Posted on 01/01/2013 12:58:14 PM PST by fooman
Do we believe Cantor will shoot this down?
(Excerpt) Read more at stream.wsj.com ...
Just sayin’
Reid said the Senate will not take up an amended bill. Why would he cave? So
we go over and stay over? And we go back into recession? Swell. To me that is like a suicide bomber. You are saying to hell with all of it, to hell with America. If we don’t get what we want then lets blow it all to pieces and ourselves with it because we are screwed no matter what. At least everyone else will suffer too.
That’s whacked! We must live, so we can fight another day. This is not the hill to die on.
Reid said the Senate will not take up an amended bill. Why would he cave? So
we go over and stay over? And we go back into recession? Swell. To me that is like a suicide bomber. You are saying to hell with all of it, to hell with America. If we don’t get what we want then lets blow it all to pieces and ourselves with it because we are screwed no matter what. At least everyone else will suffer too.
That’s whacked! We must live, so we can fight another day. This is not the hill to die on.
So we go over the cliff and have another recession. At least with everyone returning to the days of the Clinton tax rates, we will get in more revenue thus reducing the deficit. The American people need something to focus on our out of control spending and the cost of the welfare state. Paying more in taxes will bring it home that we can't continue on our present course.
Mark Steyn wrote this:
You cannot simultaneously enjoy American-sized taxes and European-sized government. One or the other has got to go.
speech warnings that we were on a one-way ticket to Continental-sized dependency, chortled to me, "Americans love Big Government as much as Europeans. The only difference is that Americans refuse to admit it."
My Gallic charmer is on to something. According to the most recent (2009) OECD statistics: Government expenditures per person in France, $18,866.00; in the United States, $19,266.00. That's adjusted for purchasing-power parity, and, yes, no comparison is perfect, but did you ever think the difference between America and the cheese-eating surrender monkeys would come down to quibbling over the fine print? In that sense, the federal debt might be better understood as an American Self-Delusion Index, measuring the ever-widening gap between the national mythology (a republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens) and the reality (a 21st century cradle-to-grave nanny state in which, as the Democrats' Convention boasted, "government is the only thing we do together.").
Generally speaking, functioning societies make good-faith efforts to raise what they spend, subject to fluctuations in economic fortune: Government spending in Australia is 33.1 percent of GDP, and tax revenues are 27.1 percent. Likewise, government spending in Norway is 46.4 percent, and revenues are 41 percent – a shortfall but in the ballpark. Government spending in the United States is 42.2 percent, but revenues are 24 percent – the widest spending/taxing gulf in any major economy.
So all the agonizing over our annual trillion-plus deficits overlooks the obvious solution: Given that we're spending like Norwegians, why don't we just pay Norwegian tax rates?
No danger of that. If (in Milton Himmelfarb's famous formulation) Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans, Americans are taxed like Puerto Ricans but vote like Scandinavians. We already have a more severely redistributive taxation system than Europe, in which the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans pay 70 percent of income tax while the poorest 20 percent shoulder just three-fifths of 1 percent. By comparison, the Norwegian tax burden is relatively equitably distributed. Yet Obama now wishes "the rich" to pay their "fair share" – presumably 80 percent or 90 percent. After all, as Warren Buffett pointed out in The New York Times this week, the Forbes 400 richest Americans have a combined wealth of $1.7 trillion. That sounds like a lot, and once upon a time it was. But today, if you confiscated every penny the Forbes 400 have, it would be enough to cover just over one year's federal deficit. And after that you're back to square one. It's not that "the rich" aren't paying their "fair share," it's that America isn't. A majority of the electorate has voted itself a size of government it's not willing to pay for.
That’s whacked! We must live, so we can fight another day. This is not the hill to die on.
The GOP likes to postpone the fight. It was the same rationale for caving in 2010 and 2011. Now we will supposedly fight on raising the debt limit. I doubt that will happen as our "leaders" will find another excuse why it is not the right time.
This country may literally have just two to three years to address our fiscal problems before it is too late. Now is the time to fight. This goes beyond partisan politics. It is a matter of national survival. A recession pales in comparison to what a true debt crisis may bring. We are bankrupt. We are running trillion dollar annual deficits. A return to historical interest rates could result in up to a trillion dollars a year in just debt servicing costs. SS has been in the red since 2010 and Medicare since 2008. With 10,000 people a day retiring for the next 20 years, things will get worse not better. The longer we wait to address these problems, the more draconian the solutions. Regardless, there is going to be plenty of pain to solve our problems.
