Posted on 12/05/2012 9:32:33 AM PST by Qbert
Taxes on the wealthy are going up, House Speaker John Boehner conceded on Wednesday in challenging President Barack Obama to sit down with him to hammer out a deal for avoiding the fiscal cliff.
The statement to reporters reflected how negotiations on reducing the nation's chronic federal deficits and debt have evolved since Obama's re-election last month.
Republicans once opposed to any new revenue in their quest to shrink government now realize Obama's victory and public support for the president's campaign theme of higher taxes on the wealthy leave them with little negotiating leverage.
Less than four weeks from the automatic tax increases and spending cuts of the fiscal cliff, GOP leaders face a choice: Agree to Obama's demand to hold down tax rates on most Americans while allowing higher rates on the wealthiest 2 percent, or be blamed for everyone's taxes going up in 2013.
The major unresolved question of negotiations involving the White House and congressional leaders is whether eliminating tax deductions and loopholes -- as proposed by House Republicans -- can raise enough revenue without hitting middle class Americans too hard.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Maybe it’s a good strategy for Republicans to let Obama have his way with the near-term taxing and spending. Not agree with him but sort of allow themselves to be defeated.
Then when our economy sinks lower and masses of people get really mad at government, Obama will get all of the blame.
Government leadership through our financial crisis is no-win. This is a great time for Republicans to have Obama “lead”.
I like Rush, but he’s gotten fat (again) and lazy. Honestly, I think he just wants to get home and enjoy his wife and his home and his leisure time. He’s lost his bite.
Levin is the best, IMO.
“...The “rich” already DO pay more taxes. A LOT more, in fact....”
And so do most Americans, but not enough to pay for the over-arching welfare state that the majority of American voters seem to prefer. I’m with Mark Steyn. If the U.S. wants a Canadian-style welfare state (total government spending as a percentage of GDP is only 1% less in the U.S. than Canada)it must be willing to pay for it. Only when the Sheeple learn good and hard how much a Euro-socialist welfare costs will they respond to counter-conservative arguments.
We lost the last election round for a host of reasons but none so great as the government’s ability to spend manically while keeping the taxpayers immune from its effects through debt accumulation and central bank money printing. Left to their own devices, the voters will happily allow this arrangement to continue until it collapses under its own weight. Don’t blame John Boehner for this. It’s merely a fact of human nature.
It is not “conservative” in my mind to persist in the delusion that the people will vote to reduce the size of a government that they are not paying for, or at least not enough for. To do so would make us complicit in the demise of this great republic out of some mis-guided attraction of “low” taxes. That battle is lost. Let’s go over the cliff; achieve some real spending cuts (yes including the Pentagon);compell everyone to feed Leviathon and then work to convince them to slay him.
You can’t sell the low-tax, small government soap if your constumers are being offered low-tax, big-government soap by your competitors. Now the competition is offering to raise the price of its soap if we simply move aside and let them go over the cliff. I SAY WE SHOULD STEP ASIDE AND LET THEM PROCEED LIKE THE LEMMINGS THEY ARE.
"So who’s gonna challenge Boehner for the Speaker’s post? Anyone? Anyone?"
Yep. I'm sorry, but if there are no Conservatives willing to challenge him, we have reached a very sad day.
“a great number of people with relatively high incomes are not wealthy”
How Much in Gross Sales does the owner of a corner convenience store have to generate in order to cross the threshold of being “The Evil Rich” according to these clowns? While they’re living in the apartment upstairs from the shop?
$1/4 Million income is now the threshold identifier of greedy, rich, oppressors of the poor?
“Vichy”
With a capitol V.
What I really appreciate is how Boehner and the GOP leadership have held press conferences and gone on national TV to explain directly to the American people that (a) increasing taxes on the top 2% of wage earners will feed the federal government for an additional eight days; and (b) taxng the top 2% at 100% and confiscating 100% of their wealth will feed the govenment for less than a year. Oh wait, never mind.
I’m afraid a whole lot of people from our side are going to agree with you.
They’re going to leave the country, hunker down off the grid someplace, or start using their entrepreneurial skills to begin thinking of clever ways to game Socialism.
Sure as heck they won’t be turning up at elections for the GOP.
.... I am still at a loss to understand why so many people just turned their backs on, and let this country fall so easily. They denied their country help when she needed it most.
Yes, Nov. 6th, 2012 is an historic day that will live in infamy.
I think it’s time for someone to start an “American Patriots’ Party”.
That party would collect money to help conservative candidates win Republican primaries and then win the elections. That party would NOT contribute one penny to fund the GOP’s shameful in-bred “establishment”.
Clearly, ELECTIBLE conservatives are needed. By that, I mean people who are smart enough to see the rape-related word-traps so eagerly set by the stooge-media and AVOID stepping into them.
People who are smart enough to say to those stooges, “Your question has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the critical issue of today: how do we stop this White House from pushing America’s Middle Class deeper and deeper into poverty. Take Obama-flation for example. That is a HUGE TAX on America’s Middle Class. Or do you think that the Middle Class doesn’t buy food? Or that retired folks don’t buy gasoline?
What is a “fair share” for the “rich” to pay, John? Tell us, please. The top 10% pay 70% of all income taxes. Should it be 90%? 100%? What should it be? These guys are such F’ing jokes.
I've known Boehner for over 25 years, see him at Rotary events in the area and golf at our golf course.
I have never seen John without a cigarette or martini in his hand. I don't think he's alcoholic, but a heavy drinker, typical of the German-Americans that populate the Cincinnati area. He is always under the influence, whether 9am or 9pm but I've never seen him drunk.
Not just the rich. Just got an email from my employer, taxes for 2013 increase in Social security (up 2%), SS wage base up (110,100 to 113,700/4642.20 to 7049.40), Medicare part A payroll tax up 0.9% (1.45% to 2.35%). The 10% income tax bracket is eliminated; The lowest will be 15%. The top four brackets increase:
25% to 28%
28% to 31%
33% to 36%
35% to 39.6%
and that doesn’t include the health care insurance increases!
Welcome to Obama world.
You've got that right.
Boehner, the best liberal friend Obama has in the house.
I can hardly wait for open voting season on liberal GOP conservatives.
$ 223,500 (2012 Speaker of the House salary)
Hmmmm....Boehner slipped in under the $250,000 wire. How strange....
Hi, DO!
Just switched my voter registration this morning to “unaffiliated”. No longer a Republican.
Lucy is not holding the football for me anymore.
Best regards to you.
” I’ve been registered as a Republican since I turned 18 in 1969.”
I’ve been registered as a Republican since I turned 18 in 1972.
“Over the last 24 years, I’ve been waiting for the next Reagan. Instead we keep getting the next LBJ.”
Our party only cares about their OWN elections in the House & Senate. They sold us out for money. We have to face this soberly, and deal with it accordingly.
Who COULD do so? Paul Ryan? Not Eric Cantor. Who else in the real conservatives that have been purged by Boehner. He purged them to keep his own nasty little seat. This is a wide field of battle, all the while battling the lying socialists on both sides. There HAS to be a way to begin the march up from this point.
It starts at the state levels. And repeal of Amendment 17, no more “direct” election of Senators, allowing international and national business interests to compromise the candidate. Bring politics closer to the people the Senator is to represent. State legislatures vote for the Senator— the people know who their immediate state legislators are— and can get to them quickly. This should never have happened. Interesting that the 17th amendment was ratified by states the same year the Federal Reserve Bank was approved by the Congress.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.