.

Boehner has previously stated that the House has passed 2 bills dealing with the 'fiscal cliff' and that the Senate needs to act on those 2 bills. Does anyone have a link/links to what those 2 bills are specifically. Everything I find continues to represent them in roundabout terms and never specifically what bills they were.

An impossible task, even for the President. Be like coaxing proper etiquette upon a gang of hungry hogs during a formal dinner.

Why don't you run for the office of the president and see what you get if you become fiesty. They'll eat you alive before you can take your first bite against the politicians you are up against.

The president is not a dictator. There is a balance of power in the government, if you can call it that. Negotiations strategies is twisted and modified and they will show their last cards on the last minute. The ones that puts out their best cards early normally loses.

Remember those bidding wars in the internet? The winning bid normally comes 30 seconds before the bidding period ends. This is what's going to happen here. They are waiting for that last 30 seconds before showing their best and final card.

This "fiscal cliff" was entirely manufactured by the Tea.O.P. when they thought they could defeat President Obama. The Tea.O.P. ran on their proposals and lost, the President ran on his proposals and won.

The equation is simple, the Tea.O.P. can take what the President gives them, or they can be pilloried during the State of the Union while the country reverts to "Clintonian" taxation and spending levels.

Heads, the President wins; tails, the Tea.O.P loses.

How do you like your monster now, Dr. Frankenstein?

P.S. There is no possible definition by which Republicans can be considered an actual political party anymore. They can be defined as a loose universe of inchoate hatreds, or a sprawling confederation of collected resentments, or an unwieldy conglomeration of self-negating orthodoxies, or an atonal choir of rabid complaint, or a cargo cult of quasi-religious politics and quasi-political religion, or simply the deafening abandoned YAWP of our bitter national Id. But they are not a political party because they have rendered themselves incapable of politics.

Charles Pierce

Hell No, we will keep our President. Get rid of a total of 35 republicans in the house and senate and we would not be having this problem.

Not entirely true. When the Democrats controlled Congress during the last two years of Bush and Obama's first two years, our national debt ceiling was raised seven times, from $9 trillion to $14.7 trillion. Federal spending jumped 20% in 2009 alone. Also, except for the war years of the 1940s, until Obama occupied the Oval Office, the U. S. had never spent more than 23.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP), which measures America's economic output. Despite slow economic recovery and 8% unemployment throughout his term, Obama's unprecedented spending record includes 25.2% of our country's GDP in 2009, 24.1% in 2010 and 2011, and an estimated 24.3% in 2012.

here, here Feisty and Pat!

Democrats never had a filibuster proof majority (another false Republican talking point). Franken was seated late, and there were 3 independents (left leaning), but never a filibuster proof majority.

Obama has only raised spending 6% since he's been in office, the rest is Bush's fault.

Remember "deficits don't matter"? Remember "let's go to war and cut taxes"?

All "starve the beast" policies designed by Republicans to cause this financial crisis so they have an excuse to cut entitlements.

John P,

I think you've got something there:

Despite slow economic recovery and 8% unemployment.....

That wouldn't have anything to do with it, would it. Your percentages rely on GDP, right? What happened to GDP in 2008?

Eric,

It's all a ploy to keep from paying back the $3T owed to the SS trust fund. The General fund has been using it for 30 years, now they want to change the game to keep us from getting the money. I'm not retiring for 20 years, but I sure as sh!t want to get 100% of what I'be been paying for my whole working career.

Pretend we're broke, then stick it to the middle class.

Taxes should go up.

Taxes should go up a lot for upper income.

Sure 39.6 for upwards of $250K, but is should be more for $10M and up--say 50%

Let them keep all the deductions they can get their hands on. It worked in the mid-20th century. High tax rates, generous deductions. Force the rich to reinvest in America to get deductions. It will work, just like it did 50 years ago.

Ozzy,

I assure you, you are not paying for me. How much did you pay in Federal Income taxes last year?

It's all anonymous here, go ahead make up something good. Better yet, just tell us you paid the 6% you really paid.

I made what I think is a LOT of money last year, and I paid 19%. MORE than Mitt Romney paid, and I made less than $250K in a good year for me. How does that make sense?

The sense of it is not about you working for those librul lazy azzes

WTF is wrong with this country for continuing to manufacture economic "crises"???

I don't know Feisty,....don't we have enough real ones to deal with? I am glad the Pubbies are stuck in a box though. It was nice to see. They tried to stage their little Hissy Fit by leaving Washington until they found out that nobody cared,......then,.....they came back with their tails between their legs.

Makes for a hilarious display though!! Ooooooooh,....the drama!!

TO: John P-905546 who wrote:

"Too bad you can't take back your vote for "hope and change" now."

In exchange for what, Mitt Robme and the "hate America" crowd?

Never!

American Girl,

I have never figured out how taking something from fellow Americans makes you love America because that basically is what you're saying

He's too busy giving federal employees raises

Yup, that DO NOTHING Congress.....

Projected to be in-session only 126 days for the year 2013 (actually there are 261 weekdays in 2013)......so they continue to suck up their congressional salaries for doing nothing......

