House Approves Changes to Budget Rules (Dems BLOCK Future Tax Cuts)

Resurgent House Democrats voted Friday, their second day back in control, to block future tax cuts or benefit increases from being financed with dollars that swell the national deficit.

Okay, so let's propose tax cut bills with language that reduces spending to compensate. Shall we start with the Department of Education?

It's sad that the Democrats were able to get this bit of chicanery through, but in my opinion there should NEVER be an unbalanced budget. Including defense. If you don't have the money, you can't spend it, period. I don't care what persuasion that makes me.

"Fixing the AMT so that it doesn't engulf an additional 20 million tax filers next year would require almost $50 billion in tax increases or spending savings.
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lol, these politicians... cut taxes one area and raise them somewhere else.... whats the point?"

The point is: the Dems like tax increases and with this phony "paygo" they just put in place automatic tax increases.

How's that?
Multiple ways. 1) the AMT is not indexed for inflation. So it amounts to an automatic tax increase every year. Now in the past the Republicans would just delay it for a year or two and prevent the increase from taking effect. But under this phony "paygo" that can't be done. The Dems get a tax increase they don't have to vote on and can't be vetoed.

Now you say, why didn't the GOP just permanently get rid of the AMT. They never had enough votes. That would have required super-majorities in the Senate that the GOP never had.

2)The Bush tax cuts were not permanent for the same reason. The GOP extended them as much as possible but they expire in a few years.

Then the Dems will get another automatic tax increase that they don't have to vote on and can't be vetoed. It will take a political earthquake in favor of the GOP to stop these increases. By that I mean the GOP will have to win the House , Senate, and keep the White House because if the Dems have any of these they can block a bill that would be required to keep these automatic increases from taking affect.

Amen to that. Cutting taxes without spending offsets is BS.

Makes you wonder why it's so hard for Congress to understand. Paying down the national debt is a defacto tax cut anyway, but getting there isn't politically sexy so both parties have ignored its feasibility.

Servicing the national debt is the third most expensive item on the budget, behind Defense and income redistribution programs. And we get NOTHING for it - no roads, no guns, no police. It's like flushing half a trillion dollars down the toilet every year, paying interest on programs that no longer exist (in some cases) and are no longer useful (in most cases).

If we paid off the debt today, everyone would get around a 7% tax cut - with no spending cuts necessary. A nice start, but it will take years of economic tighthandedness to make it happen. Which is why it will never happen.

And yes we are at war, but the defense budget represents less than 20% of our expenditures. There are other places to cut.

IF we really are at war then we should be at WAR, with sacrifice from every sector. In that way Rangle and some of the other libs have a point; no shared sacrifice on the part of the population- we keep our tax cuts, our bridges to nowhere infrastructure pork, our farm subsidies while others fight and die; I don't think it's right; either the NATION is at war or none of us are at war. And in that shared sacrifice comes the commitment to stay in and win; without some 'cost' on the part of the masses patriotic support of the war is more akin to the loyalty felt by the fans of a sports team than the backs to the wall fight against an implacable, Satanic and committed enemy that we are in for- either until we eliminate Islam or it eliminates us. But there are people who are far more concerned with their 30 pieces of silver than with doing what we need to do to ensure that the children born THIS century ask "What WAS a Muslim?".

Just my crotchety .02

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