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The success of the supercommittee's negotiations on deficit reducation appears to hinge on taxes, as Democratic and Republican members of the 12-member panel struggled to find common ground on the issue of revenue.
Supercommittee Democrats and Republicans remained in their respective corners Thursday, as each side insisted they were waiting for the other to move. A familiar sticking point on Capitol Hill has left the committee deadlocked: taxes, taxes, taxes.
With six days to go until a Nov. 23rd deadline, Democrats and Republicans huddled behind closed doors to continue talks toward a deal that would achieve $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade. Democrats met for about two hours in the Capitol this morning; Republicans met three times today, including a meeting between House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Democrats emerged from their meeting with a message to Republicans: we’re waiting to hear from you.
Sen. Patty Murray (WA), the Democratic co-chair, said her party has agreed to lower their demand for new revenue to a level acceptable to Republicans.
"The Democrats are in complete agreement. We have met their offer on revenue...I believe that we have opened a door to negotiations in these last final hours," Murray said.
Per Democratic aides, Sen. Murray offered to her Republican co-chair, Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, last week an offer that would achieve the mandated $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction by way of $401 billion in new revenue and $876 billion in spending cuts, which includes $275 billion in health entitlement savings.
"I'm unaware of any offer or any idea from any Democrat that didn't include a minimum of a trillion dollars more in tax increases," Hensarling told reporters at the Capitol. "I'm unaware of another offer."
Under this particular Democratic plan, the Bush tax cuts would expire at the end of next year. The Republican proposal calls for an extension of Bush tax cuts with even lower rates. Therefore, Republicans argued today that Democrats were being disingenuous claiming they had met Republican revenue demands.
"There is no offer from the Democrats that meets our number," Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R) told reporters as he shuffled between meetings today.
He added: "I haven’t seen anything this week that’s new in any way...there was a piece of paper exchanged between a couple of the people but it is not a new offer."
In a sign that Democrats may be working off different pages, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said he was "surprised" Murray said Democrats had met Republican demands. He said the two sides were still negotiating.
"I believe that people need to put politics aside, put ideology aside, work in the best interests of the American people and hopefully we can get something done," Kerry said.
Hensarling tried to enforce the point of Democratic disunity. "Last I heard, the Democrats had not coalesced around a position," he said.
The supercommittee members say they plan to work throughout the weekend to produce an agreement. In anticipation of a potential failure of talks, both sides are now engaged in a furious effort to show they've produced offers and made concessions to the other side.
NBC's Frank Thorp contributed reporting.
Leave a Comment:
If they wore tights and capes, I bet they could solve this deadlock. Or save Metropolis from Lex Luther.
Don't you mean Grover Norquist?
I've got a pocket full of Kryptonite for that rat bastard!
LMAO
How about putting the orange man as Lex, with Eric the creep Cantor as his sidekick. Ann Coulter could be the evil chick who hangs out with Lex.
It would never work - Annie's adam apple is too big! lol
You don't tug on Superman's cape - you don't spit in the wind - you don't pull the mask off the Lone Ranger & you don't mess around with
JimFeisty!http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YQrTGE4wwwA
Good point. How about Ms. Bachmann.
FYI, the 'no newt no newt" muttering in the corner is getting on my nerves, now. Guess I better break the news to him.
The Super 12 Ring Circus Committee has been delayed by Congresswoman Murray who is waiting for Mr. Obama to return to the White House to get further marching orders.
After all, the entire committee has yet to gather together in the last two weeks because of her Superior knowledge of running committees.
Wait a minute......Obama supports entitlement reforms while the Demosocialists are saying don't touch my voter base stuff. Sheeesh, even the Democratic Party is split. Wait a minute....maybe Emanuel will change his mind about running for President.....hahahaha !!!
No new taxes and balance the budget now. Next year, the same but hold back some to pay down the National Debt.
In 2012 I'll vote against any politician that votes to compromise on a balance budget now, guaranteed. Do you think I am the only voter with this view?
the republicans can not raise revenue ....they signed a pledge to norquist... what part of the pledge (oath of office) to represent the American people did there pledge to norquist supercede .. how can a pledge to Norquist be more bindeing than doing the right thing for your country ... if the republicans will scuttle the American dream to appease the top 2% vote them all out in 2012
Not sure, but you do have a mighty high opinion of yourself there Scooter!
See, my vote will cancel yours! ;o))
One interesting thing is a Republican who has found a "loophole" in the pledge to Norquist. The Bush tax cuts, which should have already expired as scheduled... Either the GOP/TP can just let this expire, or better yet, they could reduce the highest tax bracket during Clinton from 39.6% down to just 39% and keep the Bush tax cuts and Obama tax cuts for the middle class and working poor. There you go, problem solved.
There are some Republicans talking about ending loopholes and increasing the tax base. I hope this gains momentum. Tax credits, which are called tax expenditures should not be subjected to Norquist's silliness either.
The bottom line (literally and figuratively) is Teapublicans better agree to significant revenues or face a "shellacking" in 2012. At least they've been smart enough not to make anymore threats to shut down government...so far.
Yes, scott, I think you are the only one. Most of America supports new taxes, or don't you look at the polls?
www.constitutionreclaimed.com/ConstitutionalityofDebt.html
scott: Have you looked at your TV lately? Do you see the numbers of New Yorkers on the streets??!!?? The streets are packed as they are in LA and in other cities! The movement is gaining numbers by the hour across the country, and can you imagine this----50% of the 1% are with them!!!!!
Yeah, and millionaires will show up in Washington asking for their taxes to be raised, huh? Oh, wait, that did happen. Even they know they're getting a free ride while the rest of us suffer.
Well, what's the hurry, they've shown us time and again that they can wait until the last minute, keep us all in suspense, and barter for their own deals as sideline issues hidden in the final draft. We should re-elect these "NO, I'M AGAINST GETTING ANYTHING DONE!" congress persons again, huh?
Good Post True Patriot,
If anyone does not see this country has a revenue problem, they are blind. These Massive George Bush and Dick Cheney tax cuts during two unpaid for wars were an act of pure insanity. Tax cuts during wartime??? Never happened before in American history..
Kind of like Cheneys statement, deficits don't matter...
Now Americans are starting to see that's not true...
"The Republican Party has totally abdicated its job as the guardian of fiscal discipline," says David Stockman, who served as Reagan's budget director. "They're on an anti-tax jihad - one that benefits the prosperous classes.”
The Republican tax cuts, President Clinton warned a decade ago, would return America to a period of "deficit upon deficit" that culminated in "the worst recession since the Great Depression."
Under the second round of Bush's tax cuts, half of the money went to the top one percent. Those making $10 million a year pocketed $1 million a year - twice their haul from the earlier cuts, and every cent of it borrowed.
The Senate's second-ranking Republican secured a deal to slash inheritance taxes on the rich by $23 billion - while fighting to deny unemployment benefits for 5 million Americans left jobless by the recession.
Every move Republicans make, from gutting consumer protections to polluting the environment, is designed to aid the rich - even if it requires borrowing from China,- dismantling Medicare and taxing the middle class.
I don't know about you guys but I am going to keep running my laundromat and diner as CASH ONLY businesses and make sure that I pay NO Taxes. As long as I live below the poverty line the system can PAY ME!!!
And as long as my friends and I continue to get our SSI/disability I don't care what the rest of you do!!
H*ll Yessss for the 99%!!!..... Tax those idiot 1 %ers who are working like Fools!!!................ .. Go Democrats!!!
yeah, because all of those laid off workers and elimination of all those government contracts will do such wonders to boost the economy. yep, private business will be sure to hire people to produce more products when they see all of those fresh unemployed ...
(EXTREME, SARCASM)
You know what...screw it! They don't want to raise taxes...fine, they don't need to. Let the automatic trigger kick in! If we go down...we all go down together. Let them shred the safety nets, rape the veterans, devastate the elderly, destroy any hope the young might be clinging to. Watch what happens next. Hey 1%, how many of you remember the "duck and cover" drills in school...probably better bone up.
This is like a daycare center but full of senile old farts, these MORONS could not work together if their lives depended on it. Now with that said how's about that inside trader gig, this people make money by means that are considered illegal for the normal American citizen, Now I know why they spend all that money to get elected, this issue needs to be corrected ASAP, these old farts all need to be put out to pasture.
If it keeps going like this soon this country will look like France in 1789-1799 and we all know what happened then!
The Democrats are demonstrating they don't understand governance. Kerry? What a joke.
And the sycophants on FR demonstrate they don't understand anything. They want to raise your taxes so an already bloated, out of control govt can take even more of your life. That "rich" threshold gets less and less every month.
Its called TERM LIMITS Rick..
Bob Williams-698158:
What a lie!!!
The top 10% of federal income returns paid 70% of the federal income collected by the IRS for Y2010 tax year, according to the IRS. So, where is the "free ride"? The low income gets the free ride.
Roll back the federal budget to Y2001 levels and keep it there for five (5) years. After that, raise it by the cost of living (COLA) rate and no higher.
This is what happens when ya have a bunch of old droolin, diaper wearing idiots as the super committee. They stall on everything without their viagra...cant get anything up...if there's anything they do better is out the rear end...
I am so frustrated with this old school liberal versus conservative bullsh*t; the country is on the edge of a cliff and no one is gettin their heads of their asses for once, for suffering families, average Americans....
yup-- how can we trick the public into thinking we are actually doing something.
we have got to save 1.7 trillion over 10 years , lets hope they don't catch on that the debt will go to 20 maybe 25 trillion .
The wealty bunch who are paying out money to keep the tax to not go through. If this keeps up the rich well lose. I mean, after all, who is going to buy their product.
"death and tax's" I am thinking we are at that door.
So proud of the people demonstrating, I would but to old to stand for an hour or I would be there and my heart are with the 99%.
U.S. Debt Ceiling Crisis part one; neither of our corrupt political parties could come to an agreement about raising the Debt Ceiling, so they empowered a Supercommittee to do the dirty work.