Finally, in terms of the Senate plan, which contains plenty of pork and new spending in over 100 pages, we will need to pass it to find out what is in it. Obama and the Dems always use this tactic of waiting until the last minute and making it seem like the world will come to an end if we don't pass a certain piece of legislation. It was done with the healthcare bill as well as with the sequestration deal.
The Senate has already gone home leaving the House with a piece of crap that increases the deficit by $330 billion in 2013 and will add, by itself, another $4 trillion to the debt over ten years. Are Reps to sign off on such a deal and tell the people who voted for them to F-off. I will not vote for an Rep who signs off on this deal and work to get them defeated, The GOP is destroying its base, which is the real objective of Obama's tactics and his push to tax the rich.
I think I am familiar enough—like my tag line?
I do like it. When this country collapses I think your tag line will be
highly likely.
Obama says the deficit is ‘‘still too high’’ and warns that he will not negotiate with Congress over another increase in the nation’s debt ceiling.
"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress about whether or not they should pay the bills they have already racked up," Obama said in remarks in the White House."
Going over the cliff will get more revenue to decrease the deficit? So now we go from being dead set against tax increases to being for them? That’s a 180 degree change. Are you agreeing with Obama now?
And then there are the deep cuts in the Pentagon budget that would put 180,000 people out of work. Or are you for that too?
The current deal sucks, but going over the cliff blows. When you are between a rock and a hard place, break the rock and kick the hard place in the soft place. The GOP did that and got some wiggle room. The tax cuts we got are permanent. That takes away no small amount of uncertainty for the household budget of millions of Americans.
Now we focus on spending and the public has already said that spending cuts are necessary too.
For my part Obama has got to explain the economic basis for his refusing to cut spending. Does he think cutting spending is good or bad for the economy? None of his populist, class warfare bull crap answers that question.
It can’t just be blather about, hurting the middle class. I want to know the economic principles that he holds that make him seem so comfortable with the massive national debt that is scaring the crap out of conservatives.
We’re going over the cliff no matter what, and it will be that much worse when it inevitably happens.
It’s like that old Fram Oil commercial, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”
If Americans want the benefits of the welfare state, they must be willing to pay for them. Returning to the Clinton tax rates for everyone is far better fiscally for this country than the deal that was just struck yesterday. We will now add $330 billion more to the debt in FY 2013 and an additional $4 trillion over 10 years. We have just poured more gasoline on to the fire.
The Obama tax cuts for the 98% are part of his redistribution plan. At least for now, he is not for higher taxes on the 98% so I am not agreeing with Obama.
And then there are the deep cuts in the Pentagon budget that would put 180,000 people out of work. Or are you for that too?
We have sequestration coming up. Where will the paltry $110 billion a year be cut? I have no doubt that a deal will be struck to fund the military with $50 billion this year, but no doubt, it will be done with some fiscal gymnastics and raising some more taxes. Given the way Congress now works, there will be no real cuts for anyone. They will come up with some other scheme that has the "cuts" being made in 2015 and after, i.e., after the 2014 midterms.
We are running trillion dollar annual deficits. How long can this continue? If we reduce spending, federal jobs will be lost along with those feeding at the government teat, i.e., crony capitalists and Beltway bandits. Both parties don't want to cut spending nor does the public, which reelects them every time. The fact that you are concerned about the loss of 18,000 federal jobs shows how addicted even so-called conservatives are about keeping the gravy train going.
The current deal sucks, but going over the cliff blows. When you are between a rock and a hard place, break the rock and kick the hard place in the soft place. The GOP did that and got some wiggle room. The tax cuts we got are permanent. That takes away no small amount of uncertainty for the household budget of millions of Americans.
LOL. There are no such things as permanent tax cuts. The only thing that makes them permanent is that they will not sunset this time and require another vote to extend them. Future Congresses are not bound to keep them in place and not raise taxes, which will eventually come in order to raise the revenue to keep the welfare state treading water a little longer.
This is a bad deal and will divide and destroy the GOP, which was Obama's objective in the first place. The fallout will come especially since the GOP will not hold firm in the next looming battles over sequestration and the debt limit.
