Posted on 01/06/2013 8:26:45 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Pelosi: "Not enough" revenue in "fiscal cliff" deal
By Jake Miller
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., argued that additional revenue must be included in upcoming deficit reduction deals, calling the revenue secured by the "fiscal cliff" deal "significant" but "not enough."
"The President had originally said he wanted $1.6 trillion in revenue," she said on "Face the Nation." "He took it down to 1.2 as a compromise in this legislation. We get $620 billion dollars, very significant, high-end tax, changing the high-end tax rate to 39.6 percent, but that is not enough on the revenue side."
Pelosi declined to go into particulars, saying she was "fairly agnostic" about how to secure more revenue, but implied that closing loopholes and deductions was more likely than revisiting tax rates.
"Put it all on the table and see what is working," she said, identifying the carried interest loophole and oil subsidies as two examples of dubious tax expenditures that may be targeted.
Asked if Democrats are ready to significantly reform entitlement programs to address the deficit, Pelosi said, "We already have," pointing to the Affordable Care Act's $716 billion in Medicare provider cuts.
She replied with a quick "no" when asked whether she supports raising the Medicare eligibility age but signaled that she would be open to additional means testing to reduce Medicare payments to wealthy beneficiaries.
She also seemed disinclined to consider any cost of living adjustment that could reduce Social Security benefit payments, saying, "I do not think we should do anything to Social Security that reduces benefits to the beneficiaries." Tossed around during the "fiscal cliff" negotiations was the idea of "chained" CPI, which would have tied the cost of living adjustment for Social Security to the inflation rate. It ultimately was not included in the final deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
I propose a confiscation of the wealth of all of the millionaire congress-critters, senatorial pukes, and el Presidentes.
Only half kidding
I am NOT saying I agree with either one.
But I would rather hear the enemy clearly.
I thought it was $4B over a decade.
You are not stealing anymore of our money. What we still have, we will fight to defend. Your government is nothing but a gigantic quicksand of debt. Any money given to your government, is wasted on bankrupt failed ideologies, bankrupt failed policies and bankrupt failed companies.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
More specifically, given that the plurality of clauses in Section 8 are defense related, and given that the Department of Defense (DoD) budget for 2011 was $600+ billion, I will generously round the DoD annual budget up to $1 trillion, but probably much less, as a rough estimate as to how much Section 8 should be costing taxpayers per year.
In other words, taxpayers should not be hearing about multi-trillion federal dollar budgets which the mainstream media, including Obama guard dog Fx News, is reporting in federal public policy discussions without mentioning Justice Marshall's clarification of Congress's limited power to lay taxes.
I appreciate people posting articles about Pelosi, but I wish they wouldn’t. This liquored up old hag loves this stuff. It just eggs her on to make these kinds of statements. If the liquor doesn’t get her, old age will. Either way, her last words will be forgive me GOD.
Pelosi suggests top earners pay even more in taxesRich, Constitution-ignoring government "leaders" like Nancy Pelosi are probably oblivious to the following historical fact. Thomas Jefferson had indicated that, in his time, rich US citizens bore the entire burden of paying the taxes necessary to run the federal government.
"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied (emphasis added). … Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.But also note that, in Jefferson's time, Justice john Marshall had officially clarified that Congress cannot lay taxes in the name of state power issues, issues such as healthcare, retirement, public schooling, etc., which Congress has no authority under Section 8 of Article I to address.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
So regarding rich federal lawmakers like Pelosi, I'll bet that she'd be the first to complain that Congress is taxing and spending way beyond its Section 8-limited powers if the rich were to once again uniquely bear the burden of paying for the federal government to operate.
OK G******it— what was the deficit when GWB left office?
Wasn’t it 800 Billion, and that with Iraq ongoing?
This ? and lots like her in the demonrat and rinorat groups are TOSSING around figures that are twice that in NEEDED revenue, and even more the cumulative debt after 4 years of this idiot and his pals, at 16 Trill. And he wants MORE?
One trillion is one thousand times one billion so the 1.6 trillion originally demanded by obamaomau is twice the original deficit of 800 Billion. “He took it down to 1.2 as a compromise in this legislation. We get $620 billion dollars, very significant, high-end tax, changing the high-end tax rate to 39.6 percent, but that is not enough on the revenue side.” This is INSANITY this kind of casual bandying about of impossible numbers, with 23 million out of ANY kind of work, and the asset wealthy untouched. Even if they WERE taxed at 100% it would not be made up.
By the way— just who in the hell is the “WE” pelosi says— WE? Who would that be— the Statists, the apparatchiks, the bureaucrats from mindless useless duplicative agencys with each one staffed with more than 20 100k a year Fed jobs with bennies and a staff of govt lawyers paid the same way? That ‘we’?
