The Fiscal Cliff talks: a framework emerges

[FORD]

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/imgs/home/121126-republicans-ready-to-throw-grover-and-his-pledge-over-the-fiscal-cliff.jpg

GOP Starting to Rebel Against No-Tax-Hikes Pledge

By DAVID KERLEY (@David_Kerley)
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2012

With the fiscal cliff looming for the United States, some Republican members of Congress said today they are ready to break a long standing pledge not to raise taxes.

"The only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming Greece. And Republicans should put revenue on the table," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on ABC's "This Week."

Read more of the discussion of the fiscal on "This Week" today.

Graham's comments followed those by another Republican senator, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, who said last week he'll no longer abide by the pledge.

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," he said in a local interview.

He got support today from House member Peter King, another Republican from New York.

"I agree entirely with Saxby Chambliss -- a pledge he signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago is for that Congress," King said on NBC's "Meet the Press." He added, "The world is changed and the economic situation is different."

This growing chorus is about the pledge that Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist has gotten hundreds of Republicans to sign. But in an interview with ABC News, Norquist says it's just a few deserters.

"The people who have made a commitment to their constituents are largely keeping it," he said. "The fact is there is more support for both protecting the rates, you saw the Republican leader in the house say rates are non-negotiable, and he also talked about revenue coming from growth."

But President Obama has said rates will go up for the wealthy. There could be some political cover for Republicans if the country actually goes over the cliff. All the Bush era tax cuts would expire, including those for the wealthy. Congress could then vote to actually reduce taxes for everyone expect the rich. Therefore, they wouldn't technically raise taxes and violate Norquist's pledge.

But Norquist said he doesn't think the public would buy those political moves, and he also doesn't think the country will actually go over the cliff.

"I think we'll continue the tax cuts. Not raise taxes $500 billion. Obama made the correct decision (by extending the Bush tax cuts) two years ago," Norquist told us.

Leading Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin also said he believes a deal is possible now that the Thanksgiving holiday break is over.

"We can solve this problem," he said on "This Week," adding: "There's no excuse. We're back in town."

[sadaist]

I say we hop off this fiscal cliff with a huge "GERONIMOOOOOOOOO"!!!!!


Fuck it. We need a disaster so we can repair. Enough bandaging already. Blow the dam already & build a new one.

A radio host here in LA (Bill Handel) says he always votes YES on every single tax increase ever. His reasoning is so that we go broke that much faster so we can finally start fresh & see the folly of our ways. He wants to push the taxpayers past the brink so they finally wake up. To him it is the only way we will ever change our ways is by hitting absolute rock bottom. I have heard worse reasoning.

[FORD]

The fiscal cliff is mostly hysterical bullshit.

The most obvious first step here is to simply roll everything back to where it was before Chimpy illegally occupied the White House. Bill Clinton left office with a surplus. Kill the Chimp "tax cuts" for the rich, and roll back the "defense" budget to the pre-2001 level of ridiculous bloating and that would be a good start.

An even better idea would be to roll ALL the tax, trade, and "defense" policies back to where they were in 1980. That's when the toilet spiral started.

[Nickdfresh]

I don't think going off the "Fiscal Cliff" would be the end of the world, as Warren Buffett has stated that it wouldn't be the end. But we're talking about upwards of $3000 the typical middle class family won't be putting back into the economy if taxes go up...

[FORD]

I don't think going off the "Fiscal Cliff" would be the end of the world, as Warren Buffett has stated that it wouldn't be the end. But we're talking about upwards of $3000 the typical middle class family won't be putting back into the economy if taxes go up...

Which is why you let ALL the Chimp tax "cuts" expire, THEN you have the new Congress pass tax cuts for the working/middle class in January. Nobody violates their stupid pledge, and nobody pays more taxes, except the people who should.

[BigBadBrian]

The fiscal cliff is mostly hysterical bullshit.

The most obvious first step here is to simply roll everything back to where it was before Chimpy illegally occupied the White House. Bill Clinton left office with a surplus. Kill the Chimp "tax cuts" for the rich, and roll back the "defense" budget to the pre-2001 level of ridiculous bloating and that would be a good start.



Fine. Roll back other spending to that era also: Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Unemployment Benefits, etc. Deal?

Also, Clinton era rates substantially raises taxes on a large part of the Middle Class. You sure you want to do that?

[Nickdfresh]

Fine. Roll back other spending to that era also: Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Unemployment Benefits, etc. Deal?

Also, Clinton era rates substantially raises taxes on a large part of the Middle Class. You sure you want to do that?

And military & corporate-welfare defense industry entitlements?

I know you like your porks, Brianne... :hagar3:

[BigBadBrian]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/28/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Washington (CNN) -- An angry warning by President Barack Obama delivered well over a year ago foreshadowed his campaign-style approach Wednesday to pressuring Republicans to compromise on a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.
In July 2011, Obama told House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, one of the lead Republican negotiators in the endless budget battles of president's first term, that it was time to make a deal or face the consequences.

"Don't call my bluff," the president said in ending the White House meeting, according to Cantor. "I'm going to the American people with this."
Obama subsequently held a series of events around the country, mostly in swing states of the November election, in which he pushed for higher taxes on the wealthy as part of his main campaign theme to restore equal opportunity for the middle class.
Obama met with 15 small business owners
He won re-election, and, faced again with the same fiscal issues -- a seemingly unbridgeable divide with Republicans over taxes and spending -- Obama is again taking his case to the people.
What is 'Fix the Debt?'

Failure to reach a deal means tax increases and deep spending cuts take effect in five weeks -- the fiscal cliff scenario that analysts fear could push the country back into recession.
Obama also wants an agreement reached in the current lame-duck session of Congress to include an increase in the federal debt ceiling, which is expected to be needed as soon as February or March.
On Wednesday, Obama meets with the chief executives of major corporations, while congressional Republicans and Democrats will talk separately with deficit-reduction gurus, including former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired a special panel appointed by Obama in 2010 to study the matter.
The president also will meet with those described by the White House as middle-class Americans who face a major impact from the fiscal cliff -- higher taxes and automatic reductions in military and discretionary federal spending at the end of the year.
One fiscal cliff fix -- raise gas tax

Obama concludes the week with a trip Friday to Hatfield, Pennsylvania, to visit a manufacturing operation and deliver a speech.
Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner's office announced Tuesday that congressional Republicans will hold a series of events in Washington and home districts across the country with small business owners to frame Obama's tax policy as a threat to new jobs.

The series of events on both sides showed the high-profile tactics being used to demonstrate to the nation, including financial markets, that a deal can happen.
Stocks closed lower Tuesday as investors grew increasingly concerned about whether Congress can adequately and swiftly address the situation.
With the U.S. economy showing more signs of improvement in its long recovery from recession, economists point to fears about higher taxes in 2013 as a potential threat to rising consumer confidence.
Asked why Obama was meeting with business leaders and traveling to Pennsylvania instead of negotiating directly with Republicans in Congress, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday it was important to bring the broader American public into the discussion.
The fiscal cliff resulted from a failure to reach a deficit reduction agreement in the past two years due to longstanding differences between Democrats and Republicans on taxes -- particularly whether to extend tax cuts from President George W. Bush's administration.


Obama made the issue a central theme of his election campaign, and now the White House believes the president's re-election validated his call for including more tax revenue in addressing the nation's chronic federal deficits and debt.
"This topic was perhaps the most debated, the most discussed, the most analyzed, for a year," Carney told reporters, adding that the election result showed Americans supported Obama's approach.
"To suggest that we should, now that the election's over, stop talking to the American people about these vital issues is, I think, bad advice," Carney said.
Last week, Obama's former campaign manager, Jim Messina, said the president's re-election campaign and its grass-roots resources will "live on," most likely as a tool to promote the president's second-term policies.
Obama for America, the name of the campaign, already released an e-mail to its distribution list in an attempt to educate readers on the president's fiscal cliff argument and to rally supporters behind him.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky complained that Obama was "back on the campaign trail" instead of "sitting down with lawmakers of both parties and working out an agreement."
"We already know the president is a very good campaigner," McConnell said on the Senate floor. " ... What we don't know is whether he has the leadership qualities necessary to lead his party to a bipartisan agreement on big issues like we currently face."
Obama wants to let tax rates for income over $250,000 for families or $200,000 for individuals return to higher 1990s levels, while maintaining current rates for the rest of the country. He contends his plan would prevent a tax hike for 98% of Americans.

Republicans seeking to shrink the size of government oppose increasing any tax rates, arguing that Obama's plan would hinder job growth because some small business owners who file personal returns would pay higher taxes under it.
While aides on both sides have been talking, no follow-up meeting between Obama and congressional leaders has been scheduled after their initial post-election discussion on November 16.
Time running out on debt ceiling
Instead, Obama met Tuesday with small business owners, the first in a series of events this week intended to highlight his push for raising taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Americans while maintaining current rates for everyone else.
After the White House gathering, three of the 15 small business owners who took part said they wanted certainty about their own tax situations while preventing middle-class Americans from paying higher taxes.
Andra Rush, who founded Rush Trucking of Wayne, Michigan, said her message to Obama was that failure to extend the tax cuts to the middle class could stall what she called new economic momentum in the country.