Now we focus on spending and the public has already said that spending cuts are necessary too.
In the abstract that might be the case, but the reality is far different. The public is not in favor of reducing benefits for SS or Medicare nor do they want to pay for them in the form of higher taxes. They prefer the current system where the average Medicare recipient receives three times more in benefits than they ever made in contributions.
Do the Reps have the stones to play hardball when it comes to the debt limit increase? Will they be willing to shut down the government and stop SS and Medicare payments? Or standfast while Obama claims that if the US doesn't honor its debt obligations, its credit rating will decline further and this will affect the global economy? Obama has already laid down the marker that he will not negotiate this time around on raising the debt ceiling.
For my part Obama has got to explain the economic basis for his refusing to cut spending. Does he think cutting spending is good or bad for the economy? None of his populist, class warfare bull crap answers that question.
Obama does not have to explain anything. He won. He also will say that he will not cut spending for the poor, women and children, the disabled, the old, etc. He will say that we have certain values in this society and our spending should support them. He will then say that the wealthy can pay even a bit more and that many of these programs can be means tested.
Obama is a Marxist. He doesn't believe in the trickle down concept. He is interested in social justice and fairness. The plan just passed by Congress including the Rep-controlled House increases spending and the debt and deficit. The Reps supported increased taxes on the rich, continued subsidies for Hollywood, etc. in what was packed into that 100 page monstrosity that McConnell worked out with Biden. More will emerge as people start seeing what is in the bill they just passed.
It can’t just be blather about, hurting the middle class. I want to know the economic principles that he holds that make him seem so comfortable with the massive national debt that is scaring the crap out of conservatives.
You must live in an alternate universe. Obama will continue blathering and the Reps will continue caving. Why should Obama explain anything after receiving $1 in cuts for $41 dollars in tax increases? And that doesn't include the increased tax burden of Obamacare, which will be fully implemented over the next two years.
The Reps should have chosen this opportunity to fight. They will lose the debt limit battle because Obama has more leverage there than during the tax fight. With almost one in every two Americans receiving a government check of some sort, any shutdown of the government and its ability to cut those checks will be met with huge public disapproval.
Raising marginal rates DECREASES federal revenue. If they wanted to increase revenue they would DECREASE marginal rates, not raise them!
Of course, increasing the marginal rates will take more money out of the economy and hurt other areas such as businesses.
As far as the 2% are concerned, do you disagree with the CBO estimates as to how much additional revenue would be raised by going back to the Clinton rates?
No, you do not understand the Laffer curve. What you are saying that decreasing rates reduces revenue, Historically that is not true.
If your contention is we are to the LEFT of the Laffer inflection point then make your case, try anyway.
The increased income taxes on the wealthy will raise more income, but that could be offset by losses in jobs, investment, etc.
Again, do you dispute the CBO estimates of how much additional income tax revenue will be raised by returning to the Clinton rates for those making over 400K/450K?
Yes, we will check revenues next year at this time. Raising rate NEVER increases revenue. Especially on the top income earners who hire people to make sure they pay as little as possible. We will see...
And add in the revenue from the elimination of the 2% payroll tax holiday, which averages out to about $1,600 per earner.
payroll taxes are often confuses with income taxes. You are confusing the two. Payroll taxes are mandatory and there is no way to shelter one self from paying it, legally.
Well then we are doomed. We are going down. America is over. Obama is Marx, Lenin and Mao rolled into one. No one can overcome him. He will destroy America and then dance on her grave.
Or maybe we are getting just a little bit paranoid.
MAYBE.
Medicare (Part A) has been running in the red,i.e., paying out more in benefits than receiving in contributions, since 2008 and SS since 2010.
By law, the premiums paid for Medicare Parts B and D cover only 25% of the costs. The remaining 75% comes from the General Fund. In FY-2011 that amounted to $222 billion.
The consensus among political observers is that Obama leaves Washington victorious after winning $620 billion in tax hikes from Republicans in exchange for minimal spending cuts. And Obama will be demanding more tax revenue for any cuts in spending.
The Reps lost this fight in their 2010 lame duck Congress fight that allowed Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts for just two years and later on the sequestration deal that the WH originated to delay spending cuts and to force the Reps to do something to prevent cuts to the military. This will all play out in a few months, but one thing is sure--there will be no real spending cuts.
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