Now the Supercommittee is unable to do its job, and the American people are threatened with automatic cuts of 1.4 TRILLION dollars over ten years, OMG! Put another way the cuts equal 140 BILLION dollars a year for ten years. Hmm…essentially about two weeks of government spending.
Sadly, this 1.4 TRILLION dollar cut is not going to save the American taxpayer anything. It’s kinda like this, let’s say I want to spend a 1000 dollars but my wife would kill me, my paycheck is 500 dollars and I could borrow 500 dollars from my friend, but I want to save money so I just borrow 250 dollars. See honey I just saved us 250 dollars! Aren’t you proud of me?
Coming soon: U.S. Debt Ceiling Crisis parts two and three in 2012 and 2013! See the spectacle!
Note: I do not support either corrupt political party. Vote out the incumbents, for true term limits.
The people are now riled up. Foreclosures on the rise again, Food prices up. Wages and income down. This is absolutely ridiculous. Most employers took advantage of the recession by freezing wages realizing you wouldn't quit in this economy and so you are effectively working for less money everyday.
Unless something is done, something that is fair, reasonable, and immediate, ASAP, I think the 99% tsunami may flood the Capitol Building and even the White House.
We are already taxed a thousand different ways. Apparently I owe 47,000 dollars to somebody I don't know, borrowed by the government on my behalf. These idiots need to get down to business and do their jobs.
They can't just spend for votes anymore.
Testacles,
I hope you do and spend the next decade or two in jail for tax and welfare fraud. It is vermin like you who are destroying America.
jkh
Master Link:
??? Since 1960, the USA Congress has raised the national debt limit 72 times.
Increase in taxes and/or tax revenue is NOT the solution or answer. The USA could increase the highest individual income tax rate to 92% and that would not solve the challenge. The USA could raise everyones rate to 92% and that would not be enough.
Republicans will be the death of this Country.
There will NEVER be cuts in government spending.
We just sent 2500 Marines to Australia, to defend us from China.
WE WILL NEVER CUT SPENDING..........country is so deeply in debt it will never come out and we cannot just retire 2500 servicemen so they can work in the US.....nooo We rich Americans will spend money we will borrow from China to defend ourselves against China by putting troops in Australia....
INSANE
yep, some wealthy really do think they should pay more taxes and that the Bush tax cuts are a freaking, irresponsible joke.
http://patrioticmillionaires.org/
A "lie"? it it really?. I seem to remember the top marginal tax rate as having been as high as 91% , the economy managed to grow then.
do I want to see a return to that level? no, but 50% for personal income over $10 million, and 40% over 2 million is not out of line. IT DIDN'T HURT THE ECONOMY THEN, IT WON'T HURT NOW! no matter what some millionaire tv and radio entertainers try to tell you.
don't forget that it was Dick Cheney that said "deficits don't matter". (that is until it doesn't matter until they can rile up the sheep when they lose power)
"With six days to go until a Nov. 23rd deadline, Democrats and Republicans huddled behind closed doors to continue talks toward a deal that would achieve $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade."
We know the Republicans have offered $300 Billion in new taxes.
What entitlement cuts have the Democrats offered? We never see anything in writing, just empty rhetoric. It may have worked for Obama in 2008, but I don't think it will fly today.
By the way - the November 23 date is an artificial date. None of the changes start until 2013, so this is just the prelims.
"In anticipation of a potential failure of talks, both sides are now engaged in a furious effort to show they've produced offers and made concessions to the other side."
The 'Blame Game' begins. This is all nonsense. Both sides know they have plenty of time to 'make a deal'. The cuts don't begin until 2013 - it's still 2011.
"The Republican proposal calls for an extension of Bush tax cuts with even lower rates".
and how exactly is this going to help in any way?
According to the White House Printing office we are scheduled to spend in 2012 between $1.2T to $1.4T on Defense and Defense related issues. Keep in mind that estimated revenues are forecasted at $2.2T. Knowing the government, the "estimated" amount of the DoD budget is understated and the revenues are overstated. Why is any reasonable American politician not screaming that a major part of the budget reductions come from that Defense? We currently spend 7 times that of #2 China and 11 times that of Russia. We spend as much as the balance of the world combined on defense. We have military bases scattered around the world--750+ overseas. The employs locals from other countries.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's bat@!$%# crazy. Those to the right always justify everything by their vague knowledge of the Constitution or The Federalists Papers. Does anyone think the Country was founded to be the watch dog of the world and the largest supplier of weaponry?
Doesn't matter whether the have a D or an R after their name---5 each in the top 10 of political contributions the last election cycle. It's wouldn't shock anyone to see names like Republican Senator McCain of Arizona, but it will shock some that Democarat Rep Giffords of Arizona was also in the top 5. Go to opensecrets.org and check out how many of these people are getting cash from defense contractors.
It saddens me to see what has come of this country. We're a mirror of The Roman Empire as it went down in flames--but they lasted 1300 years.
Testacle,
Your commentary is as productive as the Atom Bomb. The good thing about testacles is that one swift kick and it's all over. No resilience whatsoever. No brains either.
supersmooth3
Well look at it this way. YOUR TAXES stay the same or LOWER. Do you like that??? That means more money in YOUR pocket. More money for YOU to spend how you like.
Raising taxes solves NOTHING until the criminals in Congress and the White House are all fired.
They wasted every tax increase ever mandated, and have dug a $15 trillion hole.
But what is insanely worse is that Obama is planning on $1+ trillion every year in NEW DEBT for as far as the eye can see until long after he is out of office.
Don't you idiot liberals get it? Conservatives may not be "educated" but we do know one thing - you have all been conned. Republicans and Democrats are robbing the nation BLIND. The corruption is systemic. These fools are arguing about cutting $120 billion a year for 10 years on an annual budget of $3.5 trillion and growing. 3%? They can't manage a 3% CUT?
I've managed a nearly 50% cut in income - all of these worthless idiots need to be cut down to size - Perry is right on this one. If these con-men and criminals don't figure this out quick, 2012 is going to be a landslide victory for any conservative running no matter which party they come from.
As the vestigial remnants of the erstwhile Republican Party cede to the crackpot tea party, they bid a fond farewell to any hope of winning the presidency, let alone maintaining control of the House, and soon granting the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
And to think, I used to despise the tea party! They've been the largest galvanizing force for the Democratic base since George Dumbleya Bush.
Just raise the taxes on the republicans. Maybe pass a stupid tax. It sounds like a winner to me. This country will be back on its feet next year. LMAO
scott-579755
No new taxes and balance the budget now. Next year, the same but hold back some to pay down the National Debt.
In 2012 I'll vote against any politician that votes to compromise on a balance budget now, guaranteed. Do you think I am the only voter with this view?
=========
Scott,
You do understand this "super committee" isn't working towards a balanced budget. All they are doing is slowly the rate of the deficit down by $1.2 Trillion over the next 10 years. That's all. That equates to about what the deficit will be for this year alone. Our debt will still go up. If you really want a balanced budget and a reduction in the national debt then EVERY department in our government, including the rethugli-cons sacred cows, defense, homeland security, etc., will need major cuts. In addition, we'll need to raise revenue. the bushie/cheny tax cuts must go and other taxes must be raised. Somehow I think you're just like most politicians: you don't have the stomach to make the cuts and raise the taxes to accomplish what you claim you want. But hey, you're not alone. When most Americans realize the exact medicine they'd need to take they also realize they don't want to really do it either.
One thing the irks the hell out of me is listening to members of Congress tell the American people they'll need to make sacrifices. Yet the one group that hasn't been mentioned when it comes to making those sacrifices is Congress, the President/VP, the SC, etc. Maybe it's time every one of them take a 50% pay cut. Maybe they should give up their wonderful medical/retirement benefits. Those asking should be at the head of the line.
Tell me, did you think it would be different?
ROY WILSON-336103
We know the Republicans have offered $300 Billion in new taxes.
What entitlement cuts have the Democrats offered?
Roy,
I have a couple questions for you?
First) how can the rethugli-cons offer $300 Billion in new taxes when they are demanding the bushie/cheney tax cuts be made permanent, WITH LOWER TAX RATES?
Second) what government programs do you consider "entitlement" programs?
Social Security? It isn't. We, the American people, have been paying into it for neigh on 70 years. There would be no problems if our elected reps kept their hands out of the till.
Federal retirement? Again, it isn't? when I worked for the federal government (as an Air Traffice Controller) I was required to put 7% of my wages towards retirement.
Military retirement pay? Again, it's an earned payment. I put in 8 years active (at a much lower pay rate than a civilian would get) and 18 in the Guard/Reserve. Starting next April I get a pension but again I earned it.
My contention is this. The rethugli-cons want to destroy social programs and want lower taxes for the rich. I believe ALL government programs must make the sacrifice. Along those lines I believe ALL Americans have had a hand in helping us get into the mess we're in, so ALL Americans must sacrifice to help get us out of it. Unfortunately I don't think it's going to happen.
Wrong Brenda-It is the democ-Rats who will be the death of this country. With goofs in office like BO the end is near. Enjoy that hope and change.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
You're all buffoons.
Do you actually believe any of this will ever happen? Of course the Libbies are panting to just create more disingenuous offers. The Republicans will make offers, as they did during the debt ceiling debate and the Liberals will either proclaim it's "DEAD ON ARRIVAL" or if it gets to the Senate it will be "Tabled".
Regardless of the pathetic efforts of this unconstitutional effort, the results will be exactly as always. Promises, promises. Do any of you actually believe ANY of the revenue from either tax reform or cuts in spending will actually go to decreasing the Debt? Will there actually be a clause that will demand that ALL revenues be used specifically for debt reduction and that no new spending will be allowed with the revenues?
YEAH RIGHT!!!!