"I would have higher tax rates," Rush conceded, adding that it was more important for "ordinary Americans" to have more money to spend instead of paying it in taxes if everyone's rates go up.
Boehner and other influential GOP figures have declared their willingness to consider other ways to boost tax revenue as part of a broader deal that includes entitlement reforms and spending cuts.
That position undermines the no-tax-increase pledge championed by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, which Democrats consider to be a major impediment to a deficit reduction deal.
Some Republicans -- including conservative Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina as well as Rep. Peter King of New York and Scott Rigell of Virginia -- have dropped their adherence to Norquist's pledge.
Norquist responded harshly Monday night, telling CNN that those denouncing the pledge were breaking their commitment to voters. He targeted King for saying a pledge signed years ago no longer applied.

King "tried to weasel out" of the pledge, adding: "I hope his wife understands commitments last a little longer than two years or something."
According to Norquist, King knew when he signed the pledge that it applied to "as long as you're in Congress."
"It's only as long as you're in the House or the Senate. If he stayed too long, that's his problem," Norquist added.
House Republicans launch PR offensive on fiscal cliff

To CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger, the softening tone by some in the GOP was explained by new poll numbers that showed 45% of Americans would blame Republicans for failing to avoid the fiscal cliff, while 34% would blame Obama.

Republicans insist Democrats must agree to cut discretionary spending and make significant reforms to Medicare and Social Security as part of a deficit reduction deal.
However, organized labor and other elements of the Democratic base oppose any major reforms to the popular entitlement programs. While some Democratic legislators express willingness to reform Medicare and Medicaid, they reject making Social Security reform part of the fiscal cliff negotiations, saying it is self-funded and therefore doesn't add to the deficit.
The CNN/ORC International poll released Monday also showed that a solid majority of respondents -- two thirds -- supports the Democratic stance that any agreement should include a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Of that total, Republicans favor such an approach by 52%-44%.



Another poll on Wednesday by ABC News and the Washington Post showed a strong majority favoring the Obama tax proposal to raise tax rates on the wealthy. In addition, the survey indicated most Americans oppose raising the eligibility age of Medicare, one of the possible reforms proposed by some in the deficit debate.
Without a deal, tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 will expire, raising rates for everyone starting in January. In addition, spending cuts would reduce spending on the military, national parks, the Federal Aviation Administration and other government services.

However, the government and Congress still would have time to prevent draconian effects from the fiscal cliff when a new Congress convenes in January.
William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, called that a form of brinksmanship best avoided.
"To be sure, no one believes that non-agreement by December 31 would be the end of the story. After a period of finger-pointing, discussions would resume," he wrote last week in a New Republic opinion piece. "But equally, no one knows how the failure to reach agreement before the end of 2012 would affect the dynamics of the negotiations."
In addition, "we can be reasonably sure ... that national and global markets would react adversely and that businesses, which are already retreating from planned investments in new plant and equipment, would become even more uncertain and risk-averse."
Share your budget success stories

[BigBadBrian]

Defense industry entitlements? What, like military pay? Explain yourself, Nikky. :gulp:

[Kristy]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_02zlkdaxXDs/SfJB5QPu1LI/AAAAAAAABvA/js6DxxCS4h4/s400/spam+and+pam.jpg

[BigBadBrian]

Does any Liberal know how many Small Businesses make over $250,000 a year?

[BigBadBrian]

STFU, jhale... er, Kristy. You're one and the same, actually. :gulp:

[Kristy]

STFU, jhale... er, Kristy. You're one and the same, actually. :gulp:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_02zlkdaxXDs/SfJB5QPu1LI/AAAAAAAABvA/js6DxxCS4h4/s400/spam+and+pam.jpg

ad nauseam

[Satan]

Does any teabagger know how many "small businesses" are anything BUT??

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Federation_of_Independent _Business

[BigBadBrian]

Does any teabagger know how many "small businesses" are anything BUT??

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-26/is-the-small-business-lobby-really-all-about-big-business

See, You didn't answer. It figures.

[Satan]

Funny how Brian objects to this President constantly trying to be reasonable to Repukes (far more than they deserve, in my Most Unholy opinion) but never had a problem with the Chimp who didn't win either of his elections bragging about his "political capital"

[jhale667]

STFU, jhale... er, Kristy. You're one and the same, actually. :gulp:


http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h217/jhale667/keep-calm-and-just-die-13.png

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I'll let Keith expound on the definition of small business, I know you appreciate it....

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[FORD]

Shocked that MSNBC still has the Olbermann clips available, considering how they crapped all over him.

[BigBadBrian]

I'll let Keith expound on the definition of small business, I know you appreciate it....


Just tell us. Watching that Far-left Loon makes me ill.

[BigBadBrian]

Classy. :gulp:

[BigBadBrian]

Funny how Brian objects to this President constantly trying to be reasonable to Repukes .....

How in the hell do you figure he's being reasonable? Republicans put more revenue on the table and now Obama says he'll consider cutting entitlements and other spending "next year."

He's anything BUT reasonable.

Besides, raising more revenue the way they want takes care of 18% (maximum) a year in our annual deficit spending. Somebody needs to teach Democrats basic math skills.

[DLR Bridge]

I can't open what VA posted, but if it's the clip I think it is, it's quite comprehensive. BBB, set aside the hate and check it out.

[BigBadBrian]

I can't open what VA posted, but if it's the clip I think it is, it's quite comprehensive. BBB, set aside the hate and check it out.

I don't hate anyone. I despise the man's delivery, snottiness and elitism, however. He's the Far-Left equivalent of Glenn Beck, whom I really don't care for either.

Someone just tell me how Olbermann defines "small business."

[DLR Bridge]

His delivery is fine on this. Just watch the fucking thing.

[BigBadBrian]

Inside the talks: Fiscal framework emerges

LINK (http://www.politico.com/story/2012/11/84364.html)

Listen to top Democrats and Republicans talk on camera, and it sounds like they could not be further apart on a year-end tax-and-spending deal – a down payment on a $4 trillion grand bargain.

But behind the scenes, top officials who have been involved in the talks for many months say the contours of a deal – including the size of tax hikes and spending cuts it will likely contain — are starting to take shape.

Cut through the fog, and here’s what to expect: Taxes will go up just shy of $1.2 trillion — the middle ground of what President Barack Obama wants and what Republicans say they could stomach. Entitlement programs, mainly Medicare, will be cut by no less than $400 billion - and perhaps a lot more, to get Republicans to swallow those tax hikes. There will be at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and “war savings.” And any final deal will come not by a group effort but in a private deal between two men: Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The two men had what one insider described as a short, curt conversation Wednesday night — but the private lines of communications remain very much open.

No doubt, there will be lots of huffing and puffing before any deal can be had. And, no doubt, Obama and Congress could easily botch any or all three of the white-knuckle moments soon to hit this town: the automatic spending cuts and expiration of the Bush tax cuts, both of which kick in at the end of this year, and the federal debt limit that hits early next.

But it’s clear to veterans of this budget fight a deal is there to be done. Here is the state of play that is sketched out by top officials in both parties:

The coming tax hike

There is no chance taxes are not going up for people making north of $250,000 – and virtually no chance that doesn’t include their tax rates, too.
Republicans publicly say they are opposed to rate hikes – but privately they know they are going up, if not all the way to the Clinton-era 39.6 percent, then darn close.
The reason is simple math. Take a look at this list, and you will see that any tax loopholes worth closing won’t get Obama or Republicans close to their targets.

To those involved in the talks, it’s not really a mystery how big the overall hike will be. Boehner was for $800 billion before the election, and Obama slapped down an opening bid of $1.6 trillion after. So it doesn’t take Ernst and Young to add those numbers, divide by two and know the president wants to end up close to $1.2 trillion.
)
House Republicans, already worried about possible primary challenges in 2014, are pleading to keep that number below $1 trillion, even if it is by a hair. Still, they know it’s likely to come in a shade higher. The safe bet is just over $1 trillion for the final number. A bit less, and that’s a notable win for Boehner.

Officials familiar with the White House position say Obama plans zero flexibility on his insistence on a higher tax rate for top earners. He plans to take what one aide called a “trust but verify” position: He will insist on a higher rate in the year-end deal. Then next year, during tax-reform negotiations, “the onus will be on Republicans to propose something that raises the same amount of revenue,” the aide said. “He’s going to pocket their rate hike on the top two brackets at first, and then he’s going to say to them in the 2013 process that we set up: If you think you can realize these same revenues in a different way, prove it to me.”

A rate hike would be the most difficult element for Boehner to sell to his own members. But Republicans are already trying to build the case — both with their own members and with constituents — that whatever the final deal, they fought hard. And the Speaker has drawn a sharp distinction between increasing revenue, which he will accept, and raising rates, which he has said he will not. Kevin Smith, Boehner’s communications director said: “We have no intention of increasing tax rates. Doing so will hurt small business and destroy jobs.”

John Boehner to GOP: Stick together on taxes

Boehner told his conference in a closed-door meeting Wednesday morning: “We’ve staked out a principled position. It’s important that everyone in this room continue to be clear with our constituents about what that position is: We’re fighting for spending cuts. We’re fighting against increases in tax rates that destroy jobs. And we’re fighting for pro-growth tax reform and entitlement reform, the keys to economic growth.” And the Speaker narrated slides from Republican pollster David Winston arguing that most Americans prefer overall tax reform to higher rates for the rich.

So what does the final tax hike look like? That will take a while to hash out but those involved guess it will include a rate hike, higher taxes on carried interest and probably capital gains and dividends, and either a cap on total deductions for rich people or some form of a minimum tax rate for them.

