000/year.  

Let the rich pay!

[TomC]

The wealthiest Americans do not need a tax break.  Many of them do not even want a tax break.  The Republican Party has made a fundamental error in judgment.  They could have become the party of common sense and the party of middle America by extending the tax cuts only to those earning less than $250,000/year.  

Let the rich pay!

The leaders of our nation- being first true to their parties- are the ones who have made a mistake. This whole pile of giveaways should be vetoed except maybe the unemployment extension- which should be offset by cutting something.

[Bull Moose Base]

The wealthiest Americans do not need a tax break.  Many of them do not even want a tax break.  The Republican Party has made a fundamental error in judgment.  They could have become the party of common sense and the party of middle America by extending the tax cuts only to those earning less than $250,000/year.  

Let the rich pay!

You realize Romney wants those cuts permanent and Obama wants the cuts for the richest to expire.

[Lincoln Republican]

The wealthiest Americans do not need a tax break.  Many of them do not even want a tax break.  The Republican Party has made a fundamental error in judgment.  They could have become the party of common sense and the party of middle America by extending the tax cuts only to those earning less than $250,000/year.  

Let the rich pay!

You realize Romney wants those cuts permanent and Obama wants the cuts for the richest to expire.

True, but I do not agree with everything Romney may espouse.  I still support him for President however.

[pbrower2a]

Every sane economist said extending the tax cuts at all was a risky venture, let alone extending those above $250k, which I saw referred to this morning as 'beyond stupid'.

Does anyone think that the 2010 elections showed a "sane" electorate?

I think that President Obama is trying to get what he can while he can. The GOP, whose economic philosophy is little different from that of the Imperial Court of the Romanov dynasty roughly 100 years ago, seems to believe that the only wealth that can do any good is that held by the few people who know how to handle it -- the super-rich and their executive retainers. It's pure plutocracy unconstrained by any moral or ethical values other than "I've got mine -- $crew you!"

It's a bad deal, but the way things go, the GOP is going to hold everything hostage to the desires of people who can get the means to live like the ruling classes at the start of either Gone With the Wind or Doctor Zhivago. Never mind that the elites at the start largely got what they deserved in the end -- the hardships that they thought the appropriate judgment of God upon those who lacked the virtue of being born into the right family or failed to become the brutal enforcers of what many considered an unjust order.

The GOP is in a position in which to enforce a bad deal. It can enforce a 19-1 deal upon society: 2% of America gets  the 19, and everyone else gets to fight over the 1. If we are fortunate, that lasts only two years -- two of what may be the dreariest years in America since the Great Depression.

For two years America will be the purest plutocracy on Earth. After 2012... that depends upon how intelligent the electorate will be then, and how harsh the lessons will be.
 

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Don't confuse the Tea party types with facts! President Obama is not legitimately President of the United States because he was born in some mud hut in Kenya! Death panels are real -- efforts of liberals to cull out elderly people who are likely to vote Republican, anyway. President Obama is a secret Muslim. Liberals are identical with Stalinists. Rush Limbaugh is wiser than Socrates and smarter than Bertrand Russell! FoX News Channel is the only reliable source of news. Poverty among the poor is the means of creating incentives for greater toil for lesser rewards. Evolution is a myth. Global warming is a myth.

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Too late. The super-rich and the GOP would be willing to let unemployed people starve  so that the super-rich could get even bigger tax cuts. Such is power. There is no greater power than holding control of the most basic means of survival.

[/quote]

[Speaker Perez]

This is the problem with America, we talk about the American dream and how we should all strive to be successful but instead we punish success. Although I do not favor the Bush Tax-cuts I do support a flat tax everyone should be taxed an equal percentage. Its not right that 85% of this nations revenue is paid by only 1% of the population. Fair! thats punitive.  

[Bull Moose Base]

I think this deal takes a couple cards out of the GOP's hand come 2012.  If the economy rebounds, Obama's in good shape. If it doesn't, he's not so much but what are the GOP going to say they'd have done differently.  And their deficit act will ring false.  Now, he may well have a base problem. 538 has a column up where Obama is daring them to not come home.  The thing I don't see is how are the tax cuts ever going to be expired if the public wants them to be for the rich and the Dems have the WH, the house and 59 senators and they still can't do it?

Side question: how will advocating flat tax hurt or help a candidate in a GOP 2012 primary

[TomC]

This is the problem with America, we talk about the American dream and how we should all strive to be successful but instead we punish success. Although I do not favor the Bush Tax-cuts I do support a flat tax everyone should be taxed an equal percentage. Its not right that 85% of this nations revenue is paid by only 1% of the population. Fair! thats punitive.  

Do you mean 85% of the nation's income tax?  Even so, you are way off on your numbers. Got a source?

On the rest of your claim, you have a point about a flat tax, but this claim of "punishing" is just silly. If anything this nation is spoiled with all the crap it gets without really paying for it. China's largely funding our GDP growth.

[TomC]

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=11976&type=11

page 29- the top 1% paid 28% of federal taxes. So you're only off by 57%.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Sometimes pbrower's posts choke me up.

[Whacker77]

I suppose the only sane election results are the ones in which lots of Democrats are elected?

In all seriousness, if the rich are too rich as some of the more liberal posters here seem to suggest, just confiscate all income above $250,000.  Wouldn't that solve all the nations problems?   One, it would provide the government with loads of cash to spend on more stimulus, unemployment compensation, and maybe even single payer health care.  Two, it would promote a fairer society, right?  It would narrow the gap between the haves and the have nots by redistributing the money from one group to another.

This really may be the change we have been waiting to see.  After all, it's not the people's money.  It's the government's money it allows to go to workers as income.  What the government gives, the government can take away, right?  So if the government decided it had been too generous in allowing some people to be paid to much, it can just take away the excess income and then give it to those who need it more.

I really think we're on to something here.  It would be insanity to cut spending and lower taxes at the same time.  I mean after all, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge did just that after they won in 1920 and unemployment went from around 15% to 5% in just two years.  Based on how they calculated unemployment back then, it dropped to around 1% in 1928.  I think we can all agree we don't want that to happen so just prevent anyone from earning more than $250,000 a year.  Derek Jeter, the IRS is on the line wanting to know how they can claim $58 million of the $59 million contract you just signed.