If you believe that I have some ocean-side property in North Dakota you can buy. Of course the tax changes will happen immediately and the revenue will just be wasted and spent as it always is on more pork-laden legislation. The "savings or cuts in spending" will of course be targeted to some future time or be fictitious to cuts that were already going to happen, like military savings from the troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And of course you'll all sit here proclaiming your side did more than the others and by the end of next year our debt will have been maxed out at $17 Trillion dollars, the $2.4 Trillion dollars from the last debt ceiling increase will be spent as our Debt has just eclipsed $15 TRILLION DOLLARS and the raging debate will begin again about raising the debt ceiling,,,,AGAIN.! Of course if they can fit it in between the constant regurgitant continuing resolutions because no budget will have been passed ,,,,,AGAIN!.
But you'll all be opining how wonderful your individual parties are for the upcoming elections and what a wonderful job they've been doing for the past 70 years. Especially the members who have been in the current 111th Congress who have been in service for over 20 years. Of course you'll all vote them back in based on the upstanding job they've done with the economy, debt and jobs.
Did I mention you're all buffoons?
I think your Kool Aid has gone bad, you should probably stop drinking it. Not even 50% of the 99% are with them anymore. Even the much maligned Tea Party has more popular support than OWS.- http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-favor-fading.html
Sandtrich, my good friend. I agree with the sentiments you expressed in post #1.40. Having said that though, I urge you not to allow sadness to distract you. Remember, OWS is alive and thriving. This growing movement looks a lot like those early patriots/colonists who became angry with king George lll and such corporate enterprises as "The East India Trading Company". This bunch didn't have one or several related and specific grievances. They all had different axes to grind, but collectively those labors were directed at the English aristocracy. Took it all a while to evolve, yet, it did. We have a "near Plutocracy" to tear down, and it will get done. I'm very excited about OWS, very excited! Also, I hope, really hope, this "super committee" will fail. Next year, let the President and a democratic congress do what is really needed. Truthfully, I am beginning to feel the pride and passion of being an American again, all due to a brow beaten, good and able President, and the "ground quaking democratic drum beat of the great OWS" across our land and planet. Take heart good friend. The only thing that's going to be burned here is "Nero's fiddle".
Time to vote ALL incumbents out. Yes, your states Reps too. They're all in it for themselves. Time for a clean flush.
The cuts will be automatic. Congress will be blamed and Obama will come out smelling like a rose. Democrats will be super majorities in both houses of Congress.
Nope. They are already at work getting out of the automatic triggers. This thing is nothing but a farce.
This thing is nothing but a farce!
Agree phine!
This is going according to the Democratic plan......stall, condemn, and sit on hands until deadline passes to make sure the Nuclear Option takes affect.
Right on the head!!! Phine
Who are they kidding, Physical hole is over 52 trillion, I think we are screwed no matter what deal is made or not made!
Who are the ones stalling? The Democrats? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!
I hope so dude, then maybe some legislation will get passed.. right or wrong...
Both sides should give. The Republicans need to increase revenues on Capital gains, which are transactional and controllable, and estate taxes, which pertain to the very wealthy. Earned income should not be taxed at a higher rate.
The Democrats need to give on spending. Cut welfare, medicaid, unemployment insurance, etc. Dump national healthcare.
The medical profession needs to cut charges. Universities need to lower tuition and spend endowments.
We need trade restrictions with ALL countries, not just China, get rid of NAFTA. Close the borders and get rid of the aliens that take jobs and cost money.
Don't pay benefits to people who can take lower paying jobs, but give them a supplement if they take lower paying jobs.
And for G-d's sake, stop letting politics take precedent over common sense.
Let everyone suffer. The person most to blame for this mess is the person in your mirror. We all need to take blame. Stop blaming others.
Wow, smelling like a rose? wishful thinking obviously. A Democratic Senate and both super majorities for his 1st 2 years. Good luck with that plan Baldy.
Well if they worked on the problem instead of sitting on their FAT AZZES maybe things would be different, as for now We need to get rid of party of NO this coming election ...........
Good post Lar. At $15 Trillion and counting the only thing I would add is "balance the damn budget".
Every move Republicans make, from gutting consumer protections to polluting the environment, is designed to aid the rich - even if it requires borrowing from China,- dismantling Medicare, Social Security and taxing the middle class.
Wize
Thank you. I am a long time Republican, but it is getting to the point where politics don't matter any more, survival does. The more we point the finger at each other, the more nothing gets done. I am also against OWS, but they do point to the problems. They just have no answers and aren't willing to take any blame either. Think about it, did any OWS person ever say, "gee maybe I shouldn't have rung up that college debt" or "gee , maybe I shouldn't have bought that house" or "gee maybe I should take a lower paying job " We are to blame for most of our own problems.
Witchking
Calling the Republicans the party of the rich is like calling the Democrats the party of the poor. Neither is true.
Wize
Also you are right, balance the budget. I would think some of my suggestions would help in that by increasing revenue and decreasing expenses.
Witchking
R-i-g-h-t... the Republicans want to have dirty air, dirty water to drink, infected meat to eat, and harm their children - what a stupid argument. The Republicans are only for the top 1% of income earners... how would they get elected to office by that small portion of the USA population? How funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lars, I wish I had the opportunity to vote for you instead of any politician we have today. It is good to know there are people that still stand for the common good of the country over their own greed and bias.
Witchking.....did Kerry give you a ride on his $7.2 Million yacht before you posted your diatribe. Don't get me wrong, the GOP is no better. But, you need some perspective.
Sadly, and disconcertingly, from what the economic experts say (and none of them are politicians) it won't matter if we cut out 1.2 trillion from the budget. Everyone should be aware that the future debt that is building up will begin to do so exponentially over the next few decades. So it will not matter if we increase taxes and/or cut way back on services. Eventually we're going to become insolvent. That's what's happening in so many European countries. The ultra rich will live behind guarded, barriaded compounds (like is happening right now in parts of Brazil) and the rest of the population will sink down into a subsistence existence. If you're in the latter group and you get sick then you'll probably be done for. Think about B. F. Skinner's rat experiment. When that comes there won't be any more Republicans and Democrats, there'll just be people.
Under this particular Democratic plan, the Bush tax cuts would expire at the end of next year. The Republican proposal calls for an extension of Bush tax cuts with even lower rates. Therefore, Republicans argued today that Democrats were being disingenuous claiming they had met Republican revenue demands.
Hmm... looks like the Republicans are still wanting to 'reward' the wealthy...
Re-post from collapse above:
New Additions to Post:
First off, those who say the Bush tax cuts should expire for all are simpletons. Because of the decade + of inequality that has culminated in the Great Recession and conditions that are still fragile, we can't do that. We must raise revenue, and for now it can only come from those who can sustain it--the richest 2% and corporations making record profits.
Secondly, in regard to the millionaires who came forward to the Super Committee and even met with Grover Norquist (though he really should be shunned) in favor of multi-millionaires paying more in taxes, you may note a few things about this. The group of millionaires were from the Left Coast, primarily Silicon Valley -- NOT from Big Oil, or Wall Street, or Insurance/Big Pharma, and certainly not Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Really, or Rush Limbaugh (no surprise there).
Further to the millionaires in the news today, of course Norquist repeated the usual simpleton response of saying these millionaires can just write a check to the government. The millionaires then provided a written reply to Norquist saying that the government is NOT a charity, thereby making it obvious what a stupid dweebs Norquist and his ilk are. Certainly Norquist, and Teapublicans who have signed the unconstitutional pledge to this despicable lobbyist, do NOT represent the majority of the American people as we know from polls.
Enough! The GOP/TP better stop their obstructionism and best get started on reversing their destruction of our great nation, or they will feel the wrath of the 99%. The next step for OWS should be naming names.
Let's talk tax stats. Individual income tax accounted for $1.175 Trillion dollars (FY2009, the last year available from the IRS) in revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for $225 Billion dollars on $5 Trillion in profit (an effective 5% tax rate). GE among others paid NOTHING. In fact corporations received $33 Billion in TAX REFUNDS ($1.3 Billion to JPMorgan Chase for example).
Not a single word from Dems or the GOP about the ridiculous inequites in our current tax code. The Dem argument that "multi-millionaires should pay more" is fallacious. Despite the rhetoric Obama takes more from Wall Street than any other politician in history. The loopholes continue unabated. Pelosi et al engage in insider trading. And "simpletons" here continue to believe there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. Eyes wide shut.
Let get this straight...not only do they want to make the "bush tax cuts" permanent, they want to lower the rates even more? Does any one of these Republican motherfu#ckers know what the income gap is in this country? How about over the last 4 decades the top 1-2% increased theirs income by over 300% while the bottom 99% income HAS GONE DOWN. Yet they feel that the top 1% should have even more of the pie? Meanwhile, our infrastructure is rapidly approaching third world status and the GOP/TP is standing in the way of getting to work on it. So, to you repukes I say...FU#K YOU!!! That's right...the rest of the country is finally waking up officially saying ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The "Super committee" is unconstitutional. The whole body of each house of congress is supposed to vote on legislation. That's what the constitution says. Then if it passes the President either signs it or vetoes it.
Obama's underlings collaborated in the creation of this Frankenstein committee so I'm sure The Sociopath in Chief is itching to prove what a loyal servant of Wall Street and Corporate America he is by signing the most vicious cut backs in Federal Spending they can come up with (that's why keeps telling them to "go Big") all the while pretending to"feel our pain" and regret having to do it.
Quit sanely and humanely the congress's constituents, most middle class and poor americans, are against cutting Social Security, Medicare, Health and Safety and they are FOR raising taxes on the rich who have been the main winners for the last 30 years accumulating vast amounts of wealth.
The President and Congress know that people are against "austerity" and cutting important social programs so they have created this "super committee" to get around the democratic process and ram budget cuts through that will be devastating to millions of americans.
The committee is stacked with cold-blooded pro corporate @!$%#s like Erskine Bowls who worked for Bill "Signed NAFTA and Financial Deregulation" Clinton.
On the Republican side we have Mr. Mean, Allen Simpson, put on the committee because he is a long time foe of Social Security and Medicare.