There is only way to make the medicine of tax hikes go down easier for Republicans: specific cuts to entitlement spending. Democrats involved in the process said the chest-pounding by liberals is just that – they know they will ultimately cave and trim entitlements to get a deal done.
A top Democratic official said talks have stalled on this question since Obama and congressional leaders had their friendly looking post-election session at the White House. “Republicans want the president to own the whole offer upfront, on both the entitlement and the revenue side, and that’s not going to happen because the president is not going to negotiate with himself,” the official said. “There’s a standoff, and the staff hasn’t gotten anywhere. Rob Nabors [the White House negotiator], has been saying: ‘This is what we want on revenues on the down payment. What’s you guys’ ask on the entitlement side?’ And they keep looking back at us and saying: ‘We want you to come up with that and pitch us.’ That’s not going to happen.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told “Morning Joe” on Tuesday that he could see $400 billion in entitlement cuts. That’s the floor, according to Democratic aides, and it could go higher in the final give and take. The vast majority of the savings, and perhaps all of it, will come from Medicare, through a combination of means-testing, raising the retirement age and other “efficiencies” to be named later. It is possible Social Security gets tossed into the mix, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to fight that, if he has to yield on other spending fronts.

Democrats want most Medicare and other entitlement savings to kick in between 10 and 20 years from now, which will make some Republicans choke. Democrats will point to the precedent set by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) of pushing most mandatory savings off until a decade from now.

“A lot of the big entitlement savings comes in the 10-20 year budget window, not the next 10 years,” a Democratic aide said. “Everybody will need to get on board understanding that. Paul Ryan and the Obama budget are the same on health cuts for next 10 years.”

But that will likely be the deal Republicans will be staring at: tax hikes now in exchange for Medicare changes way later. That will require some fancy footwork by Boehner to sell.

The coming cave
People who have talked privately with the top three House Republican leaders — Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) – say they recognize that Obama holds the high cards, and that the public is likely to blame Republicans if negotiations blow up and the new year brings a fiscal disaster. Ryan, back at the Capitol after spending the fall on the road as Mitt Romney’s running mate, is said to be resisting concessions that the others consider inevitable.

Ryan, who is considering a run for president, will ultimately have to decide if he wants to be party to a deal - or if he wants to be the public leader of the resistance.
If that happens, Cantor becomes all the more important to getting a final deal through the House. Cantor is a bigger player than some think and his relationship with Boehner is stronger today than six months ago. The staff-level tension, which was often a distraction for both men, has abated ever since Barry Jackson left as Boehner’s top aide. Cantor, who is better versed on the details of tax issues than most members of Congress, also remains relatively tight with Vice President Joe Biden, a relationship that Bob Woodward’s book, “The Price of Politics,” revealed to be closer and more important than commonly known.

A Pew Research Center poll this month had sobering figures for Republicans: 53 percent of respondents said the GOP would be more to blame if the country goes over the fiscal cliff, while only 29 percent said Obama. A CNN/ORC poll this week had a similar finding: 45-34.

Even Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, sounded more pragmatic than doctrinaire during a Playbook Breakfast interview on Wednesday. He said that while Republicans need to avoid having “their fingerprints on the murder weapon” of a tax increase, they will have a defensible position if negotiations are conducted in public, they push for reforms, and the deal can “pass the laugh test” back home. That leaves a lot of leeway.
Spending cuts will be crucial to this. The floor for new spending cuts is simple: replacing the $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts set to kick in if the two parties can‘t cut a deal before year’s end. Republicans will insist these are real and imminent to swallow the rest.

It’s the Obama-Boehner show
Everyone has an opinion on the grand bargain. But only two matter: Obama’s and Boehner’s. Any deal will ultimately be hammered out between the two men, whose on-again, off-again relationship is stronger than most people realize.
Bluster aside, both know they have a heavy incentive to cut a deal, and quick. Boehner knows the president isn’t bluffing on letting the Bush tax cuts lapse to get his way on raising rates on the rich. Obama knows the last thing he wants at the start of a second term is an economic funk caused by Washington dysfunction, even if Republicans get more of the blame.

People involved in the talks over the past six months say House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is at best a bit player in the unfolding drama, and virtually certain to back any deal Obama blesses. Reid runs the Senate and has more juice than Pelosi, but he knows his role is to play bad cop until it’s time play loyal soldier to pass the final package. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, facing a reelection two years from now in conservative Kentucky, will defer to Boehner in brokering any compromise and might even break with his fellow GOP leader on a final vote.

[BigBadBrian]

...say they recognize that Obama holds the high cards...

Not entirely. Obama is entering his second term and is going to be looking for a positive legacy. He doesn't have that yet. I really don't think he wants to go headlong into another recession and toss the economy into the crapper. He has a lot personally to lose if this deal doesn't get done, as does the entire nation.

[BigBadBrian]

I somehow managed to stomach the Olbermann class-warfare video. Now here:

What is SBA's definition of a small business concern?

SBA defines a small business concern as one that is independently owned and operated, is organized for profit, and is not dominant in its field. Depending on the industry, size standard eligibility is based on the average number of employees for the preceding twelve months or on sales volume averaged over a three-year period. Examples of SBA general size standards include the following:

Manufacturing: Maximum number of employees may range from 500 to 1500, depending on the type of product manufactured;

Wholesaling: Maximum number of employees may range from 100 to 500 depending on the particular product being provided;

Services: Annual receipts may not exceed $2.5 to $21.5 million, depending on the particular service being provided;

Retailing: Annual receipts may not exceed $5.0 to $21.0 million, depending on the particular product being provided;

General and Heavy Construction: General construction annual receipts may not exceed $13.5 to $17 million, depending on the type of construction;

Special Trade Construction: Annual receipts may not exceed $7 million; and

Agriculture: Annual receipts may not exceed $0.5 to $9.0 million, depending on the agricultural product.

[Nickdfresh]

Fiscal Cliff threads merged and stickied since this is kind of important...

[Satan]

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

- President Eisenhower, November 8, 1954

[Satan]

There you go, Repukes.

Your Messiah says leave it alone.

[Nitro Express]

- President Eisenhower, November 8, 1954

People our age aren't going to see a dime of Social Security by the time we get old enough to collect it. In fact, who's going to retire? Nobody saves anything and even if you do, Ben Bernanke will ruin your savings. Right now the monetary system is against anyone who saves anything. They will just keep knocking the collection age up and play games until the system is truly broke by then the country will probably start coming apart anyways. The whole thing runs on some guy making money out of nothing and once that system gets away from reality which it has, you can't sustain it. In fact, it's been discovered the Federal Reserve has been moving trillions of dollars into foreign banks under the table and so there is a whole other economy we don't see. This keeps inflation for the little guy down and allows the elite to make lots of money but that can't go on forever.

So it still boils down to what that US Dollar will buy in the future and most people have no idea. I sure as hell wouldn't even buy 30 year US Treasury Bonds right now and a few years back, you never feared of doing so. That's how fucked things are. Shit. Your kid can't even make money in a passbook savings account. Now to teach the kid how to save you have to buy spot silver and hold it.

The world will have to go back onto a silver/gold standard or at least base a percentage of the currency on it. The big question is who will control this new money system. They probably are already fighting over that behind closed doors. Why Ben Bernanke is holding interest rates to zero is the Federal Reserve doesn't want to pay anyone nor does the US Government want to pay anyone. Then you systematically inflate the value of the currency to zero and get rid of all debts. People who hold the currency long-term will be ruined and then you just roll out a new currency and start the process over. Whoever holds the silver and gold in their bank vaults will win the biggest confidence. That's why silver is low right now. The banks are keeping the price low so they can buy more.

Nothing is going to get fixed. The situation is just going to continue to rot away and then those with the gold and best weaponry will take over. As long as the nuclear powers can keep a nuclear stalemate going, there will be relative piece but as soon as someone gets confident they have first strike capability they will use it. The only threats to us there are Russia and China but they may be big threats in ten more years. If they can hit the US first, then China will take Japan, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand and other countries. Russia will blackmail Europe. I mean the big geopolitical picture really isn't money in the long-run, it's nuclear strike capability or any other weapon system that gives you a big edge. Who cares how much debt you get into why when you have the best weapons? I think this has been the US way of thinking for the last 50 years.

[Nitro Express]

It's pretty damn sorry this country kicks the can down the road each year. Anyone in business would love at least a five year tax plan. Taxes are one of the biggest expenses and when you don't really know what they are going to be year to year, you hold off on employing people and expanding the business. I know so many people that have some great ideas but they are just sitting in a holding pattern because they don't want to commit the money because they don't know what the future is going to be. Nobody knows what the costs on so many things are going to be and that uncertainty hurts business.

[Little Texan]

I don't understand what the point is in having a debt ceiling if it's just going to get raised every few months when we hit the debt limit?

[Nitro Express]

I don't understand what the point is in having a debt ceiling if it's just going to get raised every few months when we hit the debt limit?

It's just another sign that the corruption levels in government are so high that the whole system is spinning out of control. It's a failing government and failing governments become police states. Why do you think they passed the National Defense Authorization Act? Because citizens were starting to protest en mass in the streets. Notice after Obama signed the NDAA into law, the whole Occupy Wall Street protests suddenly stopped. The government intimidated the protesters to stop it.

Right now people are scared of the government and the government is scared of the people.