Work 1 week.......take 2 weeks off!

OK Fiesty, we raise taxes and our deficit goes from around 1.1 trillion to 1.05 trillion. Then what????? And that assumes any extra money, which it may not get, goes to the deficit and it NEVER does.

Allen - Maybe this will help, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr6684.

Something everyone should realize is that just because a bill passes one chamber, it doesn't mean the other will pass it automatically, especially if one chamber passes something that they know the chamber won't vote on. In this case, we have a Republican led House and a Democratic led Senate, with a strong contingent of Tea Party Republicans in the House who will not vote for anything that would support any non-ultraconservative view. Boehner is scared to death of the Tea Party and is scared of losing the speakership. The Democrats confidence is still high from the last election with the thought that the majority of the US voters agree with their ideas. There is no reason for Democrats to cave in to the Tea Party demands. They can sit back and watch the Republican caucus self-implode.

In a democratic style of government, both sides need to compromise, they need to find things to agree on to pass bills. If one party or chamber decides they will not compromise, then you have governmental stagnation and we are there. I don't see this problem of the fiscal cliff as a Republican or a Democrat problem, or even a House or Senate problem, this is a Tea Party problem. This group is too stupid to realize that tax increases are sometimes required to keep the nation running prosperously and that some social programs actually help the nation. Their no tax ideology will ruin this nation and they need to be voted out.

Ozzie, you are the good for nothing free rider not the poor. You probably make a decent living in this country and yet don't want to pay your share to support it. We had an election in November and your side lost. It is time for those making more then $200000 a year single and $250000 a year couple to step up and pay to support the very country and government that makes it possible for them to make more money then MOST will see in a lifetime. I am talking about the working people that makes it possible for the rich to get and stay rich. You know the ones that actually do the work. You need to change your radio and TV selections, what you have stinks.

The whole sequestration plan was devised to force action on an unwilling and unable Congress, by their own admission, republicans were all for it in the house, it was part of their debt ceiling fiasco last time around. I truly wish at this point the democrats stick to their guns, and just let it happen, come what may. The republicans can't compromise on taxes being raised to an equitable level on the wealthy, so they will be raised for all, their precious defense budget will be cut severely and the unemployed and working poor will be hard hit. Nobody will be hurt more than poor republican voters in 9 of the top 10 welfare states that vote solidly republican, bring on the pain. The stock market will drop to a degree that will cost the wealthy far more than any tax increase, bring on the pain, it is the only way some people can learn. If the republicans think that their little charade of coming back later and voting for the tax cuts for some, instead of just allowing an increase now on some will fool anybody they are sadly mistaken, they are committing political suicide, and I would just tell them at this point to just make sure they get their whole head in front of the shotgun. The democrats should stand firm and get what they want, and the majority of the nation wants, or just go off the cliff and let the republicans get everything they desperately don't want. Who cares if old, sick and poor people people suffer, who cares if children go hungry, everybody knows it will only affect lazy liberals on the dole right, we will prove or disprove that notion in a hurry now won't we. Hey the good news is that if we go off the cliff the taxes will still lowered for the wealthy and small business owners but only because their incomes will be lowered due to recession.

John P - you didn't really go there, did you? Democrats had a filibuster proof majority in Congress for a scant 44 days during President Obama's first two years. After that the GOP used the filibuster more than any other time in history - effectively blocking EVERYTHING.

And, no, none of us who voted for President Obama would take our votes back! We voted for the adult in the room, the smart one, the leader. You guys voted for crap and got just what you voted for!

SmallBus., Romney paid almost 14%. So you paid 19% more, almost 33% making under 250k? How could you do that?

Plus you are talking about 2 different taxes, cap gains vs. marginal income.

Big A. Then what we do is some cuts to the Military, wasted unneeded hardware that cost this country billions. Then we cut subsidies to billion dollar oil for instance and make them step up and pay. Pretty soon we have a balanced budget. Ask Bill Clinton the last president to balance a budget, oh yeah he was a democrat that kept a borrow and spend republican congress in check.

Have trouble reading BigA? Go back and read what sm bus. wrote and of course you are big enough to appoligize. Right?

I really don't know what all you libs are bitching about.....We go over the cliff you will get your tax increase on the rich....too bad it will be a tax increase for you too though....I've planned on the Empty Suit to do nothing and let the rates rise.....it was his mission all along to let them all expire...all this time I didn't think he had a plan...but now I think this was his plan all along....he's more obsessed with making sure the rich get taxed than he is about taking care of the American people...case in point Benghazi...he didn't care about them either......riots in the streets in 18 months...Then the Empty Suit will really have a mess on his hands...you can only print money for so long until it becomes worthless......

John P makes a good point on spending. Our historical average of revenue/GDP we have taken in is about 18% since 1950. The lowest spending/GDP we have had in the last 40 years just so happens to be when we were getting close to a surplus ... the late 90's. We were about 19% spending/GDP.Imagine that.