The whole committee is a witch's brew of "free-market" fanatics and corrupt Wall Street/Corporate stooges with one token pwogwessive for the sake of PR (what's her face).
If you want to talk about brutal class warfare, rich against everyone else, look no further than this "Super Committee".
Caligula...... glad you are a democrat........ they can have you....... you are so twisted in your thinking .......... go educate yourself...... then come back and make "intelligent" comments........
Everybody is freaking out with the word "cut" - anyone with "common sense" knows there is way too much corruption in social security and medicare......... those two areas need to be "re-evaluated" and certain line items need to be adjusted.......... like everyone has had to "adjust" their monthly budget since Obama has become President.........
And this so-called SuperCommittee......... hahahaha........ another bad idea to add to Obama's huge list of bad ideas......... there will be no agreement because of all the EGOS that were not checked at the door on both sides..........
Nancy Pelosi said when Obama became president "sit down we are now in charge" I will never forget those words and my comment then was "they will get nothing done" how's that so-called transparency that Obama PROMISED working for ya..... quit blaming the republicans - when you try to find the middle of the road ONLY to get run over time and time again.......... you finally stand up and say ENOUGH......... and that is where republicans are now and a whole lot of other people in America....... ENOUGH !!!!!!! you democrats had your chance and you really really BLEW IT BIG TIME...... I can't wait to see how the historians are going to be writing this part of history......... a very sad time for Americans.......
Tax all imports bases on the diparity of the wages from each originating country compared to the wages here in the USA. Let all the failed Bush Tax cuts for all taxpayers end and then look at the budget with those returned resorses of revenue. If any other country complaines, tell them to mind there own business because this superpower is not going to be bullied any more. Legalize the current list of illegal drugs and let the Alcohau, tobaco and firearmes regulate taxing and abuse programs. Overturn all previouse non-violent drug convictions and save trillions on incarseration costs. Use the savings to fund schooling for 4 years of trade school or college for every American.
If no deal is reached the automatic cuts wouldn't kick in until 2013. So does the deadline really have any meaning other than being symbolic?
Per Democratic aides, Sen. Murray offered to her Republican co-chair, Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, last week an offer that would achieve the mandated $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction by way of
$401 billion in new revenue and (tax increase on wealthy)
$876 billion in spending cuts, which includes $275 billion in health entitlement savings.
$275 Billion in health entitlement savings is just another way of saying $275 Billion in health entitlement CUTS.
So the 1% gets hit and accumlatively loses $401 Billion by paying a few of the taxes they've been avoiding
and the other 90-99% who live on close to NOTHING have $275 Billion taken away from them.
Yeah that's sounds like a great plan Ms Murray. Aren't YOU glad you have your million plus tucked away nice and safe.
I don't know about the rest of you but I am sick of ALL of this posturing by BOTH sides. It is clear that neither side is listening to us or acting FOR us. THIS is something to think about and maybe the OWS and TP can take up and demonstrate for:
Ballot Initiatives & Referenda
A ballot initiative (also known as a ballot measure or proposition) is a petition signed by a minimum number of registered voters to force a public vote on a proposed state bill or local ordinance. Even though ballot initiatives have been around since the Declaration of Independence, only 24 states and the District of Columbia currently use them on a statewide level. A referendum, in contrast to a ballot initiative, is when a rulemaking body – such as a legislature – acts first by calling for a vote by the people.
Okay, so my theory is...if the Democrats are serious about protecting our Medicare and Social Security why is Senate not doing this? THREE referendums is where we start:
1. Term limits on Congress
2. Universal Health Care
3. Expiration of Bush tax cuts-close loopholes
What's going on now is NOT working. It's time to take a different direction!
Does the word filibuster ring a bell? For one I would love to actually see them filibuster instead of just threaten to do it.
We should just replace the congress building with a big top. Nothing but a bunch of clowns in there.
Concerning corporations and tax loopholes, does everyone realize that a lot (most/all?) of those "loopholes" are things that are often supported by various non-business groups? For example, with GE, my understanding is they basically took advantage of every clean energy and lower income related tax break they could find. These are incentives we added to the tax code to encourage businesses to do what we feel is in the common good.
To the best of my knowledge, there are no corporate tax loopholes for giving CEO's more money or paying the average worker less. There may be some that effectively encourage things such as hiring foreign workers - and I agree those are an issue - but I don't think that's the majority of the breaks companies like GE uses to lower their tax rate.
It's all the Dems fault. Damn Dems.
No wait, it's all the Repubs fault. Damn Repubs.
No wait, it's the independents that are stealing the votes. Damn them, too.
Did you ever stop to think that they are all wrong and right at the same time? That there are good ideas from all groups that could be melded together to make this work.
It isn't that complicated. As a government, we've overspent and now we have to reel in our spending habits to get things under control.
At the same time, most of the wealth has been locked up at the top - kinda reminds you of a Ponzi scheme, doesn't it? - and that needs to be unlocked. It's not the top 1% or even the top 10% that make the economy churn, it's the rest of us. Let those that can easily afford to pay more, pay more.
And while you're at it:
Anything else you'd like to change?
You might adjust the venetians a little, we can still see very easily through that.
The republicans want their guns and all it will cost is a heck of a lot of butter. I can't figure out why they think this is a good platform to run on in November.
GOP made pledge to Grover Norquist for no new taxes. Grover is the inside man to big corporate money, What they say he does. GOP politicians are scared sh-tless of this so called man. This not a congress for the people. GOP for big money and nothing else unless we up-rise 2012
WHY rise Up?? As long as I keep my programs I am going to keep running my laundromat and diner as CASH ONLY businesses and make sure that I pay NO Taxes. As long as I live below the poverty line the system can PAY ME!!!
And as long as my friends and I continue to get our SSI/disability I don't care what the rest of you do!!
H*ll Yessss for the 99%!!!..... Tax those idiot 1 %ers who are working like Fools!!!.(and that includes this Grover Norquist guy along with the rest of YOU whiners on the Internet)
...............Go Democrats!!!
strmz:
Wrong!
That pledge was by the so-called Tea Party. There only 59 members of Congress that belong to the Tea Party, which is about 11% of the elected. Stop lying.
Doh, Homer, GOP members made the pledge. Google it.
Homer,
You haven't a clue! Norquist coauthored the Contract with America and has been getting his Tax Pledge signed since 1993. There are currently 238 House members who signed the Norquist Tax Pledge about 180 of them before there ever was a TeaParty some are even Democrats.
jkh
Hey Wayne, you might want to check your facts - Obama is expanding our military commitments - see the Pacific Rim / Australia for the current example.
You monotone libbies are sad.
And you leftist posters are merely puppets of George Soros. You blindly accept his opinions as the truth no matter what strings he pulls. Tell me how many people did Grover kill??? How many people did the Koch brothers kill. George Soros willingly lead Jews to their death.
Tell me again, how many Tea party followers raped their comrades?
Homer is a liar or a fool...either way....
Tax all imports bases on the diparity of the wages from each originating country compared to the wages here in the USA. Let all the failed Bush Tax cuts for all taxpayers end and then look at the budget with those returned resorses of revenue. If any other country complaines, tell them to mind there own business because this superpower is not going to be bullied any more. Legalize the current list of illegal drugs and let the Alcohal, tobaco and firearmes regulate taxing and abuse programs. Overturn all previouse non-violent drug convictions and save trillions on incarseration costs. Use the savings to fund schooling for 4 years of trade school or college for every American.
Sorry Edward, that's too logical, we can't have that.
/end sarcasm
Janet,,,you disgusting Fox News replayer....George Soros was 10 to 15 years old during WWII. Go find the facts before posting that BS on here!!!!!!!!!!!GOD will punish you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
janet, did you know that grandpa Koch got his start building refineries for Stalin?
a fact, look it up.
Testacles,
Ok, so you and your friends cheat the system. How long can you get away with that. Sooner or later IRS/agency's will catch on to your game, ya think? Then you can pay back all the money you ripped off taxpayers and plenty more in fees and your business's, home etc. will be gone. Maybe you and your friend's can sleep in your car and do some dumpster diving on the side. Nice Eh!!!
The Bush Tax cuts should not be part of any negotiation. Keeping them in at 800+ billion to the deficit annually. Obviously the Republicans are not serious about reducing the deficit. Vote them all out!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/calculating-the-cost-of-the-bush-tax-cuts/2011/10/14/gIQADB7dkL_blog.html
If the Republicans wanted merely to be re-elected, all they would need to do would be to let the Bush tax cuts expire. At that point, even the Democrats would figure out what a bad idea it was and there would be no one else to blame except the greed and envy demagogues. The Republicans would win in a landslide.
I wonder how much total economic activity will decline because of the higher taxes? Total Revenues = Tax Rate x Taxable Income
If the taxable income drops, then the total revenues may decline even if the tax rate is increased. I would bet that with the number of businesses with marginal earnings right now, that many businesses will just give up rather than take losses because of the additional tax expense.
Sales taxes make more sense than Corporate taxes. Corporations must simply pass on the increased tax expense to their customers anyway, but only US corporations pay US corporate taxes. If the tax were collected as a sales tax instead the effect would be the same for US corporations, but taxes would be collected from the sale of foreign made goods as well.
Your smoking dope my friend, the repubicans are cutting their oun throats.
Economic activity would decline not at all. Rich people still need a new Lexus every 4 months, business has to keep going or the CEO is out of work, and life goes on. I've heard this stupid argument so many times in my lifetime that now I just laugh.
OUwhine I believe the Bush tax cuts amounted to 3.7T over 10 years or 370B/year!That is less than 30% of our deficit each year!
Gary Root, you miss the point that taxes are paid on NET INCOME. Thus, if a business is not making a profit, just treading water, they pay no taxes. If they are making a small profit, they pay a small tax, regardless of the rates increase.
The folks who are most "at risk" are those making a lot of money. They would pay much more if rates were increased. And they are doing everything they can to prevent that from happening, including funding SuperPacs, etc.