What's scary is it's pretty clear certain politicians want to start another major war. When Russia draws a line in Syria and says enough is enough, it means the free for all heyday in the middle east is over. The traditional way to get out of a big fiscal mess is to start a war as a distraction. In other words you create a bigger enemy so the public focuses on that instead of thinking you are the enemy. Well in a world of nuclear weapons and other high tech weapons that kind of thinking can be dangerous.

We don't even seem to have a unified government. It seems to be just a bunch of greedy people out for their piece of the pie and everyone has their own agenda pushing to see what they can get away with.

We were talking about Mitt Romney over Thanksgiving. Some of my family members know him. Basically he's a super motivated type individual and basically he is what we call a Mormon mainstreamer. What that means is a Mormon who has done well who wants to please the establishment or become part of the establishment. Mormons have always been an odd duck and some of them like Romney think being in the establishment will end the old stereotypes. The problem is the establishment is corrupt but a guy like Romney is blind to it. I mean the Bush family is not stupid. I think they knew they had a pretty good puppet and their agenda is to attack Iran. Mitt getting elected could very well have caused World War III.

Who's pulling Obama's chain has a different agenda. I think the Obama Administration has been secretly moving weapons from Libya to Syria. I never buy they are doing it to get rid of a dictator. The middle east has been ran by dictators forever. There is always another reason. Look at Egypt. They just got another dictator.

Basically a bunch of old oligarchs hijacked our country. They have bought both the Republican and Democrats parties and use our treasury and military for their own selfish purposes. One thing for sure, most our so-called elected officials don't serve the people anymore. They serve who has the money and influence. They serve the 1% and apparently the 1% have differing agendas or different plans. It's a mess and it's a mess worldwide.

[Nitro Express]

When the government can't put together a budget and cut wasteful spending and elections that cost billions of dollars change nothing, the country has already gone off the cliff. There is no middle class anymore. Half the country is out to lunch because they don't pay any income tax. Interest rates are held at zero percent. A lot of the so called solutions sound like they come right out of the communist manifesto. Nice times we live in. Another day in upper Hell.

[BigBadBrian]

There you go, Repukes.

Your Messiah says leave it alone.

That was then. Now there's like $5 coming into SS for every $7 paid out. Figure it out.

[Nitro Express]

I think we are heading into territory that many more people will see the whole Republican vs Democrat thing as the scam it is. In the 80's the banks and corporations were bought up. Viacom was used to buy up most the media. Then more and more politicians got bought off an intimidated. Over the decades the so called 1% got increasing more amounts of the US economy. Obviously the Bush's and Rockefellers were involved in this going way back to WWII. Then you had their Democrat agents like The Clintons pushing the agenda forward. People will soon see Obama is just another banking/corporate shill. It's just a bunch of corporate facist assholes stealing our money and taking our rights away. The sooner we get past this Republican and Democrat thing the better. Both have sold us out. The assholes who are taking over need as much infighting as possible and they will fan it as much as they can. What we need is a unified focus on the few oligarch assholes who have spent the last 50 years doing this shit to us.

[Satan]

That was then. Now there's like $5 coming into SS for every $7 paid out. Figure it out.

That's easy to fix. Raise the cap.

Republicans are always telling us that $200K/year isn't "rich". Yet not a single dollar goes to Social Security over $107K. This would be the easiest fix ever.

[FORD]

Lose Timmy the Keebler Elf, and hire this guy, Barry!

[BigBadBrian]

Obozo's latest offer is a joke: a butt-load of new taxes and a promise to reduce entitlements "next year." He's an ass.

[Nickdfresh]

Actually you mean repealing ostensibly temporary tax breaks for the top 2%. You won't notice...

[BigBadBrian]

Actually you mean repealing ostensibly temporary tax breaks for the top 2%. You won't notice...

Obama CLAIMS he wants both tax increases on the upper 2% AND cuts out of entitlements, so:

At this point, I think the Republicans should let Obama have his removal of tax breaks for the upper 2%. Then we'll watch him crap his pants trying to figure out whatever cuts he supposedly has in mind. :gulp:

[FORD]

No crapping of pants is necessary.

Clinton left office with a surplus. Logically then, why not simply roll back the tax rates and spending to where it was then?

Of course, rolling back the Reagan tax "cuts" and HIS increases in wasteful "defense" spending would be even better.

[BigBadBrian]

wasteful "defense" spending would be even better.

What is wasteful about it? Name programs and policies you would cut.

[Seshmeister]

Lmfao!

[BigBadBrian]

Geithner’s fuzzy math on entitlement ‘spending cuts’

LINK (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/geithners-fuzzy-math-on-entitlement-spending-cuts/2012/12/03/6d79611c-3d89-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_blog.html?wprss=rss_fact-checker)

“We've laid out a detailed plan of spending cuts. $600 billion in spending in mandatory programs over 10 years. They phase in gradually, they build over time. They are good policy. They make a lot of sense.”

— Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Dec. 2, 2012
“We've laid out a very comprehensive detailed framework of how we do it and in what stages with $600 billion of spending cuts spread over 10 years in entitlement programs.”

— Geithner, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Dec. 2

The debate over the “fiscal cliff’ is largely about numbers — and clearly, $600 billion was the Treasury secretary’s talking point of the day on the Sunday talk shows.
Eager to rebut Republican claims that the administration was not serious about reining in entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, Geithner insisted the administration did have “a detailed plan of spending cuts,” totaling $600 billion, in what he described as “mandatory programs” or “entitlement programs.”
But his language is a bit slippery. Let’s explore what’s going on.

The Facts
President Obama’s opening bid in the battle of wills with Republicans is essentially his fiscal year 2013 budget, so it’s fairly easy to get the details by looking at Table S-9 of the White House budget. Every policy change is detailed there across 20 pages of numbers, though a few items have already been enacted.
The shorthand used on the Sunday television shows was that Obama has proposed a $1.6 trillion tax increase (technically, $1.561 trillion.)
But that’s a net number, because Obama has also proposed $359 billion in tax cuts. The gross tax increase in the budget actually is more than $1.9 trillion.
Geithner’s “$600 billion” is a gross number — before additional spending, such as improving roads and bridges. Still, the administration position is that it is seeking a total of $1.6 trillion in tax increases and $600 billion in total “mandatory” cuts, even after offsets.

But a good chunk of this “mandatory” money is not what would be considered entitlement spending — or at least aimed at health-care entitlements. The most up-to-date summary is in the administration’s mid-session review, in which Table S-3 shows $326 billion in health-care savings and $254 billion in “other mandatory savings.” (We had explored how Democrats sometimes mistout the health-care savings in a previous column.)
The “mandatory” side of the budget means the changes are permanent and not subject to annual congressional appropriations. That’s why Geithner could call them “mandatory programs,” though at one point he also called them “entitlement programs.” But they are not “spending cuts” in the traditional sense.

What are some of these “mandatory savings?” The administration lists them in the original 2013 budget, and they include:
■$61.3 billion from “impose a financial crisis responsibility fee”
■$43.7 billion from “implement Internal Revenue Service program integrity cap”
■$27.4 billion from “increase employee contribution” to federal retirement programs.
■$44 billion from “adjust payment timing”

In fact, some $100 billion of these “cuts”come from Geithner’s department. But are these cuts in the Treasury Department? No, the numbers represent additional fees and better IRS enforcement — not what an ordinary person would consider a spending cut. (We realize that Republicans and Democrats may count these as cuts, looking through the prism of the federal budget, but it still not the same thing as an entitlement cut.)
The $44 billion from adjusting the timing in payments is especially dubious — a one-time savings that takes place in 2022, the last year of the budget window. Presumably, those dollars are just transferred to the next 10-year budget window.

Another White House 2013 budget document, titled “Cuts, Consolidations and Savings,” makes the distinctions even sharper.
Over 10 years, its shows just $79 billion in cuts in mandatory programs, plus some $340 billion in “savings” (mostly reductions in payments to Medicare providers) for a total of $419 billion in “mandatory cuts, consolidations and savings.” For some reason, it did not list the $100 billion in Treasury savings as part of the mandatory cuts.

In an interesting coincidence with Geithner’s remarks on Sunday, House Republicans in their counteroffer Monday said they would see $600 billion in reductions over 10 years from health-care entitlement programs — and $300 billion in other “mandatory” savings. So if you are keeping score, Republicans are seeking 50 percent more in savings on the mandatory side.

The Pinocchio Test
Geithner is mixing up apples and oranges. He suggests that he is talking about spending cuts in entitlement programs, when in fact a huge chunk is in other areas — and is not spending cuts.
Rather than the $600 billion figure, the Treasury secretary should have specified a precise figure for reductions in health-care entitlements and then explained that the administration was seeking additional savings through fees and other initiatives. His language on the Sunday shows , especially on CNN, was too cute by half.

One Pinocchio

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[Nickdfresh]

More Than 300,000 Millionaires Could Go Off 'Cliff'
CNBCBy Robert Frank | CNBC (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-300-000-millionaires-off-162426734.html) – Tue, Dec 4, 2012 11:24 AM EST

The cost of taxing the rich has become the central debate in the "fiscal cliff" talks.

But the costs of not getting a deal might be even worse for the country - including the wealthy, according to a new study.

The population of millionaires in the United States would fall by 315,000, or 6 percent, next year if the country goes over the fiscal cliff and the economy goes into recession as a result, according to a new study from WealthInsight. The total fortunes of millionaires would fall by $240 billion if the cliff's combination of tax cuts and automatic reductions in government-spending were to take effect.

