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“The supercommittee’s failure is being viewed widely as a debacle — yet another sign that Washington cannot overcome partisan politics to deal with the nation’s record deficit,” The Hill writes. “But the stalemate hasn’t been a political nightmare for everyone in Washington. Politically, the deadlocked talks have yielded both winners and losers, from lawmakers who openly rooted against a deal to those who said failure was not an option.”
“The unfortunate demise of the congressional super committee wasn’t accompanied by nearly the drama and hand-wringing of this summer’s debt-ceiling disaster, but its passing is more fuel for the fire of public disillusionment and anger toward Washington and Congress. With record-low job-approval numbers, disenchantment with Congress can still intensify,” Charlie Cook writes in today’s National Journal. “The real showdown will be late next year, when the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush expire and New Year’s 2013 triggers draconian sequestration budget cuts. That’s when lawmakers will realize that there really is a loaded gun pointed at their heads. Under various post-election scenarios, including lame-duck sessions, both sides will want to avoid deep cuts to their most cherished priorities. In particular, Republicans will be desperate to extend the Bush tax cuts. The real showdown and real drama will come after all of the 2012 votes are counted.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R) defended his role in the Super Committee process in an op-ed in USA Today, saying, “I did everything possible.” Instead, he blamed President Obama and Democrats for wanting to raise taxes on the wealthiest. “[T]he so-called supercommittee was unable to reach agreement because President Obama and Washington Democrats insisted on dramatic tax hikes on American job creators, which would make our economy worse,” Boehner writes, adding, “I am not going to give up on the country, and neither will my Republican colleagues.”
The Wall Street Journal: “So it's all Grover Norquist's fault. Democrats and the media are singing in unison that the reason Congress's antideficit super committee has failed is because of the conservative activist's magical antitax spell over Republicans. Not to enhance this Beltway fable, but thank you, Mr. Norquist. By reminding Republicans of their antitax promises, he has helped to expose the real reason for the super committee's failure: the two parties disagree profoundly on a vision of government.”
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Before getting into all of today's blogs, I would like to wish everyone on FR a very Happy & Safe Thanksgiving. Won't be around much the next few days (heading off to the happiest place on earth) and want everyone to know I shall think of you all - even Bob of the many numbers! No wrestling a naked turkey at dark thirthy for me this year. Hooray
If any of you are heading south on I95 this holiday season, stop by the nation's oldest city, St. Augustine and see their nights of lights. It goes on until mid January and you and your family will enjoy it (yes, I live here and we are mighty proud of it)
Again, Happy Thanksgiving to all on FR.
Phin,
Say hi to Mickey for me, won't get up there till after the holidays, but will have a cold one on Ft Lauderdale beach for ya. Happy holidays.
And... sure blame it on Bush. He put us into a trajectory that can't get turned around till his party of NO finally takes some responsibility. His concept of Spend and don't tax makes the Repulican's balance budget bull@!$%# a sham.
Tom, love Ft. Lauderale! Will toast you with a cold one at the German pavilon at EPCOT.
What is amazing is the super committee GOP members refused anything unless part of the deal was ALL the Bush tax cuts were made permanent. And for all the belly aching about the President being involved.... the GOP said if the President got involved they would walk. So, as far as the GOP was concerned, it was their way or the highway. I think they thought the Dems would cave again. WRONG!
Happy Thanksgiving to you too phinephancy - have a safe trip - I am heading to the Big Apple!
And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone on FR - enjoy the time with your family and friends.
It's a myth that tax cuts create jobs. A myth that the media in general loves repeating because in general they are the rich.
President Bush and Republicans argued that high-income tax cuts would benefit everybody because they would unleash investment that would spark widespread economic prosperity.
There is no evidence of this. From 2000 to 2007, the United States lost one in five (3.5 million) middle-class jobs. A majority of the new jobs created in the United States under Bush pay extremely low wages at less than $18,000 a year, usually without benefits. This is with corporate profits at an all time high since 1960.
The 2005 CBO data show that changes in law enacted since January 2001 increased the deficit by $539 billion in 2005. In the absence of such legislation, the nation would have a surplus that year. In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts were finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits went to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers.
Unemployment was 4.2% when Bush took office. When he left it was 7.8% and rising fast. Unemployment has a huge impact on the deficit. A lot of people know the national debt grew $4.9 trillion while Bush was in office, but most don't realize almost of third of that, $1.44 trillion, was accrued in the last 12 months he was in office.
Bush could have cut spending and reduced the size of government. He could have balanced the budget. He could have spared us an expensive war in Iraq. He should have imposed a tax to pay for the war in Afghanistan. Had he done those things there would have been no need to raise the debt ceiling in 2006. But given the state of the economy Obama inherited high deficits were inevitable for several years. There was no way the budget could be balanced under those circumstances.
Democrats left President Bush a record surplus and he left President Obama a record national debt.
You know how that happened: the Republicans happened. They held the White House, the House and the Senate for six long years. And they did something no one had ever tried in 200 years of history: they tried to fund two wars by cutting taxes three times. That's how you go from zero to nine trillion dollars in debt. It's that simple. They took everything they inherited: the jobs, the surplus, the stature of our country around the world -- and they squandered it....
Apostasy, you could really go back to the deregulation and tax cuts of the Reagan era as a starting point of the wealth disparity and the death of the middle class. I have seen economic charts that show just that.
Happy Thanksgiving to all at FR! Enjoy family and friends to the utmost!
Now, if Blaming Bush is not the answer (of course it is his fault)...but let's try another way to put it........Credit Bush for the mess!
Blame versus Credit!
Not too much hyperbole there Mr. Boehner!