OUwhiner - nice try, but no ceegar!
Lost revenue (if that is what you want to say, for the obama/bush tax cuts really are to the tune of about $3.5 trillion over ten years. Your link convieniently left out the numbers for the remaining 95% of the taxpayers. They do count you know.
Basically this means that over ten years our deficits/debt can be cut by an estimated $3.5 tillion. Which is still not materially significent to reduce our debt after ten years. Real spending by the government still needs to be cut drastically back as well.
When our government spends 40 % of our revenue servicing our debt our spending is way out of wack with revenues. Even assuming a full economic recovery will still leave us with a spending problem.
Prior to 2010 the political mantra from either side has been "deficits don't matter". Fortunately for us all, the tea party started saying that "deficits do matter" Mainstream republicans started to wake up in 2010 and the democrats for the most part are still clinging to the old mantra.
DEFINITELY Vote the Republicans OUT so I can KEEP MY SOCIAL PROGRAMS!!! Why the GOP wants to hurt the "little guy" anyway is beyond me. TAX THE 1 % !!!!!
Money is money and whether it be 800B or 370B/year - its money thats needed to pay down (not add to) the debt....afterall isn't that the GOP/TP's mantra (or is it)? Funny how many are quick to talk about how "little" such cuts will amount to, yet are without a doubt eager to tax the SSI, medicare and medicaid benefits of many hardworking, struggling Americans, while letting big corporations and the wealthy off the hook of paying their fair share of taxes.....Typical TP/GOP bulls*** - pure hypocrisy!!! Republicans need to quit with this deficit/spending cut crap - if not, do what's needed and make cuts ACROSS THE FREAKING BOARD (that means all over - starting with the useless GWB tax cuts to the wealthy; defense spending; big oil/big corp subsidies, etc. ). These CUTS my friend will add up and make in difference in paying down our debt.
Otherwise, these hypocrits need to leave our retirment benefits alone and instead dig a little deeper in their own damn fat pockets/bank accounts!

OUwhine
I do believe that its closer to 370 Billion per year. Also didn't you see the Date of 2001. The figure you give is the TOTAL COST SINCE 2001.
Deanna, "GWB tax cuts to the wealthy"??!! Only 22% of those cuts went to the top 2%, the group that pays over 50% of individual federal income taxes. The GWB tax cuts reduced the bottom rate from 15% to 10%, a cut of 50%! They also increased the # paying no federal income taxes from 25% to 47%. How, may I ask you is this "tax cuts to the wealthy"??!! You and the rest of your kind have no idea what the wealthy pay in taxes. You look at outliers but overall as income goes up, so does federal income tax!! Do some research instead of just listening to other idiots! I can tell why you want to tax the wealthy. You are not , nor will you ever be wealthy. You are not "equipped"!
If you took EVERY SINGLE PENNY from every single millionaire and billionaire in the US it would only cover a third of the deficit. Obviously taxing the rich is not the solution to the problem but you just go ahead and follow along like a good little lemming. Polly want a cracker?
tes...NONE OF IT SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THE WEALTHY! Wake up you troglodytes....
and, yes...I am in the top 2% (barely).....
Tax all imports bases on the diparity of the wages from each originating country compared to the wages here in the USA. Let all the failed Bush Tax cuts for all taxpayers end and then look at the budget with those returned resorses of revenue. If any other country complaines, tell them to mind there own business because this superpower is not going to be bullied any more. Legalize the current list of illegal drugs and let the Alcohal, tobaco and firearmes regulate taxing and abuse programs. Overturn all previouse non-violent drug convictions and save trillions on incarseration costs. Use the savings to fund schooling for 4 years of trade school or college for every American.
Caligula "NONE OF IT SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THE WEALTHY"??!! You actually believe that everyone except the ones that pay over 50% of the individual federal income tax should have gotten a tax decrease??!! I can tell you don't pay enough taxes!
If a business is losing money, not only do they quit paying taxes, they quit being a business.
Yes tes...if you make over $1 million a year you shouldn't be getting a tax decrease...if you think you should be, well, then I can only surmise that you support greedy pigs feeding at the trough of the public good...sorry if that bursts your little bubble of privilege...and yes, when the government wakes up and finally raises taxes, I WILL GLADLY PAY MORE to help fix the crumbling state of this once great nation.
Just to continue...my tax rate was 42% under Clinton....and I remember the country being a lot better off...and guess what? I didn't miss the relatively small amount of money...I'd rather live in a civilly sound society based on the public good than one based on personal greed...call me an idealist...or a patriot...your choice...
Caligula = PATRIOT
I agree 100%.
And spending was also only a fraction of what it is today!!! Tax revenues have not gone down as much as spending has gone up. We have a spending problem!!!! You cannot fix that by raising taxes!!
Well tes..if we didn't have TWO unfunded wars (one of which was fought because of a LIE) and an unfunded prescription drug plan, the largest un-funded tax cut in history and a no-strings-attached GIVEAWAY to the banks (engineered by Paulson...and who appointed him?) things would be quite different now. But, please, continue to live in your self-created fantasy world if it makes you feel better about things....
Anyone who is even remotely honest and has a least half-a-brain knows why we are where we are today. When someone makes a mess you can ignore the mess or try to clean it up. Cleaning it up is always harder...assuming it can even be cleaned up...try un-breaking an egg sometime. A criminal gang destroyed this country and it will take decades to fix it if it can even be fixed. You can either help or stay part of the problem.
You are very touchy on this point! I simply stated that spending was the problem. I did not try to justify it!!!
You simply cannot close a 1.2T deficit by increasing taxes!!
An unfunded tax cut? So we tax according to spending? Talk about self created fantasy. Criminal, when is the court date? What war was fought over a lie? No strings attached to banks? Clean up when did that start?
The lie was WMD's when in reality it was a war to settle personal differences between two families. The Agency knew there were no WMD's so Dub-ya took the word of another country's intelligence agency at the expense of an honorable retired general. When a person uses his/her civil service office for personal gain it is a felony under federal statute.
I believe congress was also misled or do you blame that on Bush!!??
You were lied to alright.
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." --President Bill Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." --President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." --Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." --Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by: -- Democratic Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others, Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." -Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." -- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
Notice the dates, and when was Bush Elected? So when is the trial?
yes, unfunded tax cut, the taxes should never have been cut without an equal cut in spending. but as Dick Cheney said; "deficits don't matter" , that is not until the right wingnuts can use it for political gain.
virtually all economists will tell you that a moderate tax hike and a moderate spending cut will be far less destructive than simply cutting spending, and that tax increases (within reason) are less destructive than massive cuts in government spending.
wealthy individuals don't suddenly become "jobs creators" simply because they have an extra 4% to spend
By BRIAN RIEDL
President Obama and congressional Democrats are blaming their trillion-dollar budget deficits on the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Letting these tax cuts expire is their answer. Yet the data flatly contradict this "tax cuts caused the deficits" narrative. Consider the three most persistent myths:
• The Bush tax cuts wiped out last decade's budget surpluses. Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), for example, has long blamed the tax cuts for having "taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see." That $5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic growth and the stock-market bubble (which had already peaked) would continue forever and generate record-high tax revenues. It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would fall to 1930s levels.
The projected $5.6 trillion surplus between 2002 and 2011 will more likely be a $6.1 trillion deficit through September 2011. So what was the cause of this dizzying, $11.7 trillion swing? I've analyzed CBO's 28 subsequent budget baseline updates since January 2001. These updates reveal that the much-maligned Bush tax cuts, at $1.7 trillion, caused just 14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits (and that is according to a "static" analysis, excluding any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by the cuts).
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The bulk of the swing resulted from economic and technical revisions (33%), other new spending (32%), net interest on the debt (12%), the 2009 stimulus (6%) and other tax cuts (3%). Specifically, the tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 are responsible for just 4% of the swing. If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except 2007.
• The next decade's deficits are the result of the previous administration's profligacy. Mr. Obama asserted in his January State of the Union Address that by the time he took office, "we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program."
In short, it's all President Bush's fault. But Mr. Obama's assertion fails on three grounds.
First, the wars, tax cuts and the prescription drug program were implemented in the early 2000s, yet by 2007 the deficit stood at only $161 billion. How could these stable policies have suddenly caused trillion-dollar deficits beginning in 2009? (Obviously what happened was collapsing revenues from the recession along with stimulus spending.)
Related
Second, the president's $8 trillion figure minimizes the problem. Recent CBO data indicate a 10-year baseline deficit closer to $13 trillion if Washington maintains today's tax-and-spend policies—whereby discretionary spending grows with the economy, war spending winds down, ObamaCare is implemented, and Congress extends all the Bush tax cuts, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch, and the Medicare "doc fix" (i.e., no reimbursement cuts).
Under this realistic baseline, the 10-year cost of extending the Bush tax cuts ($3.2 trillion), the Medicare drug entitlement ($1 trillion), and Iraq and Afghanistan spending ($515 billion) add up to $4.7 trillion. That's approximately one-third of the $13 trillion in baseline deficits—far from the majority the president claims.
Third and most importantly, the White House methodology is arbitrary. With Washington set to tax $33 trillion and spend $46 trillion over the next decade, how does one determine which policies "caused" the $13 trillion deficit? Mr. Obama could have just as easily singled out Social Security ($9.2 trillion over 10 years), antipoverty programs ($7 trillion), other Medicare spending ($5.4 trillion), net interest on the debt ($6.1 trillion), or nondefense discretionary spending ($7.5 trillion).
There's no legitimate reason to single out the $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, war funding and the Medicare drug entitlement. A better methodology would focus on which programs are expanding and pushing the next decade's deficit up.
• Declining revenues are driving future deficits. The fact is that rapidly increasing spending will cause 100% of rising long-term deficits. Over the past 50 years, tax revenues have deviated little from their 18% of gross domestic product (GDP) average. Despite a temporary recession-induced dip, CBO projects that even if all Bush tax cuts are extended and the AMT is patched, tax revenues will rebound to 18.2% of GDP by 2020—slightly above the historical average. They will continue growing afterwards.