If the United States can solve the cliff deal and chalk up 2 percent growth next year, the number of millionaires would grow by 230,000, and their combined fortunes would soar to by over $1 trillion, WealthInsight's study said.

That sounds like good news, but WealthInsight, the London-based wealth-research firm, said that if the threat of the cliff didn't exist at all, the millionaire population would grow by 443,000 and their fortunes would grow by $1.6 trillion.

Still, even if the cliff is avoided, the solution could also drag down the number of millionaires.

"There also remains the possibility of a fiscal slope: a growth-sapping bargain which prompts a damaging degree of fiscal tightening," Wealth Insight said.

That uncertainty, along with looming tax hikes, will lead the wealthy to put their money next year into different types of investments. Alternative investments (hedge funds, private equity) will be the top-performing asset class for millionaires between now and 2016, according to WealthInsight.

[Satan]

Alternative investments (hedge funds, private equity) will be the top-performing asset class for millionaires between now and 2016, according to WealthInsight.

When legalized theft and gambling become the only "growth industries" in the USA, that's a serious problem.

On the other horn, if every last one of these crooks ceased to exist tomorrow, it would be a great day for America. Especially if they went broke from paying back taxes.

[Nitro Express]

We went off the cliff a long time ago. We are just waiting for the crash.

[Nickdfresh]

We went off the cliff a long time ago. We are just waiting for the crash.

Thanks for the helpful insight, Hyperbole Express!

[Nitro Express]

Thanks for the helpful insight, Hyperbole Express!

When you have over $100 trillion in debt (when you add in the unfunded liabilities on the balance sheet) and have interest rates pegged at zero you have gone over the cliff. The only way to fix it is erase the debt by ruining the value of the US Dollar which of course hurts people living on fixed incomes and people trying to save something. Of course if you know what the long-term plan is you don't get hurt but the mass majority of people get hurt.

The fiscal cliff in the media now is staring at the bark on a tree. It's two political parties with no real solutions positioning themselves to get an edge to blame the other party. The problems are way bigger and more complex than some taxes going up or raising the debt ceiling which of course they are going to do anyways.

You have to remember most people who own US dollars don't live in the US so they have no real interest in seeing it get killed. If Bernanke kills it they get burned but the US Government doesn't want to pay anybody so they are devaluing the currency and that causes everyone else to devalue. So we are in a currency war with a bunch of idiots in Washington DC trying to save their political careers playing short-term blame games and kicking the can to the next December.

The politically connected rich like Timothy Giether don't pay taxes anyways. He got caught not paying taxes and nothing happened to him. Much like a certain president committing perjury and nothing happening to him. For us little people we get fined and tossed in jail.

So the problem is we have two separate systems. The rules don't apply to the politically connected but they apply to us and it's gotten more and more blatant and obscene and there lies the problem. The politicians could care less about us actually. As soon as you realize that, you have figured the problem out. The people running things are in a big club and you aren't in it and they don't care about you. Yeah. I would say that's the problem. It's always the guy in the middle that gets burned the most and let's be honest here. There is no middle class in the US anymore. Who's kidding who.

[Nickdfresh]

When you have over $100 trillion in debt (when you add in the unfunded liabilities on the balance sheet) and have interest rates pegged at zero you have gone over the cliff. The only way to fix it is erase the debt by ruining the value of the US Dollar which of course hurts people living on fixed incomes and people trying to save something. Of course if you know what the long-term plan is you don't get hurt but the mass majority of people get hurt.

The fiscal cliff in the media now is staring at the bark on a tree. It's two political parties with no real solutions positioning themselves to get an edge to blame the other party. The problems are way bigger and more complex than some taxes going up or raising the debt ceiling which of course they are going to do anyways.

You have to remember most people who own US dollars don't live in the US so they have no real interest in seeing it get killed. If Bernanke kills it they get burned but the US Government doesn't want to pay anybody so they are devaluing the currency and that causes everyone else to devalue. So we are in a currency war with a bunch of idiots in Washington DC trying to save their political careers playing short-term blame games and kicking the can to the next December.

The politically connected rich like Timothy Giether don't pay taxes anyways. He got caught not paying taxes and nothing happened to him. Much like a certain president committing perjury and nothing happening to him. For us little people we get fined and tossed in jail.

So the problem is we have two separate systems. The rules don't apply to the politically connected but they apply to us and it's gotten more and more blatant and obscene and there lies the problem. The politicians could care less about us actually. As soon as you realize that, you have figured the problem out. The people running things are in a big club and you aren't in it and they don't care about you. Yeah. I would say that's the problem. It's always the guy in the middle that gets burned the most and let's be honest here. There is no middle class in the US anymore. Who's kidding who.

This is the same shit I've been hearing for at least 20, if not 30, years. Yes, we have too much debt, the average American doesn't save enough, etc. But the sky is not falling, Geithner isn't "da' Dev'bil!" there Kathy, and with luck he'll be paying higher taxes. And you really think Geithner couldn't be earning more money doing something else?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/annaraven/waterboymonsterhigh2.png

And Bernake is a genius, whether you hate him or not, he's extremely competent and adept at what he does. We have real problems with entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, but being Chicken Littles about it is just both silly and counterproductive...

[jhale667]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h217/jhale667/483460_536204886392282_828490372_n.jpg

[BigBadBrian]

It's evident Obozo wants tax increases on everyone since he evidently can't negotiate in good faith.

[Nickdfresh]

What's to negotiate? The majority of Americans are on Obama's side and think the Replutocrats are being fuckwits beholden to their rich benefactors...

[jhale667]

What's to negotiate? The majority of Americans are on Obama's side and think the Replutocrats are being fuckwits beholden to their rich benefactors...

BrainlessBitchBrie wouldn't know that fact since he only watches FAUX...

[BigBadBrian]

What's to negotiate? The majority of Americans are on Obama's side and think the Replutocrats are being fuckwits beholden to their rich benefactors...

You miss the entire fucking point, just like most liberals. Without tax increases on the rich, the yearly deficit will be 1.10 Trillion. With the tax increases Obozo wants, the yearly deficit will be 1.02 Trillion. You see how much tax increases on the upper 2% really makes a difference? That's right, it doesn't, other than tossing thousands of people out of their jobs. What matters most is spending cutbacks, something Obozo doesn't want to talk about. Couple that with his wanting an uncontested limit for borrowing money (aka the debt ceiling), and you have a no go on a deal.

[Satan]

Spending cutbacks are fine, as long as it's the TRULY wasteful spending.

Which means you know the difference between spending and investing. And in full analysis, any SANE person would admit that the first thing to go is the bloated "defense" budget. Which should be no larger than what it actually takes to defend the USA, and not a penny more.

[Nitro Express]

Spending cutbacks are fine, as long as it's the TRULY wasteful spending.

Which means you know the difference between spending and investing. And in full analysis, any SANE person would admit that the first thing to go is the bloated "defense" budget. Which should be no larger than what it actually takes to defend the USA, and not a penny more.

Yeah but what the politicians do is they cut back on the needed stuff so people feel the pain and later beg for more spending. It's more pigs feeding from a trough than a consensus of public servants who really want to come up with a long-term plan to fix anything.

[Nickdfresh]

You miss the entire fucking point, just like most liberals. Without tax increases on the rich, the yearly deficit will be 1.10 Trillion. With the tax increases Obozo wants, the yearly deficit will be 1.02 Trillion. You see how much tax increases on the upper 2% really makes a difference? That's right, it doesn't, other than tossing thousands of people out of their jobs. What matters most is spending cutbacks, something Obozo doesn't want to talk about. Couple that with his wanting an uncontested limit for borrowing money (aka the debt ceiling), and you have a no go on a deal.

By spending cutbacks, you mean slashing military spending?

[Satan]

Yeah but what the politicians do is they cut back on the needed stuff so people feel the pain and later beg for more spending. It's more pigs feeding from a trough than a consensus of public servants who really want to come up with a long-term plan to fix anything.

It's that "two Santa Claus" theory that Thom Hartmann, FORD, and my Most Unholy self have been telling you about for years now......



Santa Claus Faces the Democratic Firing Squad?
Wednesday, 28 November 2012 15:13 By Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks, The Daily Take | Op-Ed


On the day after the election, Rush Limbaugh blamed Santa Claus for Mitt Romney's defeat.

"Conservativism did not lose last night," Limbaugh said. "It's just very difficult to beat Santa Claus. It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus. People are not going to vote against Santa Claus," Limbaugh concluded.

The night before, on Election Night, as the tide was turning against Romney, fellow Republican kingpin Bill O'Reilly said, "50% of the voting public wants stuff. They want things. Who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it." In other words, President Obama won by playing Santa Claus.

Even Mitt Romney himself blamed "Santa Claus" Obama. After his loss, Romney told donors, "The Obama campaign was following the old playbook of giving a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they could get to vote for them and be motivated to go out to the polls, specifically the African American community, the Hispanic community and young people." Referring to President Obama's reforms that allowed young people to stay on their parents' health insurance plans, Romney called it a "big gift to young people."

These men, especially Rush Limbaugh, perfectly summed up the message the Republican establishment took from their election defeat, which is, "It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus."

But this is something Republicans have known for quite a long time.

