New definition of GOP "Success."
• Caved to Obama on tax increased, but failed to stop gutting of the military through sequestration taking place in March (military is 18% of the budget, yet takes 50% of the cuts)
• Failed to initiate ANY entitlement reform at all (entitlements bankrupting the nation)
• Not fighting new Obama "gun control" proposals that will instantly lead to millions of Americans becoming over night felons subject to fascist searches, prison terms, and tyranny
• Providing zero leadership on the great moral struggles of our age (abortion and homosexuality)
When the debt ceiling/continuing resolution/sequestration TRIPLE CLIFF happens in March, I fully expect these two to fold like a cheap tent. Do you know what Obama did during that last debt ceiling standoff?
He threatened to withhold people's Social Security direct deposit checks the next week, despite Congress saying they would fund those.
That's ALL it took. And that is all it will take for the GOP to fold again.
Gotta disagree.
Boehner really had little wiggle room.
What he got was acknowledgment that the Bush tax cuts were a good thing all along and he got 98% of taxpayers a more permanent tax cut. He actually forced the dems to view the Bush cuts as now a good thing instead of just one more thing they demonize.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-25/business/36015725_1_bush-tax-tax-cuts-tax-rates
The above from the “Washington Post” of all places, is just one of many articles showing the dichotomy of now approving of tax cuts they once demonized.
Here’s a cut from the piece:
“President Obama has put the extension of the tax cuts for most Americans at the top of his domestic agenda, a remarkable turnaround for Democrats, who had staunchly opposed the tax breaks when they were written into law about a decade ago.”
Its hard not to see this as about the best we could have got from the cards we had to play.
He threatened to withhold people's Social Security direct deposit checks the next week, despite Congress saying they would fund those.
AND he has the backing of the left and his RAT party to do exactly that. He will indeed use it again in 2013 and DEMAND from those obstinate Republicans to have the debt ceiling REMOVED.
Here is where he derives his state run media power over this subject that the spineless Republicans can never ever win on........the below argues both ways, and provides insight into the history of this ponzi scheme LIE perpetrated by the lefties.
Social Security’s Sham Guarantee
By Michael D. Tanner
May 29, 2005
Gov. Perry's Right About Social Security
Walter E. Williams
Sep 21, 2011
Washington’s Lies
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS, OCTOBER 2010
Note: The article below has been scrubbed from all sources ( http://www.frumforum.com/social-security-checks-are-not-guaranteed/) even the wayback machine, but I post the original below.
Social Security Checks Are Not Guaranteed
July 12th, 2011 at 4:59 pm David Frum
Back when conservatives were fighting the good fight for private accounts in Social Security, we often pointed to the Supreme Court ruling that individuals had no legally enforceable right to Social Security benefits. I quote the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner:
Many people believe that Social Security is an “earned right.” That is, they think that because they have paid Social Security taxes, they are entitled to receive Social Security benefits. The government encourages that belief by referring to Social Security taxes as “contributions,” as in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act. However, in the 1960 case of Fleming v. Nestor, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that workers have no legally binding contractual rights to their Social Security benefits, and that those benefits can be cut or even eliminated at any time.
Ephram Nestor was a Bulgarian immigrant who came to the United States in 1918 and paid Social Security taxes from 1936, the year the system began operating, until he retired in 1955. A year after he retired, Nestor was deported for having been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s. In 1954 Congress had passed a law saying that any person deported from the United States should lose his Social Security benefits. Accordingly, Nestor’s $55.60 per month Social Security checks were stopped. Nestor sued, claiming that because he had paid Social Security taxes, he had a right to Social Security benefits.
The Supreme Court disagreed, saying “To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of ‘accrued property rights’ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever changing conditions which it demands.” The Court went on to say, “It is apparent that the non-contractual interest of an employee covered by the [Social Security] Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.”
The Court’s decision was not surprising. In an earlier case, Helvering v. Davis (1937), the Court had ruled that Social Security was not a contributory insurance program, saying, “The proceeds of both the employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not earmarked in any way.”
In other words, Social Security is not an insurance program at all. It is simply a payroll tax on one side and a welfare program on the other. Your Social Security benefits are always subject to the whim of 535 politicians in Washington. Congress has cut Social Security benefits in the past and is likely to do so in the future.
Conservatives are blasting President Obama for “scare tactics” when he suggests in interviews that Social Security payments will not in fact be secure in the event of a hard crash with the debt ceiling.
Actually Obama is here channeling 100% classic conservative theory. Conservatives have argued for 20 years that Social Security is a pure gratuity, vulnerable to change at the whim of Congress. That’s why we wanted to change it! But the consequence of Social Security being a pure gratuity is that Social Security recipients must stand at the back of the line if it becomes necessary to slash spending by 44% . Bondholders collect first. People with other contracts and other legally enforceable claims collect next. Those without legally enforceable claims collect last. That last category includes not only Social Security recipients and the unemployed, but also, for example, soldiers in the field.
It can’t be right that the Secretary of the Treasury has the discretionary power to pay anybody he likes. Some people have legally stronger claims against the federal government than others. Unfortunately for the GOP’s strategy in this bizarre game of threat and counter-threat, the claims that are most politically powerful also happen to be legally weaker.
I'll also disagree. The lower income Obama voters who believed that "millionaires" were going to get soaked are going to be surprised when they look at their paychecks and discover that
they are the millionaires!
True, the seriously wealthy might see a change if they just stand there like a deer in headlights. But they won't. Most of them wouldn't have become seriously wealthy if they weren't really, really smart in the first place. So I doubt the gov't will collect near the $60 billion it projects from the income tax increases. I think Obama actually believes he won, and Boehner believes he lost. Okay -- let Obama spiking the football if it makes him feel good, but this deal wasn't a bad deal for the rest of us.
I'm more worried about them monetizing so much of the deficit, rather than cutting spending. This did not work out very well when it was tried by Weimar Germany.