Posted on 11/14/2012 9:19:01 AM PST by mojito
President Obama is taking a tough opening stance in talks over deficit reduction, pushing Republicans to accept a plan that calls for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over the next ten years, according to reports.
The figure is double the $800 billion last discussed by the White House and House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) during their 2011 negotiations on raising the debt-ceiling limit.
The presidents plan is based on his most recent budget proposal, which sought the $1.6 in new revenues by targeting the wealthy and corporations.
The president and congressional lawmakers are set to meet at the White House on Friday as both sides begin hammering out a deficit-cutting plan that helps the nation move past the fiscal cliff of rising tax rates and automatic spending cuts set to take effect in January 2013....
House Republicans on Wednesday were incredulous at the president's opening bid....
On Tuesday the president met privately with a number of union leaders and liberal activists to discuss his plan. In the meeting Obama reportedly promised to make good on his vow to renew low tax rates for the middle class and let them expire for wealthy households.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I’m sure there are insane asylums in which it makes sense too.
The only tax increase I am for is 100% tax on incomes exceeding $250,000 for Hollywood actors, and a 100% tax on ANY income earned by Warren Buffett.
I don’t have an issue with debt in and of itself. And the Fed did nice work with Operation Twist and refinanced a large portion of the debt to long term at exceptionally low rates. the problem is that with it going up significantly faster than the economy is growing we are going to reach a point where we might not be able to meet our obligations. That is a national security issue.
I just don’t want to hear any of them talk about raising taxes and that helping. $1.6 Trillion over 10 years is a rounding error.
LOL, I actually think I could make an exception to get behind those kinds of a tax increase.
Refinancing debt by means of digitizing dollars into existence and buying our own securities (even long-duration products, priced absurdly by fiat) is how our government now transfers its obligations from one hand to the other, while gleefully spending itself into oblivion while also banking on wealth creation that cannot reasonably occur in such an environment as ours, which is positively toxic toward economic freedom.
Eisenhower had very little nondefense spending to contend with, although he did expand social security and start the interstate system. As of 1960, defense accounted for more than half the whole federal budget, which was less than 100 billion dollars.
He never had to pay for Medicare or the rest of LBJ's Great Society.
As far as "demobilizing" after WWII, he of course reduced the size of the military but had hundreds of thousands of troops remaining in the former axis powers, segueing directly into the Cold War. Then there was the little matter of the Korean War, before Ike even took office and needed to be "paid for" as well.
The economy under Ike was good but not great, with a serious recession in the mid fifties. When JFK ran in 1960, one of his effective campaign phrases was a promise to "get the country moving again," which he did by passing a major tax cut, which is usually acknowledged to have set off the boom of the "Soaring Sixties."
Circumstances make a difference, like the fact that in 1960, when OPEC was formed, the world price of oil at the well head was still under $2 a barrel. Not a bad thing for revving up an economy based on basic heavy industry and a burgeoning auto industry, but had nothing to do with Ike or his policies.
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