They first learned this lesson in the 1930's and 40's after the New Deal, when Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt played the role of Santa Claus and gave the American people Social Security and unemployment insurance. At the time, Republicans played Scrooge arguing that we couldn't afford it. They played the role of Scrooge in the 1960's, too, as Democratic President Lyndon Johnson played Santa Claus as well, and gave the American people Medicare and other Great Society programs to cut poverty.

And what did Republicans get for playing Scrooge? Electoral defeat after electoral defeat. Starting with FDR's big win in 1936, with the lone exception of the 2-year "Do-Nothing Congress" elected in 1946, Republicans never held a majority in the House of Representatives until 1995. And the way they were able to finally come out of this political slump was by listening to a Republican strategist/faux economist named Jude Wanniski who wrote a transformative article for the National Observer in 1976 that laid out the new Republican path to power.

Titled "Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory," Wanniski warned that Republicans, "embrace the role of Scrooge, playing into the hands of the Democrats, who know the first rule of successful politics is Never Shoot Santa Claus." He said, "As long as Republicans have insisted on balanced budgets, their influence as a party has shriveled."

And since, as Limbaugh lamented, you can't beat Santa Claus, then Wanniski said Republicans need to play Santa Claus themselves - the Santa Claus of tax cuts! Wanniski wrote, "The only thing wrong ... is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus... The Two Santa Claus Theory holds that Republicans should concentrate on tax reduction."

In other words, Democrats can give "gifts" like Social Security and Medicare and Republicans can counter with gifts like massive tax cuts, which is exactly what they did when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and picked Wanniski as an adviser.

But there was another dimension to Wanniski's strategy that he doesn't explicitly lay out in his article. And that's this: If Republicans, by playing Santa Claus on their own, successfully pass their tax cuts (as Reagan and Bush 2 did) without cutting spending, then the government will be starved of revenue until eventually it can't afford the Democratic Party's social services like Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare; all things that Republicans have labeled as "gifts." And if Republicans scream and yell enough about the deficit they've created with their tax cuts, then maybe – just maybe – it will force the Democrats to reverse roles, play Scrooge, and eventually shoot Santa Claus.

It was a brilliant political strategy that for more than 30 years has worked flawlessly.

Thanks to their tax cuts, Republican Presidents have added nearly $10 trillion in debt to the nation's balance books since Reagan, which is far more than Democratic Presidents. And yet, it's the Republican Party that pretends to be the most concerned about the national debt, devoting every breath to nightmare scenarios of what might happen if we don't bring our annual deficits under control by cutting social spending.

And, unable to see through this blatant hypocrisy and recognize that Republicans deficit-hawks are just playing politics, Democratic Presidents have fallen right into Wanniski's trap – they're shooting Santa Claus.

Clinton pulled the trigger in 1996 when he blasted a hole in LBJ's Great Society legislation and ended welfare as we know it. And earlier this year, President Obama did it when he signed on to legislation that cut emergency unemployment benefits down from 99 weeks to 74 weeks (depending on the state).

And today, with the so-called "fiscal cliff" looming, Republicans want Barack Obama and Democrats to fire the bloodiest shots of all against Santa Claus. They want Democrats to riddle Social Security and Medicare with bullets.

With the help of the corporate media, Republicans have managed to create this false equivalency that says if taxes go up on the wealthiest 2% of Americans, then the rest of the nation has to suffer from deep budget cuts to social welfare programs, the unemployed need to get by with fewer benefits, and senior citizens have to work longer before they can qualify for Medicare. To them, this is what a "balanced approach" looks like.

Despite claims from the White House that Social Security is off the negotiating table, both President Obama and Vice President Biden have thrown support behind a sort of "grand bargain" like Simpson-Bowles that will leave the Republican Santa Claus that delivered low tax rates nicked by paper-cuts, but leave the Democratic Santa Claus a shot-up bloodied mess.

Recognizing what might be on the horizon, Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders said after the election, "We're going to send a loud message to the leadership in the House, in the Senate and President Obama. Do not cut Social Security, do not cut Medicare, do not cut Medicaid. Deficit reduction is a serious issue but it must be done in a way that is fair. We must not balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children or the poor." In other words, don't shoot the Democrat's Santa Claus to reduce the deficit.

What Bernie Sanders and other Progressives understand is Democrats haven't been playing Santa Claus for the last 80 years just to win elections. They've been playing Santa Claus to save the nation and our economic system as we know it. Faced with a Great Depression and Communist revolutions around the world, Roosevelt had to enact the New Deal just to save capitalism itself in America. Faced with the crisis of poverty in the 1960's and the hardships senior citizens were facing upon retirement, LBJ enacted the Great Society and Medicare – not because the people wanted "gifts" from Santa Claus, but because people needed help - and providing for the "general welfare" is, according to our Constitution, one of the main purposes for which our government itself was created.

And, despite what Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and other Cons say, providing student loan relief isn't a "gift," it's a necessity now that outstanding student loan debt has topped $1 trillion. Ensuring women have access to contraceptives isn't a "gift," it's a right. Proving undocumented workers with a pathway to citizenship isn't a "gift," it's the humane thing to do. And making sure impoverished children have healthcare isn't a "gift," it's the moral thing to do.

Americans have handed Democrats electoral victories through the decades because they want the sort of America that the Democratic Santa Claus offers, which is a "we" society that allows for a strong middle class and basic protections from old age, sickness, and unemployment. In other words, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Let's hope Democrats understand this fast, and don't fall for the Republican gimmick started by Jude Wanniski more than thirty years ago. Because right now, Santa Claus stands blindfolded before a firing squad and it's the Democrats, led by President Obama, who have been maneuvered by Republicans into a position to pull the trigger.

And if they do, then not only does the Democratic Santa Claus die. So too, does the Democratic Party itself, and alongside it, the American middle class.

This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of publication.

Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. Follow him on Twitter at @Thom_Hartmann.

Sam Sacks is a Progressive Commentator and former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill. He is currently the Senior Producer of The Big Picture with Thom Hartmannairing weeknights at 7PM EST on RT and Free Speech TV. Follow him on Twitter at @SamSacks.

[Nitro Express]

And Bernake is a genius, whether you hate him or not, he's extremely competent and adept at what he does. We have real problems with entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, but being Chicken Littles about it is just both silly and counterproductive...

Actually the real estate bubble was caused by Alan Greenspan keeping rates too low for too long. Ben came later into that situation and basically holds interest rates to zero and dumps the excess money into the large investment banks where they rally the equity markets. He's keeping inflation down by keeping all that money out of the commercial banks and the hands of the average people. Ben Bernanke is great if you are an investment banker. Not so good if you are a person living on a fixed income or a person trying to save some money. The problem is you can't run an economy on 0% interest forever. Bernanke has been good at kicking the can down the road. Where things have changed is nobody with a brain is going to buy 30 year treasuries today. The long-term confidence in the Federal Reserve and the US Dollar just isn't there and in the past nobody questioned the security of the US Dollar. That's the situation in a nutshell.

[Nitro Express]

The whole Democrat vs. Republican thing has been a handy divide and conquer distraction while the banking and corporate elite have become richer thanks to politicians on both sides of the isle. When you compare the reality to the rhetoric both sides spew, the words become pretty hollow.

[Nitro Express]

Obozo's latest offer is a joke: a butt-load of new taxes and a promise to reduce entitlements "next year." He's an ass.

He grew up on Marxist philosophy and it shows. Google the communist manifesto and then compare that to what Obama does or tries to do. Raising taxes and lots of unsustainable spending is part of the manifesto. In short, a Marxist wants to ruin the economy on purpose to drive everyone towards being dependent on the government and then the government takes all the assets. It's theft on the grand scale draped in a slick cloak of helping everyone and making things better for the good of the people.

[Satan]

Springfield Republican Party chairman explains "the fiscal cliff"....

[jhale667]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h217/jhale667/380846_496686653698056_1669708206_n.jpg

[FORD]

December 9, 2012
Posted by Andy Borowitz


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Introducing a new wrinkle into the already fraught fiscal cliff showdown, a consortium of billionaires today warned that if their taxes are raised they will no longer have enough money to buy politicians.

The group, led by casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, commissioned a new study showing that the cost of an average politician has soared exponentially over the past decade.

While the American family has seen increases in the cost of food, health care and education, Mr. Adelson says, “those costs don’t compare with the cost of buying a politician, which has gone through the roof.”

The casino billionaire points to his group’s study, which puts the cost of purchasing an average House member at two million dollars and an average senator at several times that.

“And let’s say you buy a Senator like [South Carolina Senator] Jim DeMint and he decides to quit,” Mr. Adelson says. “Good luck trying to get your money back.”

The Vegas magnate complains that the media has ignored billionaires’ essential role in giving jobs to politicians who would otherwise have difficulty finding “honest work of any kind.”

“Billionaires are providing employment for a group of seriously incompetent and marginal people,” Mr. Adelson says. “You raise taxes on us, and who’s going to create those jobs? I really don’t think people have thought this through.”

Adding insult to injury for America’s billionaires, he says, “the simple dream of someday owning a President is slipping out of reach.”

“People think a billion dollars buys you a President, but they’re wrong,” he says. “It barely gets you a lemon like Mitt Romney.”

[FORD]

:argue:

[Nitro Express]

I say we push the politicians off a cliff.

[Nitro Express]

Boehner to Barrack: Barrack are you down with the DP?

Barrack: Absolutely but we have to find a willing intern and I'm not as good at it as Bill Clinton was.

[FORD]

(Don't blame me. I voted for Rocky!)