Spending—which has averaged 20.3% of GDP over the past 50 years—won't remain as stable. Using the budget baseline deficit of $13 trillion for the next decade as described above, CBO figures show spending surging to a peacetime record 26.5% of GDP by 2020 and also rising steeply thereafter.
Putting this together, the budget deficit, historically 2.3% of GDP, is projected to leap to 8.3% of GDP by 2020 under current policies. This will result from Washington taxing at 0.2% of GDP above the historical average but spending 6.2% above its historical average.
Entitlements and other obligations are driving the deficits. Specifically, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and net interest costs are projected to rise by 5.4% of GDP between 2008 and 2020. The Bush tax cuts are a convenient scapegoat for past and future budget woes. But it is the dramatic upward arc of federal spending that is the root of the problem.
Businesses are easy targets, but taxing them — or not taxing them — isn’t the answer. If you can ignore the politics and look at our country’s fiscal picture as a math problem, the situation is fairly grim, but it’s also fairly clear. Unless we make serious changes, we are going to be in far more debt than we can afford. There have been two important bipartisan commissions — Rivlin-Domenici and Simpson-Bowles — that reached the same conclusion: we need to make some significant cuts in Social Security, Medicare and defense and, at the same time, pay a lot more in taxes. The total cost could be around $400 billion more a year.
Corporations aren’t going to be able to pay that much. And as much as some people might want to punish them, or at least the C.E.O.’s that run them, it would wreck our economy if we did. It’s tempting to look to our millionaires and demand they pay more in taxes, but the same inconvenient truth applies. When you add up all the money made by all the people who earn more than $1 million a year, it amounts to around $700 billion. But since the millionaires already pay close to $200 billion in taxes, the government would have to increase rates to nearly 100 percent — which is about the worst idea ever — for it to have any real impact.
It serves the interest of both parties to argue about taxes on corporations and the wealthy because neither wants to discuss the alternative, which is where things get touchy. To solve our debt problems, we have to go to where the money is — the middle class. People who earn between $30,000 and $200,000 a year make a total of around $5 trillion and pay less than 10 percent of that in taxes (owing mostly to tax incentives and the fact that most families make less than $68,000, where larger tax rates begin). Increasing the middle-class tax burden an additional 8 percent, however, would actually have a bigger impact than taxing millionaires at 100 percent. Still, many experts say we don’t need to raise the tax rate on the middle class; we just need to get rid of some of those despised loopholes (or beloved incentives). Most reform proposals suggest gradually eliminating the most popular tax deductions, like mortgage interest rates ($120 billion per year) and workplace health insurance ($200 billion per year). Regardless, most economists acknowledge, and most politicians privately concede, that the middle class will have to give up some benefits (Social Security, Medicare) or it will have to pay more in taxes. Actually, it will probably have to do both. The millionaires will be paying more, too. Leading Democrats are proposing a nearly 10 percent hike.
It’s a tough but manageable financial math problem. And America’s middle class is actually a lot luckier than its counterparts in Greece, Spain or Ireland, who will be paying higher taxes while their countries’ economies shrink, or stagnate. Even the Fed’s dark forecasts anticipate that the U.S. economy will return to healthy growth (about 3 percent annually) within a couple of years. Unless we hold on to the fantasy that the solutions to our problems lie in the bank accounts of rich people and corporations.
Adam Davidson is the co-founder of NPR's Planet Money, a podcast, blo
What will fix the economy is to solve the root of the problem, not throw money at the symptoms as Congress, Paulson, and Bernanke have been doing. This crisis is imminently solvable, not the opaque, insurmountable problem they make it out to be.
The roots of the problem are:
1. No trust in the markets. All banks and financial institutions suspect each other of hiding insolvency, and are afraid to loan in the overnight lending market or longer term b/c who wants to lend money to an institution that could within a few days spiral into failure, as Bear Stearns and Lehman did?
2. Many banks and investment banks are insolvent, they're just hiding it off-balance sheet on Level 3 or in SIVs, or some other obsfucation. They've leveraged up, or borrowed money, using these hidden, now-distressed or nonperforming 'assets' as collateral. Now that collateral is going bad, they are trying to hide it using off-balance and/or mark-to-model accounting.
3. Excessive leverage ratios of 20:1, 30:1, 40:1, even 60:1 in the case of Fannie Mae. Leverage amplifies your returns in good times, but amplifies your losses when your trades and investments go against you.
4. Housing prices are reverting to their historical mean of no more than 3.5x to 4x salary levels, bringing down mortgage securities based on them that were created with the assumption that housing prices, even those in a historically unprecedented bubble, never fall.
Several sound, informed solutions have been proposed: The Genesis Plan, Plan B by Luigi Zingales of Chicago GSB, Tavakoli Structured Finance's alterntive plan, Juan Enriquez's plan of Harvard GSB, and Nouriel Roubini's plan. In a nutshell, they all include variations on the following:
1. Require 100% balance sheet transparency on all publicly traded companies. Off-balance-sheet shenanigans like Level 3 and SIVs were supposed to have been eliminated after Enron, instead they infected the entire financial system. Without full, perfect transparency trust can never completely return to the financial markets.
2. #1 will expose many companies as distressed or insolvent, some of which are necessary for a working financial system and some of which are not. The solution to this is forced restructuring that puts first losses on stock and bondholders, as is supposed to happen in capitalism, not a taxpayer bailout that shifts the risks and losses to the Federal balance sheet and currency. A capital structure cramdown that wipes out current equity and converts bonds to new equity is usual way of accomplishing this. Stockholders lose 100%, and bondholders take a partial loss but are left with equity in a still-functioning, productive company with a clean, debt-free balance sheet, able to return to making money unimpaired. If further capital infusion is still needed after the restructuring, the Fed and Treasury can triage at much less cost and risk. This step is covered in detail by all three plans, and by dr. Enriquez's plan as well.
3. Require all derivatives to be traded on a margin-requirement-enforcing exchange. No more OTC contracts that can stealthily balloon into a $66T tangle of 'weapons of financial mass destruction'.
4. Reinstate the historically safe 12:1 leverage cap requirement (that incidentally Hank Paulson, lobbying in 2004, got repealed).
5. Restructure and workout bad mortgages so as to allow an orderly housing price regression to the historical mean of no more than 3.5x to 4x salary levels, while mitigating as much as possible the damage to currently outstanding securitized mortgage instruments. Zingales covers this in detail.
true enough, although we most likely would have been much closer to a surplus than a growing deficit if those tax cuts had been only implemented as a short-term fix for a recession (temporary tax cuts and extra spending are common methods to alleviate recessions)
actually 4.32 sounds pretty good
S Capps You misunderstand the Dems! While they continue to call the Bush tax cuts "tax cuts for the wealthy", they only want to let them expire on the top 2%!! So if they only benefited the wealthy, why do they not want them all to expire!!?? Because only 22% of the total went to "the wealthy", the group that pays over 50% of individual federal income taxes!! So much for the term "tax cuts for the wealthy"!!! It is still used since it sounds good to the other 98%.
tes, over a fifth of the tax cuts went to the 2% that need it least, such "wonderful common sense"
40% (actually 39.5%) is not going to "kill the rich" I would agree if someone wanted to return to the 70% top tax bracket prior to Reagan, or the 91% top tax bracket prior to Kennedy, but the right-wingnuts have passed the point of diminishing returns since Reagan.
"the 2% that need it least"!!!?? I will repeat. 22% went to the group that pays over 50% of individual federal income tax!!! This only seems fair if you are a taker and not a giver! Shared sacrifice looks like a good idea to you as long as someone else is doing the sacrificing! You speak like someone who has no skin in the game (at least as a giver)! I would not object to paying more taxes if other groups are asked to share the pain. But to eliminate only the 22% that went to the top 2% is grossly unfair (except if you are a taker).
Take the bottom rate back up to 15% from 10%, decrease the # paying no federal income tax to 25% from 47% and get rid of these so called refundable tax credits ( that mechanism that allows some to get refunds after not having to pay any federal income tax) then I will give up my Bush tax cuts (you know those "tax breaks for the wealthy")!!
tes, are you actually trying to come across as petty and banal, or is that just how you are?
I am simply giving some facts and some opinion. Am I not entitled to my opinion just as you are? You call it petty? I pay over $100,000/yr in federal income taxes each year and for that I am entitled to an opinion!! Ignore it if you don't like it!
actually tes, since the republicans won't budge on taxes, it is most likely that all of the Bush unfunded tax cuts will expire next year, so you will likely get your wish.
Yes, we will still have to make cuts also so that the debt starts decreasing, I do want to see the budget balanced and have a surplus and I do realize it will take sacrifices from all, but apparently you think that an extra 5-7 k from your 100k is going to cause immense suffering for yourself.
framkly I doubt that you really qualify as one of those so-called "jobs creators" over a few thousand a year.
Unfunded tax cuts do not exist. only unfunded spending. Stop counting chickens before they hatch. It depends on the economy. If you based it on yesterday, well it changed today. The spending should be more fluid. "Job creators" cannot be judged individually. Read above Economist do not think tax the rich. They all agree grow grow the economy, just not on how. None will tell you to take it from those who can make, spend, invest to make something happen. All economists will tell you 100% you cannot borrow and spend yourself out of debt. Jump in a bucket and pull on the handle, where you going?
Businesses are easy targets, but taxing them — or not taxing them — isn’t the answer. If you can ignore the politics and look at our country’s fiscal picture as a math problem, the situation is fairly grim, but it’s also fairly clear. Unless we make serious changes, we are going to be in far more debt than we can afford
It serves the interest of both parties to argue about taxes on corporations and the wealthy because neither wants to discuss the alternative, which is where things get touchy. To solve our debt problems, we have to go to where the money is — the middle class.