Thats over 60 years of data that says you spend over 19% of GDP and you will get deficits. The receipts just aren't there no matter the tax rate. Obama is spending 24-25% of revenue/GDP and there is NO CHANCE of having revenue to cover that type of spending no matter what one does with taxes. Up, down or the same.

Ha Ha, the joke is on us, didn't you know the fiscal cliff threat was a farce in the first place because the same people who put it in place can take it away with a simple gesture......There will be no plunge, the do nothing Congress will pass a temporary stop gap measure to allow the can to be kicked down the road a little further.

If the people want to stop the Circus in Washington they will have to do it at the state level where they have the power to legislate by way of Propositions.........If people of each state were to take a cue from Grover Norquist and require their elected officials to sign a contract to abide by certain stated ethical terms, limits and conditions set forth by voters of the state, they could go along way in cleaning up the corruption that infests Washington

You are right JohnTho, i missed the period. 19% total. not 19% more. It was a Republican house and Senate that passed those Bills that gave us that lower spending combined with a President that signed them that gave us the closest thing to proper spending. After Clinton vetoed it a couple of times, as that spending level was actually brought UP to satisfy him.

sonmanvb

WTF is wrong with liberals? Why do they hate success so much?

WTF is wrong with conservatives who think that is a valid statement? It is stupid, just plain stupid, and identifies you as someone who does not think for themselves.

This meeting take place a 3pm .... Why?....all of them dont want a deal.

Ellis - anyone who thinks Grover Norquist is someone to follow needs their head examined. He is a traitor to this country and should be tried for treason. Asking our leadership to take an oath that supercedes their oath to their constituents is treasonous. I hope he is hanged for treason as are all who signed an oath to him.

THEY are responsible for the deadlock in this country and for keeping us from recovering from the recession faster. The infestation in Washington is a direct result of traitors like Norquist - and apparently you!

Matthew, Houston - they DON'T think for themselves and ARE stupid!

What needs to happen is both sides have to compromise.

Taxing the rich will only run the US government for about 8 days!!!!!!! THAT IS IT.........

CUT SPENDING while RAISING TAXES........ that is how you get out of the hole.

TOO MANY people who were bought during this election (30-40 million ILLEGALS) have their hand out and we have to pay for it?????????? NO

President can whine and cry all he wants but EVERYONE ON CAPITOL HILL should have sat down and NEGOCIATED---------- ah the lost art in Washington these days.

One question- Why did Harry Reid supress the proposal sent to him???????????

Fault on both parties here----NOT JUST ONE AS THE MEDIA LIKES TO REPORT......

President Obama has proposed a balanced approach to the fiscal cliff problem with spending cuts as well as tax increases for the extremely rich. He knows, as any intellegent person would, that it won't be done with tax increases alone nor spending cuts alone but with some of both. Unfortunately the extremists in the Republican party have bucked every attempt by the President and Speaker Boehner to break their pledge to Grover Norquist and to hell with the American middle class. If we go over the cliff, and right now it looks like where we are headed, it will be squarely in the laps of the rwnj in the House. Boehner can't even control them but the alternative, Cantor, would be worse. What a mess!

JohnTho, you realize the subsidies oil gets, which is mostly independant drillers (read exploration), not big oil is about 2 billion. The subsidies BO gave to "green" industry is about 45 years of oil subsidies at around 90 Billion.

It all needs to be cut, everything across the board. but neither side will do it because they have all those political payouts to do and want to be re-elected.

ATC,

I think the number is closer to $100B for high income tax increases, which is 10% of the deficit. Better than zero? You gott take the first step to get anywhere. No one is saying it's the ONLY solution.

And yes, I paid a total of 19% Federal Income tax (not FICA, state tax, excise, sales, property, or any of the rest). Most was earned, but some was dividend, and some was cap gain. All told 19% on somewhat less than $250,000. Mitt's was 14% on $20,000,000.

How could I do that? Them's the laws my friend. I paid more, making a lot less.

But no, taxes should go up on Mitt. pfft.

sonmanvb

Let's go over the "fiscal cliff", after all, that will give liberals every thing they want. Higher taxes and huge cuts to our national defense and take back to the Clinton taxes rates.

@sonmanvb,

Hugh cuts in defense? Get real. Our bloated defense budget is bigger than the next 17 countries combined. We are building weapon systems, ie the F-35 fighter, for no reason (there is no air force in the world who comes clse to what we now have) at billions per plane. America builds 75% of the world's armorment. We spread around billions of dollars each year, much of it to countries like Pakistan and Eygpt.

Pull your head out of the sand-----this country is $16 trillion in debt. This "fiscal cliff" doesn't address our debt. All it addresses is our year deficit. Out of a $1.4 trillion yearly deficit, this "cliff" reduces that by $400 billion, leaving an additional $1 trillion in new debt each year for the next TEN years. And Congress can't even agree on this. So yes, let's go over the "cliff" and start discussions on serious deficit/debt reducion. Any way we go to try to fix our financial problems is going to be very painful, so let's go ahead, take our medicine, and start on the road to recovery.