We need to put this out to the entire moron public— visually. This is IMPOSSIBLE. McConnell is saying that the debt is greater than our entire economy— and he’s right. Keep saying this. And what would a family do? (I know, don’t tell me, pay one credit card off with another at “zero” percent- the family version of “kick the can down the road musical chairs”)
Why is it written in stone we have to commit to every PRIOR expenditure for the justification of raising a debt limit (the classic BS line being put out now is “IT’s money we’ve already spent”. NO it is NOT, not if we pull the plug,now and devil be damned. Do it and tough crap). THEY are saying that we have to commit— for their agendas— we do not. No wonder Geithner is leaving, the little lying cheat. It is the SPENDING, and always has been. The executive is glad for the chaos all part of Cloward Piven.
I did not take it as you agreed with either one...that was a given or I am sure neither you nor I would be on this site!!!
“all other industries get the same writeoffs”
Yeah, but oil is special because people need it and they charge a price! The unmitigated gall!/s
Nancy and reality rarely intersect.
Haven’t you been paying attention since Helvering? Congress has power not only to tax but also to spend, regulate, whatever based on the “general welfare” clause of Section 8, wherein providing for the general welfare is interpreted as meaning found whatever it is they want without violating other parts of the Constitution people arbitrarily think are more important, as well as extraconstitutional ideas that they happen to favor.
By the way, Gibbons v Ogden is a prime example of constitutional overreach itself. Marshall bastardized “commerce” into “navigation,” and also butchered the necessary and proper clause. For all that it was miraculous by today’s standards. I wonder why you stress following section 8 of article 1, of all things, when they don’t follow much if anything else in the there.
Yeah voting in a bunch of crony capitalists (like Bush) will solve the problem. Screw the GOP vote conservative.
"In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793.
In fact, about a decade before Constitution-ignoring socialist FDR was elected to the Oval Office, the Court had reflected Jefferson's words above as evidenced by the following excerpt from Linder v. United States.
"4. An act of Congress must be construed, if fairly possible, so as to avoid not only the conclusion that it is unconstitutional, but also grave doubts upon that score." --Linder v. United States, 1925.
Also, the problem with the split Supreme Court of the 1930s subjectively reading federal taxing and spending programs like SS into the general welfare clause in Helvering is the following. Activist justices had wrongly ignored that Thomas Jefferson had clarified the following reasonable limits on Congress's general welfare clause powers.
"1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, "to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare." For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." --Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.
In fact, regarding things like government retirement and healthcare programs, Jefferson had clarified that the Founding States had uniquely reserved to the states the power to take care of the people.
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons (emphasis added), our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801.
So as Jefferson had complained, why have a constitutionally limited power federal government if activist justices are going to find "hidden" federal government powers in clauses like the general welfare clause?
It also doesn't help matters when voters are not being taught the Founder's constitutional division of federal and state government powers.
Conservatives run as Republicans, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The current meme being pushed is that the democrats will win control of the House in 2014.
Nancy is just attempting to maintain her currency in the event that the democrats do win the House, she can be restored to the Speakership.
Lord help us if this ever comes to pass.
You’re absolutely right. If Congress can do whatever it wants so long as they pretend it’s for the general welfare why did they bother enumerating specific powers later on in that section? Article 1, section 8 should be one sentence long, reading “Congress may do whatever it wants to provide for the general welfare.” This is not even to mention the 10th amendment and the Asian sized power territory stolen by the feds properly belonging to the states and people.
I only brought up Helvering and played devil’s advocate to remind everyone that the Constitution as ratified no longer has the force of law. That the general welfare clause has been elasticized and stretched to cover a multitude of sins. You might as easily get cops and judges to recognize the existence of a 4th amendment as limit Congress to its section 8 powers.
By the way, the Gibbons decision is a narrow interpretation in some respects and loose in others. I hate to pick on it since the result was good and there are so many worse rulings. But he deliberately and I think purely in interest of hus vision of federal power misread “commerce” as “navigation.” They are two different words. Congress had and has no power to regulate interstate navigation that isn’t commercial.
Marshall did this all the time, more fatally in reworking the “necessary” in “necessary and proper” to something along the lines of useful or incidental to. Which it obviously is not. The rationalization was, I think, based on the existence of the phrase “absolutely necessary” somewhere else in the Constitution, therefore robbing the other, more famous “necessary” of the possibility of meaning that without which an enumerated power cannot be executed. But there’s a gaping gulf between absolutely necessary and merely incidental. You can’t swing so widely in the other direction because of a little modifier.
Although constitutionally ignorant voters are a part of the problem, it was naive of most of the delegates to the ConCon to expect tyrants in president’s clothing to work within the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers. Ben Franklin was appropriately pessimistic with respect to his alleged, “if they can keep it,” remark.
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.