Increasing the middle-class tax burden an additional 8 percent, however, would actually have a bigger impact than taxing millionaires at 100 percent. Still, many experts say we don’t need to raise the tax rate on the middle class
actually, I wouldn't support further increases on the tax rates on business, but I would support eliminating some of the more egregious loopholes. just an example is the tax breaks for oil companies, those breaks made perfect sense when the industry was collapsing from $10 a barrel oil, but make absolutely no sense now.
that is just an example, some breaks do make sense, some are just giveaways.
and an "unfunded tax break" is a tax break that is given without cutting expenditures to pay for it.
meant "unfunded tax cut" but close enough...
actually, I think it is less "a matter of need" than a matter of fear of what the effect would be on spending by the middle-class. that 8% increase on the middle-class would make a larger dent overall. as I stated earlier, it will likely happen in a year and a half. the reduction in spending power of the middle-class is disproportionate to what an equal tax increas is on the top.
but I would like to see real spending cuts in non-research and non-education areas. simply because those are some of the few areas that can actually pay off in the long-term and help us remain competitive, corporate investment in basic research is dropping dramatically despite the fact that many large corps have record or near-record cash reserves
The government does not pay for tax breaks. there is no such thing as a unfunded tax break. Government spending has nothing to do with how it taxes. Taxes pay the government, not the government pays taxes.
You should look into that. Makes perfect sense. Far different than solar and biofuels.
You do support more tax on businesses. You do realize that the 70 and 90 percent tax rate is actually less than the tax rate today. Statutory rate is the 70 to 90, effective rate is what is actually paid.
Entitlements and other obligations are driving the deficits. Specifically, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and net interest costs are projected to rise by 5.4% of GDP between 2008 and 2020. The Bush tax cuts are a convenient scapegoat for past and future budget woes. But it is the dramatic upward arc of federal spending that is the root of the problem.
#4.30 - Thu Nov 24, 2011 7:43 PM CST
Why have this so called super committee? They don't do nothing. They are like a bunch of kids bickering back and forth, on what to cut and then this country will end up cutting Social Security and Medicare. Why is that? It's because we have way too many idiots in Washington.
Add all the money they took from the SS fund to the deficit and you get the real numbers, enough to make you sick...They are all a bunch of liers...
It was just a stalling tactic by the republicans. They continue to do anything in their power to keep the administration from doing anything that might be viewed as positive. They are so transparent that nobody that actually counts believes them any more. The approval rating of congress is a pretty good indicator of what the American people in general think of their stalling tactics.
Stupor committee can't accomplish anything? What news! Next up, water is wet and the sun is hot.
It is a part of the "98% of what we wanted" that the Republican/teanut hostage takers insisted on last summer to keep our government in operation. Remember?
Looks like they are having second thoughts now...
imbeciles!
It's a political game, first you offer these sacrificial lambs; cause if these guys fail, they have a huge taint in their political carreer, leaving the rest of the party without blame. Then you backtrack and say" well... automatic cuts was never set in stone you know..."
All they care about is themselves, their donors, and getting re-elected.
I feel that if no agreement is reached and automatic budget cuts kick in, every member of the panel should be arrested.
Ok, so that's how it would happen in my world...but in reality, this is nothing but a farce and just another example about the lethargic, bloated and ineffective nature of our government "for the people".
For treason
For sedition and extreme stupidity.
Corporations are people. If anything we're closer to a government by the people, for the people than at any point in history!
I think its time for taxpayers to request a refund of the $175,000 per year salaries and benefits paid to all members of Congress. Obviously they are incapable of doing their jobs and we should not be required to pay for such self-serving nonsense.
Agreed.
For working approximately 9 days a month?
Not a bad deal is you ask me? *snark off*
Let's see...
$175K times 535 Congressmen is $9,625,000. That translates into roughly an entire 3 cents for every man, woman and child in the U.S. You can have my 3 cents if you'll stop hyperventilating over trivia.
check your calculator
Given the 60 minutes report last Sunday, it seems like members of congress are doing just fine on their own. They don't need to get paid.
Why do you think they spend MILLIONS for a 175,000 a year job???
Oh2Vette,
See what happens when old people use slide-rules? They lose track of decimal places.
You are, of course, right. The cost is $93+ million. Still, it's worth my 30 cents to get past de minimus trivia.
economan, I think the point is that since congress isn't doing the job that they are paid to do, give it to someone that will do the job.
There will be no agreement.
The failure of a President needs a phony issue to run on, to deflect attention from his disastrous stewardship of the economy.
Try as you might to put this on the Executive branch, this is all congress, all republican, and everyone that counts knows it.
The Bush administration bail out the banks, it was his administration that lied to a Democratic Congress, and it was under his watch the the housing scandal happen. get a clue my friend.
Who are they trying to kid? These morons won't get a damn thing accomplished and the finger pointing is about to start.
Republicans stink allover. They only care about the 1%. Screw everyone else. They have no plan but to vote Obama out of office.
That is why we have Perry, Cain and Bachman-3 stooges running. All morons
Barry: Only 50% of the 1% support tax cuts! The other 50% do not!
TJefferson, that's good to know. That 50% needs to talk to their bought congressmen and tell them enough with the tax cuts.
You forgot the Mormans that think they will be a GOD some day, what morons
I don't blame anyone for not wanting to pay more taxes, because congress wastes our money. Rich, poor or anywhere inbetween, no one wants their hard earned money wasted. Congress uses the taxpayers as if it has an open credit card and they have us to pay it.
So much waste and corruption in Congress. Congress men & women no longer go into congress to serve their country, now it is to serve theirselves.(financially)
True enough. So, let's write congress out of the Constitution and have a real democracy. The internet connects everyone. The actual PEOPLE can write law, vote on law, repeal law, and over-ride the veto. We have the technology. Do we have the guts and the dedication to make democracy work?
The real democracy you are advocating leads to even more conflict, it is just a mob rule where the minorities get absolutely no voice. Mob rule is a quick path to self destruction, plenty of history to check that statement against.
The problem is that they took a good system and destroyed it working excessive greed into it. Don't get me wrong, a little greed is good, it motivates people to achievement and to invention, motivates progress. But once you start taking from others in questionable and obscure manners, that greed becomes avarice. It's ironic that the ones defending avarice are the self-proclaimed Christian values party.
What needs to happen is term limits, campaign funding limits, no super pacs, equal lobbying access, rules to prevent conflicts of interest.
Just recently I learned that there are no provisions for any congress person to realize trading in the markets when they know the possible outcome of laws they are enacting; in other words they can do insider trading without repercussions. Now that is part of the problem right there.
yeah! tell OBOMBO to stop paying off the UNIONS and activists groups and wall street
and soylandra and other green companies and aarp and the rest of the Aholes who
paid to get him elected! where's the 550 million from soylandra? how many people
could have benefited from using that money wisely? he just cut over 600,000 jobs
by stopping the canada pipeline! great president who wants jobs? HELL NO! this
president is a socialist liberal pig along with Pelsoi and the rest of the lying hypocrite
demo party! get rid of these anti-american bums who support the loser protestors!
The pipeline was not stopped, it was delayed:
I am sure the Midwest would do just fine without drinking water or irrigation for crops in your version of the world. Who needs water or food? Just drink some Canadian oil sands! They are good for you.
And 600k jobs? please.... come back to earth... At most it will create a few thousand temporary construction jobs, and then another couple of thousand permanent jobs.
So its always easier for Government to just raise taxes then actually make cuts. Their should be no tax increases. It should come as cuts. Now their is talk of weaseling out of the mandatory cuts if a agreement is not reached? So my question is why make these so called triggers if you don't intend to honor them? Typical Congress, make the rules up as you go.
How many economists, plus the CBO have to tell you people we can't cut our way out of this debt? Are you deaf?
As long as we try to control the whole world there is no way we wil ever get back to a balanced budget. With over 600 bases scattered all over the world and nearly a million service men and women to keep up its impossible to cut enough to help much. We like to fight wars and be the alpha dog everywhere and expect our grand-children to pay for it. We had a balanced budget during the Clinton era but Bush just had to be a war president cut taxes on his buddies and things will never be the same. All we can do is wait and see what happens
theCavalier
And just what did we spend 500 Billion on in 2008 that we didn't need to spend in 2007???
2007 deficit---$$500,679,000,000
2008 deficit---$1,017,071,000,000
http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html
slodon:
Spending there mostly kept up with inflation, meanwhile revenue took a dive due to the slowdown. We didn't really have extra expenses, the added deficit was mostly from reduced income.
Deficit and spending, although related, are two completely different things.
The Republican Party is now viewed by the American people as the political arm of the wealthy and FOX News is seen as the Ministry of Propaganda! NEVER in the history of the GOP has the Party EVER taken taken such a position on taxes. NEVER! People are in the streets and the numbers are growing by the hour, and KYL thinks his Party will win an election anyplace next year. The Republicans are completely mad!
When you're right, you're right.
yeah but, "it wasn't meant to be a factual statement" Jon Kyl
The republicans have the sequester thing too, you know, save the military but let people lose their job, home or their health, so what for the people - yay for the guns. I also read that there are some senior republicans in both houses of Congress actually saying bad things about Grover's "pledge". His comment? "I don't even have to put up with this crap from freshmen" You think the shine is off the turd? This super committee is not going to accomplish anything. Divided we fall and the cliff is near.
No way will they make a difference
This may sound obvious to any normal person, but why does anyone ever vote for a Republican? I can't understand why even rich people vote for them. They do nothing but create an unsustainable deficit by over taxing the working man while giving themselves and other wealthy investors tax breaks until life becomes virtually unbearable which is where we are right now.
The working man typically only pays payroll taxes, which are mostly Social Security. Our children and grandchildren are obligated to pay us more for that than we ever pay into it.
The lower half of wage earners pay no net income tax.
Paul: People vote Republican because Democrats have never been serious about cutting spending. People also vote with their pocket books as Republicans are fanatical about reducing taxes (for everyone, btw).