Speaker Boehner wants the Senate to pass a tax package and send it to the House. No can do Mr. Speaker, the Constitution is very explicit--tax bills originate in the House.

Should we go back to the tax rates when Bill Clinton was President? Why not? In the fifties, during a time of great economic growth, the income taxe rates for millionaires was in the 90% range. I don't advocate that. What I do advocate is a fair rate and a closing of most of the deductions and loopholes. After all, the wealthy are the only ones who can take advantage of most deductions/loopholes.

----------------------------------------

DaveM-877764

Fault on both parties here

I agree DaveM. But you also forget a third party who is just as responsible for this mess as the Dems and rethugli-cons. That is the American people, and yes, we deserve just as much of the blame. We consistently reelect the very people we whine about. We put up with their lies, their spending habilts, and their lack of listening to us. But even more important is we have spent ourselves into the same mess that they have done to America. Hard to throw rocks at them when we are just as guilty as they.

clwyd-2621393

You are a moron! There has been a freeze on raises for federal employees for over a year now. You, like most right wing republicans, don't know what you are talking about!!!!!! Time to turn off FOX and get in touch with reality!

Executive Order -- Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay 12/27/2012.

whitehouse.gov/the-press-office

American Girl-724855

In exchange for what, Mitt Robme and the "hate America" crowd?

I didn't offer you an exchange.

Adler, what cuts? Of all the major spending programs that are driving our debt BO has not proposed one cent to be cut from any. His proposal was for 400 billion to be cut from future programs to be discussed at a future time. And to bypass congress and have no debt ceiling so he can spend at will.

#1.34 - Fri Dec 28, 2012 3:40 PM EST

Very well said, TReeD! Thank you for that, and the link.

DaveM - at first I thought you might have some legitimate ideas then you fell back on the far right whines.

The media reports what is happening - get used to it.

Do you honestly believe all illegals came here during the last 4 years? You're an imbecile. President Obama sent more illegals BACK than any other President. He didn't BUY any - we have a law against slavery, didn't cha know?

Stupidity! Total Republican stupidity!

joe-2849984 - again, classless and crude - a good little Republican. Oh, and ALL of us are sick of you!

Nothing will happen until the Boehner finds out whether or not he'll retain his job as Speaker. It is as simple and treasonous as THAT.

According to CNBC taxing 1 million and over is less than 50B. IF......IF...... i knew we would actually get that money and IF ..... i knew it would go to defit reduction i may agree. Never happen, hasn't before. There is no fiscal discipline in DC.

You can look at historical data on raising taxes and it doesn't necessarily bring in more revenue. When cap gains was raised in 1987 from 20 to 28%, there was less revenue coming in for the next 10 years than we took in in 1986.

All 3 times rates were lowered since 1980 i looked up revenue went UP. Including the Clinton tax CUT, yes a Clinton tax cut, in 1997 when he lowered cap gains from 28 to 20%. Wonder why nobody ever mentions that?

American Girl - "Why do they make up so much crap and tell so many lies?" It's all they have. Face it - they can't argue facts or they'll lose EVERY time!

TO: John P-905546 who wrote:

American Girl-724855

In exchange for what, Mitt Robme and the "hate America" crowd?

I didn't offer you an exchange.

Did you see that "?" mark there? That means it's a question.

There's no doubt in my mind that you have nothing to offer, but Mitt Robme was the only alternative to President Obama, and Romney was soundly rejected by the majority of the American People, including me.

how many folks here believe we should simply elect a dictator every four years? let them do whatever they want; no checks and balances -- just whatever that individual thinks is best.

i raise this because it is pretty obvious that the left feels as though anyone on the right should have no say in how things get done in dc right now.

and it happens here as well when presenting an idea that is not inline with what obama wants gets you accused of some very nasty things. i cannot imagine how some of the posters here get along in the world unless they only associate with like-minded people and so back to the premise that we do not need a minority party in dc. to the victor go the spoils and all of the power.

SmBusOwnerinNY

That wouldn't have anything to do with it, would it. Your percentages rely on GDP, right? What happened to GDP in 2008?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, spending shot up from 20.7 percent of the gross domestic product in fiscal year 2008 to 25 percent in 2009.

TO: SeekingSanity who wrote:

"American Girl - "Why do they make up so much crap and tell so many lies?" It's all they have. Face it - they can't argue facts or they'll lose EVERY time!"

Thanks SS!

For gods sake, lets just go over the cliff already. I'm so sick of the BS in DC and I wish they all could be fired. I don't make gobs of money, but I've also never taken a dime of relief in my life. Just take the tax code back to a point before W and lets be done with it. If I have to pay more than so be it. Just be glad I'm not running the show because I would role everything back to before Ray-Gun screwed up this country by starting the bogus "trickle down" garbage.

And BTW - $200,000 IS NOT MIDDLE CLASS!!!

Right JohnP

What happened to GDP?? It went DOWN.

That's a BIG part of the reason for the spending to GDP ratio problem you show.