[FORD]

This just in..... Boner's "Plan B" bill couldn't even pass the Teabagger HOUSE! :biggrin:

[POJO_Risin]

Seriously, could this be the most ridiculously funny discussion we've ever had here...

funniest thing about it?

It's not very funny.

[BITEYOASS]

Looks like "Weeper of the House" John Boner the drunk is driving us all off the fiscal cliff:

9303

9304

[ZahZoo]

Appears to me we're back to playing a game of chicken... neither party will blink or swerve at the last minute. Let it crash and see if anyone walks or crawls away to claim victory or at least point fingers of blame.

Pathetic... on all sides.

[POJO_Risin]

If we're to be honest here...I actually think Boehner and Obama could get a deal done today...

It's the masses behind them that are pissed off that either side moved in the slightest towards a compromise that's keeping this deal from happening.

They need to be held accountable...all of them...

[BITEYOASS]

Hence why this two-party system is all fucked up. Why the progressives or Paul fans waste time with the nomination process is beyond me.

[Nickdfresh]

Looks like "Weeper of the House" John Boner the drunk is driving us all off the fiscal cliff:

9303

9304

It's not just Boner, it's his psychotic fringe element of teabaggers essentially scuttling things and further contributing to the future unelectability of the Republican Party...

[POJO_Risin]

It's not just Boner, it's his psychotic fringe element of teabaggers essentially scuttling things and further contributing to the future unelectability of the Republican Party...

It's more than just the "teabaggers..."

although that's a big part of it...

As per the two-party system...well...only one way to fix that...

lol...move to another country...

[BigBadBrian]

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/68965_444687318918772_644018111_n.png

[FORD]

Well, we tried to remove the shit, but the repukes gerrymandered the sewer.

[DavidLeeNatra]

when Clinton was asked how he could balance the budget he had a simple answer: "arithmetic"

and that seems to be the problem for the republicans. their only mantra is "no taxes, no taxes, no taxes" didn't work for Reagan, didn't work for the Bushes...if shit doesn't work, it just doesn't work...simple as that...

[DavidLeeNatra]

remember?

http://www.greenberg-art.com/.Toons/.Toons,%20political/qqxsgNoNewTaxes.gif

[DavidLeeNatra]

http://joejolly.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image_thumb.png?w=450&h=410

[DavidLeeNatra]

http://s.gullipics.com/image/5/i/3/hq2x3b-jsmmr4-z6rr/img.jpeg

[ELVIS]

Ron Paul at 5:46


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:elvis:

[Little Texan]

Why do these assholes always wait until the last minute to get down to business on stuff like this fiscal cliff bs? They've had months to work on this and get a deal done, but they wait until a day or two before the deadline to have serious negotiations. They always do the same with the debt ceiling. Lazy, worthless, procrastinating, no account motherfuckers. They all need to be thrown out on their corrupt asses.

[Little Texan]

The fiscal cliff bill just passed in the Senate 89-8.

[ELVIS]

Who gives a fuck ??

[ZahZoo]

Haven't had to time to read what the Senate passed yet... But I'd rather call anything passed now just another "Kick the Can Down the Road" bill... The patient is hemorrhaging and congress is still playing with band-aids.

[Nickdfresh]

Who gives a fuck ??

A lot of people "give a fuck."

[knuckleboner]

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/68965_444687318918772_644018111_n.png

kind of simplistic.

a real family usually has LOTS of debt. mortgage, student loans, car loans.

federal debt is only a problem if it affects inflation/interest rates. currently, it's not touching either. do we need better long-term fiscal reform? yep. but we need to be rational, not reactionary about the debt.

[ELVIS]

A lot of people "give a fuck."

Ron Paul supporters give a fuck, but the sheeple don't...

[ELVIS]

House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday.

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go fuck yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go fuck yourself.”

The harsh exchange just a few steps from the Oval Office — which Boehner later bragged about to fellow Republicans — was only one episode in nearly two months of high-stakes negotiations laced with distrust, miscommunication, false starts and yelling matches as Washington struggled to ward off $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts.


:elvis:

[ZahZoo]

Good for Boehner!! It's about time Washington moved back to a "Deadwood" like era of politics... Cocksuckers!!

Reading what they passed... none of it bothers me much nor impresses me either. The one piece that sounds like the smartest thing congress has done to the tax code in the last 30 years was permanently fix that gawd-damned Alternative Minimum Tax... sucker has rose up and bit us 6 out of the last 10 years... Although I'm waiting to see how accurately they indexed it to inflation. If done right I shouldn't be able to even smell the damn thing...


--Alternative minimum tax: Permanently addresses the alternative minimum tax and indexes it for inflation to prevent nearly 30 million middle- and upper-middle income taxpayers from being hit with higher tax bills averaging almost $3,000. The tax was originally designed to ensure that the wealthy did not avoid owing taxes by using loopholes.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/02/details-tentative-deal-that-would-avert-fiscal-crisis/#ixzz2GpL0bKyX

[FORD]

House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday.

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go fuck yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go fuck yourself.”

The harsh exchange just a few steps from the Oval Office — which Boehner later bragged about to fellow Republicans — was only one episode in nearly two months of high-stakes negotiations laced with distrust, miscommunication, false starts and yelling matches as Washington struggled to ward off $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts.


:elvis:

Sounds like Boner was drunk again :guzzle:

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Golly gee whiz, hope no one tell Boehner to fuck off, don't want to see him cry again....

[BigBadBrian]

federal debt is only a problem if it affects inflation/interest rates. currently, it's not touching either.

You're kidding, right?

[BigBadBrian]

Payroll taxes still go up, from 4.2% to 6.2%. For the average American Worker making $41K, that's $32 less in their paycheck they will see every 2 weeks. Serious grocery money for a family of 4.

[BigBadBrian]

Golly gee whiz, hope no one tell Boehner to fuck off, don't want to see him cry again....

How dare he talk to a Liberal that way, huh? My only regret is he didn't say it to Obama.

Speaking of the Dumb-Fuck-in-Chief, he flew back to Hawaii (at a $7 Million cost) without signing the bill. Stupid Fuck!

[Nickdfresh]

House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday.

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go fuck yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go fuck yourself.”

The harsh exchange just a few steps from the Oval Office — which Boehner later bragged about to fellow Republicans — was only one episode in nearly two months of high-stakes negotiations laced with distrust, miscommunication, false starts and yelling matches as Washington struggled to ward off $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts.


:elvis:

Boner was drinking again!

[FORD]

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5061/5643837468_60d47c04a1.jpg#john%20boehner%20drunk

[Nickdfresh]

Payroll taxes still go up, from 4.2% to 6.2%. For the average American Worker making $41K, that's $32 less in their paycheck they will see every 2 weeks. Serious grocery money for a family of 4.

That's what you've always called for...

[FORD]

Well, now that the government seems to agree that nobody is "rich" who makes less than $400K, then the simple solution for Social Security is to raise the cap to that same level. (At least).

If they did that, they might even get away with leaving it at 4.2%

[BigBadBrian]

Well, now that the government seems to agree that nobody is "rich" who makes less than $400K, then the simple solution for Social Security is to raise the cap to that same level. (At least).

If they did that, they might even get away with leaving it at 4.2%

I don't have a problem with people of a certain income level, say $450,000 but $1M being better, paying into Social Security and Medicare but not entitled to use it.

[BigBadBrian]

That's what you've always called for...

I don't care one way or the other about it, but most people don't know it's coming.

All they here about on/in the news is that taxes won't go up for those making under $450, 000. They here/know nothing of the payroll tax increase. A rude awakening awaits.

[ELVIS]

Federal payroll taxes are unconstitutional, BTW...

[Va Beach VH Fan]

How dare he talk to a Liberal that way, huh?


Nah.... But had it been the other way around, there would be calls for a march on Washington....

[FORD]

The lack of revenue in this country is directly caused by the past 32 years of supply side Randtard economic policy.

The working poor pay very little taxes. The rich avoid taxes as much as possible. The corporations try to avoid it completely. And that leaves the tax burden to the middle class. Which is drastically shrinking, due to these fucked up policies.

That's why ALL of this post-1980 bullshit needs to be undone.

[ELVIS]

Oh bullshit !!

There is plenty of revenue for our bloated federal bullshit government...

Shove your rantard dream up your ass...

The miDdle class is shrinking BY DESIGN...

The middle class jobs are mostly gone...

[ELVIS]

And if I hear "shocked" and "deeply saddened" from one more of these rich, cocksucker politicians, I'm gonna go off...

Fuck these bastards, both left and right...


:mad2:

[FORD]

And if I hear "shocked" and "deeply saddened" from one more of these rich, cocksucker politicians, I'm gonna go off...

Fuck these bastards, both left and right...


:mad2:

Find me a left politician that supports this shit, and I'll agree with you.

Hell, just find me a left politician, for that matter. Well, we still have Bernie Sanders. But that's probably about it, with Dennis being out of the House :(

[ELVIS]

Dennis was all talk no action...

Remember the Bush impeachment he was supposedly pushing at the end of the Bush admin ??

I know you do, but does anyone else ??

No, because it was all show, no go...

[ELVIS]

And Sanders is a self described socialist who praises European socialism...

He's not a bad guy, per se, but he's not someone to rock the political boat at all...

Most people would say "Bernie who ??"

[FORD]

Dennis was all talk no action...

Remember the Bush impeachment he was supposedly pushing at the end of the Bush admin ??