Dramatic? Ha, prove it--all that I've heard to date has been minuscule. The richest 1 % create jobs? Ha, prove it--the data isn't there to back up this claim. Tax cuts help the rich create jobs? Ha, prove it--this is the biggest lie of all that lacks any empirical evidence. Holy cow, that seven-word phrase contains more propaganda BS than Ayn Rand's entire manifesto.
How does this chicken crap escape the media? Even conservatives who only tune in to FOX Noise for a few minutes and Hate radio on the way to work, because of technology, everything is documented. Yet the right-wing seems to lag for long periods of time.
Ging-Grinch being the latest example -- The man is the biggest Washington turd ever squeezed out, which is proved in transcripts, tape, and video. I mean the man wants us to return to child labor people! Yet he is staying at the top of GOP/TP primary polls to date. Don't right-wingers read or do anything to be informed?
Anywho...a statement like that from Boehner should in itself be headline news--reporters should dog him to back up these statements. Newt's comments about children doing janitorial work in schools to save money should be headline news. Come on media--Enough with accepting crazy talk from Teapublicans!
Apostasy, "high-income tax cuts"??!! Only 22% of the Bush tax cuts (you know those "tax cuts for the wealthy") went to the top 2%, the group that pays over 50% of individual federal income taxeas!! I say let them ALL expire! Then you will hear the middle class scream! You think they were really "tax cuts for the rich"!? Then allowing them all to expire won't harm the not wealthy. Oh, you want them only to expire for the wealthy??!! How can you support that idea since they were only tax cuts for the wealthy? Do you see how ignorant your arguement is!@?
Any Republican who signed the " Death to America Norquist Pack" .should step down from the office they took the oath to preserve .. They are unfit Americans who have a sworn alliance to destroy America as we know it ! They are now the enemies of the America people !
Thank you dubya.
Three years out of office and STILL doing harm to America.
Imagin what the Bush II legacy is going to be in the 2075 history books... if we are still around then.
In hindsight I'm not sure how it would have played out, but Obama could have changed the narrative by letting the Bush cuts expire last December. He could have wrapped that around tax reform and forced the GOP to debate who should benefit from the tax code instead of who should pay for government.
The tax cuts should have expired and all further thoughts of tax reductions should be shelved. The reality is that tax cuts are NOT the answer and that the United States has to wake up and realize that the bill is long overdue. We are paying, what 37 cents interest for every dollar borrowed? Blame Bush, blame Obama, blame FDR, I don't care who gets the blame. The truth is Mastercard called and wants the bill paid. No more bull, no more finger pointing, no more hand wringing. Cut the damn "defense" budget and stop wasting THOSE dollars so that little boys can play soldier and start spending the money on our infrastructure. Roads that are horribly in need of decent repairs, public buildings and parks that are far beyond decrepit, public services that have been cut so thin that those truly in need will never get any help worthwhile. Occupy Wall Street may or may not be a bunch of fools, but they have opened eyes to the fact that we need to address the US from the inside out.
Tax cuts will solve everything! J-O-B-S! Yes, just another decade of Bush tax cuts and every problem will go away. It;'s working really well, we MUST take another TEN YEARS! Excuse me but this is like hitting your head with a hammer and wondering why it hurts. Stop giving tax breaks to the "job creators" since they have FAILED so miserably at creating jobs after their HUGE bump in income. The rest of us pay while they laugh and buy yachts.
and more spending and tax hikes so obombo can pay off all his
union and wall street and activist and liberal buddies! BS!
"you can't fix stupid"
re-post: Who to blame? Sheesh my list is too long to list here, but I'll say it this way! It is our failure as we sent some totally non-compromising Representatives and Senators up to Washington, who have acted towards and for the elite few of our people. These representatives did not do their job! Every representative and Senator in Washington have shown they are more responsive to the special elite like Grover Norquist, Bob Vander Plaats, Edward H Crane and David Keene instead of the people who actually voted them into office. Why is there a greater allegiance towards and for people like Bob Vander Plaats and lobbyist like Grover Norquist, rather than the American public or economy? Vander Plaat and Norquist are the puppet-masters of the TEA-GOP-Republican fringe! Americans would prefer a candidate will Kahunas to be their candidate, rather than someone else's puppet!
vote the dem's back in congress they are for the middle class and jobs.
no they are for big unions, soylandra and other green companies
taking tax payer money, wall street taking stock tips passing laws
then cashing in, free student and home loans, more unemployment,
more welfare programs, more spending! that's what they are for!
I got the inside scoop. The GWBush tax cuts will create 100 billion jobs.
Our problems are very difficult to fix. The cost of our government is huge. Some smart cuts are needed. Wasteful programs, need to go. Politicians, need to be included in our social security system and get rid of that expensive retirement paid for by us. Health care for those still serving can stay, but when they get to 65, Medicare just like the voters. If it's ok for us, it must be good enough for them. How much will that save us. How about our energy producing buddies. Lets make sure oil, coal, gas, and all other energy produced here, stays here. Sorry non american countries, we need to control ours for us. If we have extra, on the market it goes. How dare the oil guys drill in our parks and waters and sell it somewhere else and force us to buy from Iran or other unfriendlies. Stop all bank, oil, coal, pay outs. BofA was going to charge $5 dollars for debit card use because they were in trouble and posted record profits for the last quarter. Maybe they were not being very truthful. Foreign aid, come on folks. How bout Irac pay for there own re-building. They got oil money and we're taxing our people to re-build.
Now lets fix our tax codes. Lets go back to a good time. Maybe you liked when Bill was our leader. That works for me.
Finally, get the Greedy Old Party out along with the "T" party extremists and we can get this done.