The other BIG part is that the economic tailspin that put millions of people on unemployment and food stamps. None of THAT was due to Obama.

here is the impasse in a nut shell ; there will be no deal, no compromise, no watered down legislation; unless first, the administration comes up with concrete spending cuts across the board, which they will not do; so far the administration has only offered to cut those greedy, entitlements to those lazy social security beneficiary's and those loathsome medicare people, who worked and paid taxes for 40+ years to fund the programs, only to see them raided for welfare, food stamps, housing allotment, medicaid; THAT FOLKS IS WHERE THE IMPASSE IS.

Everybody talks "taxes" as if that is the sole driver of debt and everything beyond. Take whichever side you want.... up, down or leave them alone. Assume you are right and we get another 50 Billion. We then spend another 200 Billion. Which is what always happens. Govt NEVER spends less which is what the problem is. Spending is a much more direct driver of debt than anything you could do with tax policy.

BigA, not only are you stupid but you are totally in the dark about how government works, the debt ceiling is in response to spending. It is money WE OWE and to default on our debt is unconstitutional, thats right, unconstitutional. The debt ceiling as the republicans use it for leverage is wrong. You really need to take a government class. The president doesn't spend one little cent on his own, he needs congress to write the checks. Congress and yes the republican congress is the problem with their borrow and spend philosophy while fooling you wanks with saying the democrats are the tax and spenders. But you eat it up because as I said before, you are stupid. In my opinion you probably have to have your wife show you how to tie your shoes every day in order to go to your little meaningless job.

American Girl-724855

Did you see that "?" mark there? That means it's a question.

Yes, I read and understood your question, and I replied. I find it humorous that you did not understand my simple reply. Further, I find it ironic that you have forgotten that Romney was not the only other candidate on the ballot.

SmBusOwnerinNY wrote "Taxes should go up. Taxes should go up a lot for upper income."

Obama came into office in his first term with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate. Obama rammed through the stimulus, ObamaCare, and there is no reason he could not have raised taxes on the top earners at the same time. Apparently the only thing missing for Obama and Democrats to vote through a massive tax hike was someone else to blame for what they wanted.

If republicans think that the extra money that would be collected from the wealthy is such a paltry sum, in the big picture of things, then why fight so hard against it. If it is the chicken feed you portray it as then whats the big deal, just let them pay it, why blow the whole deal over what you adamantly claim is just pocket change.

Billybob, it was a republican president and a republican congress that put us in this mess, and more of the same will not get us out. It is time for the leadership of this great president to be heard and for republicans to heed the call. Anything less will result in a blood bath next election and it isn't going to go good for the republican party.

SeekingSanity,

You missed my point my friend. Since Grover Norquist was so successful in controlling republicans with his no-tax pledge contract, why can't the people use the same method to control all of their elected representatives ? What is good for the goose is good for the............................

SmBus... we did indeed go down to around 15%/gdp with revenue in 2009. On its way back up but deficits are still the same. Thats why we need grownups in DC to control spending when we have less money. HA! Made myself laugh :-) Just as you and i would do if our households had less income.

SmBusOwnerinNY

The other BIG part is that the economic tailspin that put millions of people on unemployment and food stamps. None of THAT was due to Obama.

Did I state that it was Obama's fault that our country went into economic tailspin before he went into office? No. I stated that Obama has spent more than any other president in history. Are you disputing this fact? If so, please elaborate.

Well said Forest, I am willing to take a bet here, no republican can answer that question.

so john -- get rid of all republicans and everything will be fine? that is your solution?

Ellis - my mistake. He is just such a disgusting excuse for a citizen I see red when his name is even mentioned. I really hope he is arrested, tried and hanged! He doesn't give a damn about this country.

John i never said any different to anything you just wrote on the debt ceiling? The only thing i said is that BO proposed to take away congresses authority to approve increases in the debt ceiling. Thus giving him blanket authority to spend as high as he wants.

You must not watch much tv or read much as the Dems are the ones constantly calling the Reps extreme for proposing cuts they won't agree to. Remeber the "granny off the cliff" video? That was in response to republicans trying to make cuts in spending.

You do add a lot to the conversation by calling me stupid, it makes you look like the bigger man.

I'll dispute it JohnP, Obama hasn't spent one penny, he can't. Congress and especially the House has the checkbook, all Obama can really do is recommend, and sign bills into law. Get a government class, and shut off Fox, you just might learn something.

Again BigA. Obama cannot spend one cent.

The problem is you are stupid and show it every time you type.

Billybob, it would be a start to get rid of the tea bags that are screwing the American people. There are good republicans, but most are so afraid of the tea bags they forget who they represent.

Forrest, the biggest thing we need to do is grow the economy. That is the only cure for what ails us. How does taking money from people and businesses encourage them to grow? And how is the govt going to be more efficient with that money than you or i can?

Taxes should go up a lot for upper income.

Small Biz,

I'm thinking the Eisenhower tax rates would do just fine... ☺

Johntho:

I don't watch Fox, thank you. I collect my info from the Treasury Department.

"Fiscal talks conclude as Obama makes no new offer" Is anyone other than brainless liberals truly surprised ?

