Posted on 07/15/2011 10:23:00 AM PDT by quesney
President Obama on Friday kept up the pressure on Republicans to agree to revenue increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, claiming 80 percent of the public supports Democrats' demand for tax increases.
"The American people are sold," Obama said. "The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically."
Throughout the press conference, Obama blasted Republicans for ignoring what he said is the will of the American people by rejecting tax increases that would balance out spending cuts in a debt package.
"This is not an issue of salesmanship to the American people," Obama said. "I hope [Republicans are] not just listening to lobbyists and special interests ... I hope they're listening to the American people as well," Obama said, citing "poll after poll" showing Republican voters, as well as Democrats, believe in taking "a balanced approach" — including both increased revenues and spending cuts in a plan to cut the deficit.
Obama repeated his warning that the country is "running out of time" to avert a financial “Armageddon.”
"We should not even be this close on a deadline," Obama said. "This is something we should have accomplished earlier."
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Yeah....
:-)
I am talking about Bush era self identified conservatives like Hannity and the mass of Bush Republican followers that claimed that even when you raise spending astronimically that tax cuts will pay for it , therefore it costs no one and is free even when deficits are rising. In fact it look like congressional Republicans are headed for that again now with that new plan.
RE :”Not true. As a function of GDP Bush's spending was not historic. High yes; nuts, no.”
??? You might be thinking of 2005 when spending was climbing at the peak of the housing bubble, but the Bush last years 2005-2008 was as historic levels climbing each year, without tax increases after Bush tax cuts,
RE :Bush had more conservative instincts than Nixon: he certainly didn't create OSHA, the EPA, or do revenue sharing or wage and price controls
He pushed the Bush-Pelosi energy bill that banned safe light bulbs. TARP, amnesty, NCLB, the first stimulus. Nixon is not a great model. Bush was more conservative than Johnson too, but they had similarities.
Too many conservatives are looking at this as if it was the budget fight -- and they're properly angry because we got completely hosed in that "battle," receiving nothing but promises, and even the promises were trivial. The sad fact is that the money in this case is already appropriated. Unless laws are repealed we must pay it. We will never have the majorities in either the House or the Senate to do that as long as 0 is President. That means that until almost February of 2013, we are stuck with raising the debt limit, or defaulting.
The date of August 3rd is, of course, completely bogus. The President's claim that he can't guarantee SS checks will be mailed on that date is shameful. But nevertheless the fact remains that as long as 0 is President, eventually we must either raise the limit, or default. And that eventuality will occur before November 2011, not after November 2012.
0bama is essentially playing the PLO/Hamas role right now. He says a lot of nice sounding things in public about wanting to cut the deficit, but in private talks he makes it clear that he has no intention to do that. This is why Republicans are divided: He is so transparently a liar to anyone who actually knows what's going on, they can't believe they will not win the PR battle. They need to remember December 1998. The President of the United States clearly committed obstruction of justice and should have been removed.
But politics is not about what's right, and the very pathetic fact is that the middle 20% of the country -- absolute jackasses who vote on the basis of the last yard sign they see on their way into the Firehouse -- determine the outcome of our elections.
Bill O'Reilly, a genuinely insufferable, self-aggrandizing clod if ever there was one, knows this bunch quite well. Conservatives may not like him (they shouldn't) but his instincts are generally correct about them because as a populist blowhard his livelihood depends on it. He understands that they're not "ideological." All this really means is that they don't have any self-consistent political thought process, but never mind. He says they think the Republicans are losing on this, and to some degree they probably are. But independents still do think "it's the spending, stupid." So do we. So we must not allow our political alliance on this most important common ground to be lost.
McConnell's plan forces 0bama to either prove himself a liar, or actually cut when he says he wants to cut. [He will under no circumstances cut, and his reelection chances will go down in flames if he proves himself a liar.] McConnell's gambit was brilliant. Unfortunately, too many conservatives have knee-jerked this, including Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh of both of whom I am a fan.
Eventually, we will either execute McConnell's plan, we will raise taxes, or we will default. I don't believe it's an exaggeration to say that the last two outcomes may well mean the end of the GOP.
Let me get to this one tomorrow as it is late here.
This subject is more what I was getting at initially on this thread not Bush history, your post has some very logical points and some that can be debated.
Please do not tell me you're trying to compare this to EPA.
TARP,
A bi-partisan cave-in, as I recall.
amnesty,
So did Reagan. The only difference was that Reagan's amnesty actually passed.
NCLB,
The jury's still out on NCLB: the teahcer's unions hate it, so it can't be all bad.
the first stimulus.
If you mean Bush's tax cuts, they were the right thing to do. If you mean the $85 bn stimulus passed by the Democrat Congress, please, that's chicken feed compared to the territory we're in now. Bush should not have agreed to it. It was not a conservative thing to do.
In any event, Bush was not a conservative. Nothing you've posted changes that assessment, in fact it all reinforces it.
You ROCK, Bay-Bay!!
You RULE, Good Lookin’!!
That's not what I said. I think tax increases can decrease govt. revenue, but with these clowns in charge, even if they do increase revenue, it encourages more spending.
One told me when he gets a tax cut like FICA he spends it ( right !) and it stimulates the economy. That's looks like Keynesian stimulus to me.
