Posted on 01/01/2013 9:13:47 PM PST by Olog-hai
Past its own New Year’s deadline, a weary Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid a national “fiscal cliff” of middle class tax increases and spending cuts late Tuesday night in the culmination of a struggle that strained America's divided government to the limit.
The bill’s passage on a bipartisan 257-167 vote in the House sealed a hard-won political triumph for the president less than two months after he secured re-election while calling for higher taxes on the wealthy.
Moments later, Obama strode into the White House briefing room and declared, “Thanks to the votes of Republicans and Democrats in Congress I will sign a law that raises taxes on the wealthiest two percent of Americans while preventing tax hikes that could have sent the economy back into recession.” …
In addition to neutralizing middle class tax increases and spending cuts taking effect with the new year, the legislation will raise tax rates on incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. That was higher than the thresholds of $200,000 and $250,000 that Obama campaigned for. But remarkably, in a party that swore off tax increases two decades ago, dozens of Republicans supported the bill at both ends of the Capitol. …
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It is not easy to underswtand what 16 trillion dollars is.
Maybe this will help.
The speed of light is about 186,282 miles per second.
There are 31,622,400 seconds in a year.
Thus in one year, at the speed of light, the distance covered is 5,890,683,916,800 miles.
5.89 trillion miles.
SO at the speed of light, the 16 trillion dollar debt is equal to 2.715 light years... at $1 per mile, that is.
That will get you more than halfway to the nearest star, as far as that goes.
It is a large number indeed...
They avoided nothing....we’re going over the cliff, and now it will be that much worse when it happens.
Sometime in the future, somebody is going to have to explain to our grandchildren how these yahoos f’d everything up.
Yep, I didn’t even get a kiss....I usually get a kiss before I get f——d.
The Democrats gave away all their leverage tonight for a comparative pittance. The real trump card the Republicans hold is to let the expense reduction portion of the sequester go over the cliff in March. That will save $3 trillion over ten years, compared to a revenue raise from what passed tonight of only $600 billion over ten years, a 5:1 ratio of cuts to tax increases. Emergency funds can later be voted for defense. I'm actually celebrating.
Wait a doggone minute. This bill orignated in the Senate and was then sent to the House. Last time I looked at the Constitution, it clearly said “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives ...” [Art I Sect 7]
This Bill is flat unconstitutional, and somebody should file suit to have it overturned.
I support it because of lack of better alternatives. Rich people pay more and every one pays less and the Bush Era tax cuts are made permanent.
The “fiscal cliff” deal isn’t everything I wanted but I’ll take what I can get now and fight for the rest later.
Republicans would have to explain if they had voted against this bill, why they want to preserve tax breaks for millionaires but increase taxes on middle class Americans.
Voting to increase every one else’s taxes is a political loser. You get to pick your fights and the GOP didn’t hold the upper hand on this issue.
Glad to see at least one FReeper who can look beyond all the knee-jerks here to see the forest AND the trees.
That’s what the Dems are hoping all GOP will say.
Voting to increase every one else’s taxes is a political loser. You get to pick your fights and the GOP didn’t hold the upper hand on this issue.
That's just stupid! THEY CREATED THIS FIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE! This isn't a winter storm or an asteroid impact or some other freak natural occurrence. This has been set up ever since the Rinos agreed to the sequestration bills in the first place. Bonehead is playing checkers while the Democrats are playing chess. He moved his queen into check only to have her taken for NOTHING. We got nothing out of this deal... and far less than we could have had had we been strong.
The media will STILL beat us up for anything that goes wrong and Obama and the Demos have won every round of this fight. When are the GOP conservatives going to realize that the GOP-E leadership is at fault here?
This Bill is flat unconstitutional, and somebody should file suit to have it overturned.
The bill out from the Senate was a House bill that was gutted 99.99%, only using the bill numbers to make it legal IAW what you have correctly stated above.
This was one of the weakest positions they were in in all the fights they got themselves into.
They ALL supported Bohner putting that bill up for a vote so Dems would pass it and many could vote symbolic 'No's', So some got their symbolic 'No' votes’s and yet taxes didn't go up for most as a result of it because it passed anyway. Bohner and Ryan voted 'yes', Cantor 'No'
The last thing any of them wanted was to vote ‘no’ on this bill and have taxes go up as a result of their killing it.(after the New Year holiday)
Now they will all support Bohner as Speaker in tomorrow's vote even after he put up the bill with the intention of House Dems voting for it to get it passed.
So this was all a big Kabuki dance.
I saw Marsha Blackburn chirping on FNC this morning about 'lines in the sand' and saying 'no', she's doing the Kabuki dance acting all excited like she actually accomplished something with her vote. I was thinking : 'Stop the empty talk and run for Speaker' as she was chirping on TV.
Those symbolic 'no's were as relevant as the 33 repeals of O-care in the (same session of the ) House. Fitting end I suppose.
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