I saw this coming within days of Obama's re-election. He fooled liberals into actually believing he wanted tax cuts for everyone but the high earners. and now he gets what he wanted all along .... higher income taxes on EVERYONE gives him more to redistribute ! LOL !! He also gets to blame Republicans and the "regressives" will swallow it like a fish !

No one dared to question the President on why his previous extension of the "Bush Tax Cuts" .... was only good until JUST AFTER the elections !!! Look out ! Demmie heads will explode as reality becomes visible to them.

He can indeed Johntho, through executive order. As you say, take a class. LOL You honestly think a sitting President doesn't drive agenda and programs....thus spending? You think he wasn't telling the Dems in 2009 and 2010 what to pass for his agenda.....thus spending? He technically doesn't pull out a checkbook, but all Presidents have a major say and major drivers in spending, with the details worked out in congress.

He puts out his budget every year as required which outlines his spending requests. Although in 3 seperate votes it has yet to garner 1 single vote from anyone.

What I think they should do…. From my independent opinion. The key to any negotiation is to find out the real wants of each party.

SPENDING: Dems believe to spend on the welfare of the nation but believe the Repubs spend needlessly on wars and write offs to large corporations in corporate welfare. Repubs believe government welfare needs to be curtailed to not get in too deep in our pockets or big brother will run our lives. They also believe people game the system and once you receive ‘that check’ you will never want to contribute to society.

SOLUTION: Both are right and wrong obviously but they need to address each other’s gripe. End all
subsidies and cut back global spending on wars and bases. Do we really need 30 bases around the world (Japan and Germany)? Welfare should be revamped. Giving a blank check to someone for their rent is not working. Sending the check to the landlord as long as that person lives there makes sure the person is not gaming the system by living with 5 people all getting separate rent
checks. This is an example and can be applied to schooling, heathcare, etc. Do not touch social security for the current recipients over 55. Job classification and social status needs to be factored into retirement age. A brick layer should retire at 65 where a corporate executive should be able to obtain
minimal benefits (Medicaid) at 72, etc. Those who take more minimal benefits are allowed higher tax free 401k limit (todays limit is $15k) to subsidize their personal retirement. Payments to social security do not stop at income of $100k…. should be applied to unlimited income. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Repubs need to concede that people do not get rich off social security.
Our seniors deserve a stress free retirement.

TAXES: Dems believe we should be taxed fairly depending on our social financial status. Flat taxing
exploits the poor since we all pay the same price for gas, food, etc. Dems believe ‘taxing the rich’ is a fair thing to do since they have profited from the tax break for last 10 years. Repubs believe taxing does not solve the deficit issue as it causes business to profit and hire less. Repubs believe ‘punishing the rich’, though feels good to blame, does nothing for our deficit spending problem that is
unsustainable.

SOLUTION: Obviously revamping the tax code is the solution. Repubs need to concede on returning to the Clinton era of taxes and Dems have to concede that $80 billion in taxing the ‘rich’ is not going to save us. Capital gains tax should be taxed like normal income

Keep in mind 59 million americans agree with the repuks. So its not exactly a huge majority that sided with Obama . Thats why the repuks won the House if it was a huge majortiy the dems would have won the required 25 seats needed to win the house. 62 million to 59 million is pretty damn close to divided right down the middle. Hell Flordia (29 electoral votes) was won bu 20k by Obama Ohio (24electoral votes) was won by 80k votes by Obama Virigina (19 electoral votes) was won by 30k by Obama. thats 72 electoral votes Obama won by a total of 130k give or take a few thousand. So dont anybody be fooled the country is split down the middle or about as close as you can get.

Fiesty, or anyone, what about raising taxes on the sale of luxury yacts by 10% for sales over 100K? Anyone think that would be a good idea and bring in more revenue?

The recent report by the Congressional Research Service concluded that there was no statistical correlation between tax cuts for the wealthy and economic growth. There is, however, a correlation between tax cuts for the wealthy and a wider income gap between the rich and the poor.

Top down economics doesn't work for the simple reason that when the wealthy get more money, they don't spend it in the US economy - unless of course the middle class is already doing well, at which point there is a profit motive for them to meet demand. Middle-out economics does work for the simple reason that when the middle class gets more money, they do spend it in the US economy, which means in part that the wealthy will create new jobs to meet the demand.

All sides agree right now that the middle class has been economically crushed. Trillions of their dollars have flowed to the wealthy under trickle-down policies, making an income gap that is now even worse than the robber-baron days. Of course, the wealthy are not creating jobs with all their cash, because the middle class can't afford their products. More top-down policies will not correct that problem.

This is why the bellyaching and whining about how little tax increases on the rich will do to cut the deficit in the short term is missing the point. Anything that can be done to boost the middle class right now, will be a long-term boost to the economy, including the pocketbooks of the wealthy. Since the income gap is the thing that is the most severely out of balance, it makes sense to take steps to correct that problem first.

Well then JohnP don't bring Fox rhetoric here. You are sorely misinformed from some place and I doubt it is any other place then Fox noise.