Now you can rightly argue the things Republicans want to cut aren't what you want cut. And you can also even more rightly argue that with the addition of the Tea Party influence, Republicans holding the line against any sort of tax increase is counterproductive with regards to our national debt, but when compared to Democrats, they make better noises about meeting our fiscal responsibilties.
Whether they deliver, of course, is even more of an argument, but I was answering the question of why people vote Republican. At least, that's why I would consider voting Republican; evangelicals and homophobes would no doubt give a different answer.
Yes, Gary, and it's a national disgrace that so many are so poor that they don't even qualify for federal income taxes. The level of inequality is staggering. You want workers to pay taxes? Pay them a living wage. Put them back in the middle class. Don't blame the poor for the sins of the rich; it sounds extremely petty.
AG99: How disengenous could you be? This is the first congress that has had any plan to cut spending. Under republicans, the government has always spent more than under democrats. Republicans only object to who the democrats spend on, not that the spend. Your argument is a fallacy.
Paul people voted Republican because they cut taxes and kept government services. It never dawned on many until recently thatthis was done by borrowing trillions of dollars. Now the debt has grown too massive to get away with that farce and the Republican solution is to turn future benefits into a voucher system. The open question is whether they can foll enough people again.
Cavalier: I merely answered Paul's question to the best of my ability. That is why I think people vote Republican, or at least some people. You must leave it to each individual as to whether they think it's the truth or not.
Cavalier,
If your ilk get into power, you will find my wealth hidden, and I will be very needy indeed! I will not work for a system that attempts to force us to be equal. I will withdraw my wealth from any system that tries to make us equal. I will not participate in any way in a system that tries to make us equal. Equality is unfair.
It is obvious that they are not going to meet their deadline. This was predicted the day they pushed it off to this and could not make a decision months ago. What will happen is this: They will slip and the across the board cuts will occur. (we do need cuts that is for sure, but not non selectively and blindly across the board, but since our elected officials cannot do their job this will happen) Then both sides will blame each other for not making progress, and neither the Dems nor the GOP will accept the responsibility...and the painful cuts will just happen as they have to. Problem solved.
The GOP can't use the bathroom without asking their master Grover for permission first. Spineless.
I do so wish there was a Regan to talk to the people and the country and get this done. Dam a few Billion in taxes and the Republicans can't do it. I truly don't understand?? No President can win with these people in Congress blocking their move. Neither Republican nor Demorcrat has a chance! The country needs a new party in Both sides of congress that will work for the people and not the special interest . So sad to see this and not be able to do a dam thing.!
super x: Ronald Reagan would be in the streets with the OWS movement. Hell, he would be leading it! Reagan always thought the wealthy ought to pay their fair share of taxes. It's only one reason why this "new" Republican Party hates Reagan and the RINOs. I believe the movement ought to be demanding the recall of every Republican in Washington, D.C.
He wouldn't join OWS, but he had no problem raising taxes. The fact is, he came into office with the "cut taxes and the economy will rebound" idea, and it didn't work. He raised taxes (7 times) and the economy got better. Under his administration, he increased the debt by nearly $1.9 trillion. He was a tax and spend republican, and no revisionist history will ever change that.
Either you were not alive during Reagan's 8 year administration or you were living in a parallel universe. Reagan cut the top individual income tax rate from 70% to 28% and the top corporate income tax rate from 48% to 34%. That doesn't really sound like Reagan was looking to stick it to the wealthy or big corporations.
As for Reagan's feelings towards the RINOs, he made it redundantly clear that he abhorred big government and government intrusion in American's lives and the private sector. Since the RINOs appear to favor expansion of government, it's quite a stretch to hypothesize that Reagan could ever be, or side with, a RINO.
socialcapitalist: I was alive during the Reagan years; I voted for him! Yes, he raised income taxes several times--actually I believe it was 11 times, not 7. I think you need to check your figures, my friend. He adjusted income taxes with capital gains taxes. He always made certain the wealthy paid their fair share as well as the middle class. Yes, he said he abhorred big government and he said he was a born again Christian. You might look at what he did rather than what he said.
theCavalier: You are quite correct. I lifted the material below from Wikipedia. (I took the literacy license to bold certain statements.) Reagan had a public image and a private image. Publicly, he was known for cutting the size of government, lowering taxes, and being a born-again Christian. Privately, however, he raised income taxes and capital gains taxes, increased the size of government, gave an amnesty to illegal Hispanics, and rarely went to church before he became president and after. He was everything today's "new" Republican Party hates!
"During Reagan's presidency, federal income tax rates were lowered significantly with the signing of the bipartisan Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981[121] which lowered the top marginal tax bracket from 70% to 50% and the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%, however other tax increases signed by Reagan ensured that tax revenues over his two terms were 18.2% of GDP as compared to 18.1% over the past 40 years.[122] Then, in 1982 the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was signed into law, initiating one of the nation's first public/private partnerships and a major part of the president's job creation program. Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Labor and Chief of Staff, Al Angrisani, was a primary architect of the bill. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, another bipartisan effort championed by Reagan, reduced the top rate further to 28% while raising the bottom bracket from 11% to 15% and reducing the quantity of brackets to 4. Conversely, Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as TEFRA, Social Security, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984.[123][124] Despite the fact that TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history," Reagan is better known for his tax cuts and lower-taxes philosophy.[124][125][126][127] Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth recovered strongly after the early 1980s recession ended in 1982, and grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 3.85% per year.[128] Unemployment peaked at 10.8% monthly rate in December 1982—higher than any time since the Great Depression—then dropped during the rest of Reagan's presidency.[129] Sixteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased.[130] The net effect of all Reagan-era tax bills was a 1% decrease in government revenues when compared to Treasury Department revenue estimates from the Administration's first post-enactment January budgets.[131] However, federal Income Tax receipts increased from 1980 to 1989, rising from $308.7Bn to $549.0Bn.[132]"
The Repubs/teaP are traitors to America. The failure to roll back the tax breaks since Reagan and the last 30 years is crazy. This is not a tax increase; but since the Repub attention span is only about a week..it is to them. Congress and our country is gridlocked because of the "party of nothing", (but tax of breaks for the rich). Fire the Repubs and tea party
Problem here is there are as many people commenting that are against you as for your comment. Thus nothing gets done except blame!
who are you for,the republicans or the greedy ? ''you know there's not a difference'' i say let's stay far away from the BUSH traditional fray. let's put a large picture of joe smith in the oval office. and a towering statute of the angel MORONI atop the white house. let's legalize polygamy, and eliminate unemployment in america by opening child care centers everywhere. or let's put a real 100% african slave's great grandson in the white house. it will legally be deemed as the BLACK HOUSE, and restitution will then be forced to the bargaining table. i mean, '' you know they will track his family roots. all the way to the vicious beatings of his ancestors. ''RESTITUTION WILL THEN BE MADE LAW'' but really, i like the idea of having plenty wives. SEX AND MORE SEX IN THE CITY ''SON''. or we can put someone in there with a bad memory, i'm sure much more will get done '' TO THIS ECONOMY. '' or maybe a deviant pretender, who knows that it's imposible for the world to know about his swaggering background. that's what i like about the ''OBAMA HATERS'' they can do the job better. 2012 is in their bag of cash
I read the comments and it's the same as with the committee. Americans can't get it done with their ideas nor with their representatives. As I said earlier I feel bad for this great Country. Bad today but history shows it was bad all through the last centruy with the wars and poverty and depression.
Geeee, a stand off in the supercommittee, wow, how unusual. Yeah, right.
Yeah, for a second there, I thought they were gonna put politics aside. Silly me.
Cain will receive Secret Service protection
Koch-Cain - 2012
Kock-Cain? that sounds illegal, LOL
Oboy the lefts speaking points are based more on savings and increasing revenue than actually laying out a plan to have expenditures somewhat come close to revenue.
Think about it, at first glance $875 billion on cuts IS greater than $401 billion in new revenue. Unfortunately for taxpayers spending will still outpace any increase in revenues, regardless of what group is targeted.
As johnB pointed out earlier this year it was easy for reagan and congress to change the tax laws, but the spending cuts that were to go along with them really never materialized.
$275 billion in medical entitlement savings is just political talk for sounding good to the populace, but the savings will never really come about. As I recall obama touted medicaid savings being transferred to pay for obamacare, then there were other discussions on how government savings could be used to fund government elsewhere. During the debt ceiling debacle obama was going to save even more money from medicare to again reduce the long term deficit.
Methinks that all these "savings" are just more political smoke and mirrors. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see moody's and fitch shake their heads and make our credit downgrade to AA+ unanimous with S&P.
Like the European leaders have done in politically kicking the can down the road with regards to sovereign and bank debt it appears we may do the same with our own debt crises.
You have facts and blame ..My point it will just continue to make all feel better and the day passes as with the committee and nothing is done. Someone will disagree with you as in Congress and the beat goes on. We the people have to request that a new leadership of the people come forward and represent Congress. Neither Democrat nor Republican can fix this with the genuine hate that exist
Boehner will not give in, if he does he will be so digusted with himself he will simply waste away. That is his nature. After all the youngest of 13 has always had his way, learned how to shed tears in an instant, but now, the Occupy is out there fighting against him. Hurray to the Occupyer's.
Seems similar to Wimpy.
I will cut tomorrow for a Tax increase today.
Tomorrow never comes on the Democrat Calendar.
This occupy (please note, lower case) group is irrelevant. So are you.
all you libs want is a hand out and its about to stop so get off you lazy a## and go to work
You have to feel better and now guess what the same crap exist as this is what is being said in Congress. Need new people1
yeah! but they are all still waiting for their OBOMBO money that never came
cause he gave it to the UNIONS and Soylandra!
Hey Ervin ...have you always been a moron or is this new for you ??
Big Rog I was thinking the same thing. I was willing to let it go as he skipped one of his doses today, but it seems it is more serious than missing his Thorazine.
Well I am leaving a lot of sincere people with no chance to get this done other then to blame the hell out of each other and another day passes.