I know you do, but does anyone else ??

No, because it was all show, no go...

Jellyfish Pelosi is the one who took Chimpeachment off the table. I couldn't take anything she said seriously after that.

[Nickdfresh]

I don't care one way or the other about it, but most people don't know it's coming.

All they here about on/in the news is that taxes won't go up for those making under $450, 000. They here/know nothing of the payroll tax increase. A rude awakening awaits.

It's all over the media, CNN talked about it at length this morning...

[Nickdfresh]

...
The miDdle class is shrinking BY DESIGN...

The middle class jobs are mostly gone...

Careful Elvis, that's a view held by some liberal intelligentsia that believe that conservative thinkers have driven policies to thin the middle class in order to return us to a basic feudal state where a few rich easily govern the poor, unwashed masses less capable of giving them problems...

[Dr. Love]

Statement from Dr. Paul:


Statement on the Motion to Concur in the Senate Amendments to H.R. 8

We Are Already Over the Fiscal Cliff

2 January 2013

Despite claims that the Administration and Congress saved America from the fiscal cliff with an early morning vote today, the fact is that government spending has already pushed Americans over the cliff. Only serious reductions in federal spending will stop the cliff dive from ending in a crash landing, yet the events of this past month show that most elected officials remain committed to expanding the welfare-warfare state.

While there was much hand-wringing over the “draconian” cuts that would be imposed by sequestration, in fact sequestration does not cut spending at all. Under the sequestration plan, government spending will increase by 1.6 trillion over the next eight years. Congress calls this a cut because without sequestration spending will increase by 1.7 trillion over the same time frame. Either way it is an increase in spending.

Yet even these minuscule cuts in the “projected rate of spending” were too much for Washington politicians to bear. The last minute “deal” was the worst of both worlds: higher taxes on nearly all Americans now and a promise to revisit these modest reductions in spending growth two months down the road. We were here before, when in 2011 Republicans demanded these automatic modest decreases in government growth down the road in exchange for a massive increase in the debt ceiling. As the time drew closer, both parties clamored to avoid even these modest moves.

Make no mistake: the spending addiction is a bipartisan problem. It is generally believed that one party refuses to accept any reductions in military spending while the other party refuses to accept any serious reductions in domestic welfare programs. In fact, both parties support increases in both military and domestic welfare spending. The two parties may disagree on some details of what kind of military or domestic welfare spending they favor, but they do agree that they both need to increase. This is what is called “bipartisanship” in Washington.

While the media played up the drama of the down-to-the-wire negotiations, there was never any real chance that a deal would not be worked out. It was just drama. That is how Washington operates. As it happened, a small handful of Congressional and Administration leaders gathered in the dark of the night behind closed doors to hammer out a deal that would be shoved down the throats of Members whose constituents had been told repeatedly that the world would end if this miniscule decrease in the rate of government spending was allowed to go through.

While many on both sides express satisfaction that this deal only increases taxes on the “rich,” most Americans will see more of their paycheck going to Washington because of the deal. The Tax Policy Center has estimated that 77 percent of Americans would see higher taxes because of the elimination of the payroll tax cut.

The arguments against the automatic “cuts” in military spending were particularly dishonest. Hawks on both sides warned of doom and gloom if, as the plan called for, the defense budget would have returned to 2007 levels of spending! Does anybody really believe that our defense spending was woefully inadequate just five years ago? And since 2007 we have been told that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next eight years military spending would increase 20 percent without the sequester and would increase 18 percent with the sequester. And this is what is called a dangerous reduction in defense spending?

Ironically, some of the members who are most vocal against tax increases and in favor of cuts to domestic spending are the biggest opponents of cutting a penny from the Pentagon budget. Over and over we were told of the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would be lost should military spending be returned to 2007 levels. Is it really healthy to think of our defense budget as a jobs program? Many of these allegedly free-market members sound more Keynesian than Paul Krugman when they praise the economic “stimulus” created by militarism.

As Chris Preble of the Cato Institute wrote recently, “It’s easy to focus exclusively on the companies and individuals hurt by the cuts and forget that the taxed wealth that funded them is being employed elsewhere.”

While Congress ultimately bears responsibility for deficit spending, we must never forget that the Federal Reserve is the chief enabler of deficit spending. Without a central bank eager to monetize the debt, Congress would be unable to fund the welfare-warfare state without imposing unacceptable levels of taxation on the American people. Of course, the Federal Reserve’s policies do impose an “inflation” tax on the American people; however, since this tax is hidden Congress does not fear the same public backlash it would experience if it directly raised income taxes.

I have little hope that a majority of Congress and the President will change their ways and support real spending reductions unless forced to by an economic crisis or by a change in people’s attitudes toward government. Fortunately, increasing numbers of Americans are awakening to the dangers posed by the growth of the welfare-warfare state. Hopefully this movement will continue to grow and force the politicians to reverse course before government spending, taxing, and inflation destroys our economy entirely.

[FORD]

As usual, Ron Paul makes a couple of valid points, and then loses his mind in a sea of Ayn Rand foolishness with the rest of it......

[Dr. Love]

so which part do you disagree with?

[FORD]

The whole false equivalency that he makes between "defense" spending and the so-called "welfare state". It's not even remotely an equivalent amount of money, and even if it were, it would certainly be far better spent keeping people from starving to death and getting old folks some health care than going to greedy ass fascist weapons manufacturers and used to kill brown people on the other side of the planet who never did a Allah damned thing to us.

[Dr. Love]

Ok. I think all he meant was that both sides have their sacred cows, neither are willing to budge, and both of them spend to build up their favored set of programs (defense or social) while in power without any regard to the nation's finances. I think Ron Paul would be fine with starting with cutting military spending. I certainly would be.

[ELVIS]

So would I...

[ELVIS]

Dude, I think your sig is causing the threads to lock up...

[BigBadBrian]

And that leaves the tax burden to the middle class.

Any economist will tell you that the majority of America's tax dollars lie in the bottom 4 tax brackets, the so-called Middle Class (since those below the bottom tax bracket, the poor, pay nothing). The bottom 4 tax brackets have close to 5 times the potential in tax revenue than the top two (now one) brackets, the so-called "rich."

[BigBadBrian]

It's all over the media, CNN talked about it at length this morning...

This morning? Hell, that's timely of them. Where the hell have they been the last few weeks? Sucking Obama's knob on this "raising taxes for the rich" nonsense, that's where.

[BigBadBrian]

This new deal actually increases the deficit by almost $4 Trillion over a decade.

Does anyone in this forum actually believe Obama want's to start reducing the Federal Deficit? Anyone?

[BigBadBrian]

so which part do you disagree with?

I don't disagree with your sig, that's for sure.

[ZahZoo]

This new deal actually increases the deficit by almost $4 Trillion over a decade.

Does anyone in this forum actually believe Obama want's to start reducing the Federal Deficit? Anyone?

I don't think there's anyone in any branch of the government in Washington DC that wants to start reducing the federal deficit... It's not just the president.

[knuckleboner]

You're kidding, right?

reagan wasn't. he had deficits every year for 8 years.

[knuckleboner]

Payroll taxes still go up, from 4.2% to 6.2%. For the average American Worker making $41K, that's $32 less in their paycheck they will see every 2 weeks. Serious grocery money for a family of 4.

true. too bad it was a tax cut no republicans would support...

[Nickdfresh]

This morning? Hell, that's timely of them. Where the hell have they been the last few weeks? Sucking Obama's knob on this "raising taxes for the rich" nonsense, that's where.

I was answering your question, it's not a secret and it's all over any news site...and you're just blaming Obama for this?

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Unstickying....

Just a matter of time before we'll have a debt ceiling thread to sticky, I'm sure...

[BigBadBrian]

Unstickying....

Just a matter of time before we'll have a debt ceiling thread to sticky, I'm sure...

Especially seeing how Obozo wants the national credit card to have no limit.

[Satan]

Who cares? They'll blame it all on me anyways. http://www.cosgan.de/images/smilie/teufel/d085.gif


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY1i4CXKukk

[ELVIS]

Is it even possible for these cocksuckers to pass a bill that doesn't contain billions in pork ??

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Is it even possible for these cocksuckers to pass a bill that doesn't contain billions in pork ??

I haven't taken the time to look it up, is there somewhere that shows what Congressman/Senator introduced the individual pieces of pork into the bill ??

[ELVIS]

That's a good question...

[knuckleboner]

Especially seeing how Obozo wants the national credit card to have no limit.

a) it's not the national credit card. it's the national credit LIMIT. huge difference.
b) the credit limit should have no limit. specific appropriations decisions are where debt occurs. NOT from the debt ceiling.

[Nickdfresh]

Especially seeing how Obozo wants the national credit card to have no limit.

You suck dick of the Defense Industry at every post, and YOU'RE blaming Obama for this? Are you this fucking stupid?

[ELVIS]

Workers making $30,000 will take a bigger hit on their pay than those earning $500,000 under new fiscal deal

Click! (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256972/Middle-earners-hit-hardest-revealed-workers-making-30-000-bigger-hit-earning-500-000-new-fiscal-deal.html#ixzz2H3bu8lXz)



:elvis:

[Dr. Love]

My wife (who is completely non-political) was watching the news this evening, and they were talking about the debt ceiling. She told me she had an idea to reduce the size of the deficit.

"Whatever percentage of the overall budget you take up, your budget gets cut by that much."

Seems fair to me.