After reading some of these statement, as always I see the Repubs are being blamed. What I'm hearing is that it is up to the Senate to come up with a proposal? Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the Dems control the Senate?

ShortbusOwner...You only paid 19%? That's pretty low in the crux of taxes...

On a side note can you tell me how raising taxes on those making over 250,000 will cut the deficit?? Or how about on the top 1%?? Can you tell me how THAT will cut the deficit??

Ameican Girl, less than 51% is not "sound" beating...

But I have yet to hear why Obama threatened to Veto the Plan B proposal that would have raised taxes on those making 1 million or above, thought he was all for taxing that 1%?

Sure sounds to me like he lied to the people... so, in other words, the Democrats have proven to be everything you directly accuse Republicans of... any yet you still support them?

And for the record, it was proven that Obama took far more liberties with facts, during the campaign than Romney, but that was only reported by true "impartial" sources, so you wouldn't have bother to check them... since those same sources proved beyond a doubt that big money and banks were behind Obama.

Funny how big money also supports the tax hike proposal by Obama... geez, wonder why?

Executive order, again not an issue of debt, as the president cannot spend a cent without congress's approval. The debt comes out of congress, not the executive branch. You are wrong as any republican wank could be. Look back in history and you will find who has done the spending. Republicans. You said it yourself Clinton would not allow congress by veto to spend what they wanted too. All that has been done other then the ACA which will be either budget neutral or actually save money in the future and even the stimulus that you stupid R's want to call spending was actually 85% tax cuts. The rest is George W. Bush's legacy spending, two unfunded wars, and a drug benefit for seniors that congress did not appropriate any money for them in their budget. So again, shut your TV off you just might learn something useful. In the mean time my calling you stupid is spot on.

Snakebone there is always going to be an income gap and you can't tax people into equality. The rich will always get richer in any market and there is nothing we can do about it.

Go look up the tax cuts to cap gains in 1981, 1997 and 2001-03 and you may think differently as you will find increased revenue by a good margin in each event.

Johntho: I don't bring Fox rhetoric, but you obviously watch or listen to Fox to claim my comments represent their points of view. If I am so misinformed, please enlighten me. Better yet, how about you enroll in a government class and look it up for yourself. I'll provide you with the source: www.treasury.gov

Ljstauth, you lost big, 53% not 51 so deal with it.

This country needs a good shaking up. Let's go over the "fiscal cliff" and let the libs have their day and a basis to really show America how wrong and bad they are with their demands.

No more negotiations - flop off the crap you created libs.

tom-278... What a piece of filth you are!

To Mr President and Congress, a lesson from history regarding decision making and the fiscal-cliff:

"In any moment of decision,

the best thing you can do

is the right thing,

the next best thing

is the wrong thing,

and the worst thing you can do

is nothing."

~ Theodore Roosevelt

I say we get rid of ALL of them. They all seem to work for their "Parties" and have forgotten who they really work for..............the American people.

John P-905546

Did I state that it was Obama's fault that our country went into economic tailspin before he went into office? No. I stated that Obama has spent more than any other president in history. Are you disputing this fact? If so, please elaborate.

Yes, Obama spent more than any president before him (Congress actually, but whatever). Just as GWB spent more than any president before him, Clinton spent more than any president before him, GHWB spent more than any president before him (going by yearly average), and Reagan spent more than any president before him.

The administration will probably spend more than Obama.

There's something rotten in Denmark.

I hope the Republicans do what we voted them in to do.....hold tight on taxes and cut spending. Don't give that *sshole in the White House an inch. Hold Obama to the deal he forced everyone to sign onto 8 months ago. Burn his administration and his 'transformed America' to the ground and rub his and every liberal fool's face in it. After six months,we will see how loved this jerk really is.

Well gee Rob it's pretty simple arithmetic if you have more income then you can pay more of your bills. If you are implying that it is not that much money then I will ask again, if it is just pocket change then whats the big deal deal let them pay it, why quibble and blow the deal over what republicans keep proclaiming and have us believe is just a tiny bit of money. If it is such an insignificant amount why all the fuss about having them pay it.

Way to go Pres. Obama! Don't give in to them. They started this game of chicken. Let them smack the pavement. They will hurt from this the most in the long run. They are trashing their own capitalist system.

If the capitalists are willing to commit suicide, why not hand them the gun?

American Girl-724855

You and Obama both fail to realize that an election is just that, an election. There is no mandate, no automatic passing of his agenda...just a simple election of Obama as President. It does NOT mean he can force his will upon the American people, or that the House and Senate have to do his biding. He is President...not Czar.

I really thought people understood that. Apparently there are some people who think the election meant his Fiscal Cliff plan would be rubber stamped. I am utterly shocked that anyone actually thought that. There was no Fiscal Cliff choice on my ballot. Did yours have one?

2008 - Obama promise:

"But I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less, because we cannot meet 21st-century challenges with a 20th-century bureaucracy." BROKEN

The president signed spending bills in his first term in spite of his objections to potentially unecessary spending.