That's as silly as the notion that tax cuts are "beneficial government intervention," as one Keynsian told me. I am in favor of lower taxes and lower spending, but I think it would have been better not to have higher taxes in the first place, rather than endless government tinkering.
I am extremely cynical about the idea that more taxes lead to lower deficits. It's theoretically possible, but look at the history.
The liberal ‘politifact’ gets it wrong again. ‘mostly true’??
Obama:”You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts.”
Gallup:
A Gallup poll conducted July 7-10, 2011 posed the question this way:
“As you may know, Congress can reduce the federal budget deficit by cutting spending, raising taxes, or a combination of the two. Ideally, how would you prefer to see Congress attempt to reduce the federal budget deficit: only with spending cuts, mostly with spending cuts, equally with spending cuts and tax increases, mostly with tax increases, or only with tax increases?”
The answer
“only spending cuts” got 20 percent.
“mostly spending cuts,” 30 percent;
“equal spending cuts and tax increases,” 32 percent;
“mostly tax increases,” 7 percent;
“only tax increases,” 4 percent;
unsure/other, 6 percent.
A “balanced approach” would be the 32% answer - equal spending and tax increases. He’s off by 48%. That would be like saying that the national debt at $14.5 trillion is only $7.5 trillion. That’s not “mostly true”. That’s clearly in the ‘pants on fire’ area.
Also note that the ‘only and mostly’ on both sides of the actual ‘balanced 32%’ - ‘only and mostly cuts’ beats ‘only and mostly tax’ 50% to 11%.
The second statement that people support cuts and taxes tops out at 69% (as people have noted, the poll really should separate out people that don’t pay taxes and wouldn’t, even if taxes are raised. AND you’ll note that politifact rounds that off to 70%! and calls it ‘balanced’ when only 32% is truly balanced.) but still that’s 11% off and like saying the nat’l debt is $12.9 trillion.
He’d never get away with saying the nat’d debt is either of those figures and even politifact couldn’t bail him out if he did.
Obama and Reid. Where is YOUR plan? Ok, so you want to raise taxes, WHERE IS YOUR PLAN?
McConnell's trick might be our best hope.The idea is to get Obama to eat one poison pill or another. However:
1) He has been proving himself a liar for quite a while now, but too many voters don't care or are not paying attention.
2) Some House conservatives won't vote for it, so if Boehner wants it to pass in the House, he may need Dem votes. If so, I am afraid he will take out meaningful tax cuts, or delay so long that Obama will use the fear of pending economic doom. If all voters were like me, not raising the debt ceiling might be a good idea, but too many are easily manipulated, unfortunately.
When did the National motto go from , “In G0d we trust” to , “Thank you sir, may I have another?”?
Nice discussion but you left out the major issue causing the corporations to retain cash well in excess of any reasonable operational need: the presence of a government which almost whimsically changes the rules of the game with almost no warning or lead time. That means that corporations have incredibly large risk and it is prudent to insure against risk. Holding large cash balances insures companies against new regulatory requirements and taxes, which the Obama Administration almost guarantees (at least, it could when Nanzi Pelosi held the GAVEL).
It is my humble opinion that the only purpose corporate income taxes serve is to raise prices. Taxes, no matter upon whom imposed, are entirely paid by final consumers. That would be you, moshiach, and me, BelegStrongbow.
Remember that cash earns next to nothing. The corporations would not hold it if they had a reasonable expectation of earning a positive net return on expending or investing it. So the only thing restraining them has to be that the risk of loss is higher than the expectation of gain. So they hold cash, earning 1 penny on each dollar every other year. Terrible return, but better than losing and maybe ending up sued by the Feds for taking a loss and ‘hurting the stockholders’ (like this Administration cares one whit for actual bond- or shareholders, heh).
If you can convince the corporate and industrial leadership of the US that there will be a stable and reasonable regulatory regime in place for at least 10 years, then the dam will break and all that cash will flow back into the economy. IMHO, the best corporate income tax rate is zero. Tax their property? Of course. Tax their purchases? If for corporate consumption and not for resale? Gotcha. Tax their income? Why? If it flows to shareholders, you’re going to tax it as income then. Thus it can’t be the revenue, because all you’ve done is displace it from the owners to the operators. It must be that it is politically expedient to tar the productive sector of the nation so you can extract taxes you couldn’t otherwise justify and thus build up your own political power base and grow government.
Is that what you want, moshiach? Bigger government? Myself, I’m much in favor of a much smaller government and a much more prosperous and productive private sector. So I want zero corporate income tax. How about you?
I USED to be ;-)
Sure they Barry, sure they do.
In fact 80% not ONLY want MORE taxes, they also are demanding that the Government take ALL of Wealthy people’s money and property so that a Fair-minded Marxist believing Government can redistribute all of that as they see fit.
AND, they are calling for the complete dismantling of America’s Free market because that is racist and unfair.
Barry just jumped the shark people, he just went WAY too far and he will never be able to take THIS ONE back.
The guy sounds allot more like Joseph Stalin or Vladimir Lenin, than he ever does Ronald Reagan or even JFK.
I know, I just added that in support of what you said.
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