So Feisty, how about Obama keeping this promise because he was elected the first time on this - which he has yet to do!

Having read through many remarks, some intelligent some horribly stupid, there is still no solution.

Recently at a red light in town I realized that no solution to this finanical problem will be reached Until all in Washington DC/Congress and Oval Office figure out that people make a nation and this country is made up of people not corps! Without people there are no corps, no corps no profits and no loopho;les for the wealthy to jump through on a regular basis.

Wake Up Washington DC for you have failed this nation and the people that make it a nation. Get off your ass and do something for the people, all of us not just the corps and celebrities of enormous wealth!

Johntho, maybe you weren't around during Clinton. He vetoed because of welfare and spending twice. Not too much spending, TOO LITTLE. The Republicans had to INCREASE the amount of spending to get him to sign it the third time. It was the republicans who were the ones trying to spend less. And ended up with the lowest spending/GDP in the last 40 years. The Dems had the first two years of his term and were above 22% spending/GDP in all 8 quarters.

So i looked up spending by congress like you asked. From 1980-1994 Dems had a 2.8 trillion deficit

In 2007 to 2010 a 3.6 Trillion deficit

Totalling 6.4 Trillion deficit.

From 1995-2006 the Republicans had a 1.3 Trillion deficit.

So since presidents spend no money as you say, the Dem congress has outspent the R congress 5 to 1 in deficits since 1980.

Maybe Fox news made them do it?

Don't bring them back to reality T-REX. They will get all bent out of shape and attack you mercilessly. You are saying, however, what I have been saying in different words for quite some time now. Liberals seem to think Obama was elected DICTATOR of the U.S. and can impose his every whim on our society.

It's too bad for them and good for the U.S. that the Republicans control the House and there is at least SOME DEGREE OF BALANCE to stall his aggressive dictates and demands.

Fisty and Insanity,

Again you insult people and add nothing to the debate. Maybe one day you two Obama loving commies will wake up and see that both sides are to blame and Barry is leading the charge. Hope you two scum bags have a happy new year.

You are winning your bet Johntho. I see lots of deflection, lots of regurgitation of tired old talking points about trickle down theories that low taxes encourage growth of the economy, which has not proved true after 30 years of saying it would, and 12 years of the lowest taxes for the wealthy and business in our nations history. But not one comment explaining that if these extra taxes on the wealthy is such a pittance, why fight them so hard, let them pay the tiny amount you claim it to be. I'll ask again why do republicans make such a big deal over what they claim is nothing more than a little pocket change.

"angry black man"?? Racist much??

Exactly what is that to imply? That blacks get angrier than whites? Talk about being a racist... This comes from the left naturally...

Despite slow economic recovery and 8% unemployment throughout his term, Obama's unprecedented spending record includes 25.2% of our country's GDP in 2009, 24.1% in 2010 and 2011, and an estimated 24.3% in 2012.

You hit the nail on the head there. The reason why we have a slow recovery instead of another Great Depression is exactly because of this "unprecedented spending record."

Wow, the selfish right is really out today throwing their meatless rhetoric around, just like they did in October.

Obama is fulfilling his promise. He's playing the cards he was dealt. The selfish right are playing their card - the tax pledge - and it's a losing hand. And they are both "all in".

Taxes have been falling since 1992 and we are now in a crisis. In the mean time, W started 2 wars (1 illegal and immoral) and the bankers put the world on the rink of financial collapse. And the tea-baggers still think we can close the budget gap with spending cuts only. Except, it's all rhetoric...nothing concrete. They are afraid to say the word Military though I bet we could cut a trillion a year out of that and not flinch.

Big ATC: You're simply a fool. Congress doesn't initiate new spending or tax policies the president does. Hard to claim the massive military build up, star wars etc. under Reagan pushed through with his fire side chats were due to democrats because they had the majority any more than democrats could be blamed for his or Bush's massive tax cuts. It's always the president.

So how is it that the president needs to make another offer? He has made 2 concessions already. Boehner couldn't even make his million dollar tax limit get to a vote. What does HE have to offer? Why do people not get the fact that all revenue bills need to be originated in the House. The president can't present a bill. the Senate cant start a bill. It has to come from the house. If they brought no bill that can be passed, then why would they expect any offer from the president. Kind of like saying I want to buy a car but I won't tell you how much I will pay, but I want you to accept my offer.

I don't claim the tax money to be pocket change Forrest, it isn't. But if you compare the amount of POSSIBLE money it raises to the deficit it is pocket change, from a comparison standpoint. There is a difference.

Explain to me how takiny more money away from people and businesses will encourage them to grow?

And how the govt can be more efficient with it than a business?

John P-905546, President Obama is doing EXACTLY what he promised to the American people, and the majority of americans voted for him. I wouldn't take a thing back.

Of course the bumbling Idiot in charge (Obama) wants to keep the middle class tax cuts in place. That way when all of the ACA taxes start popping up in 2013 he does not look like he is double dipping into the pockets of the dumb dumb's that elected him.

Irish - I have NEVER SEEN YOU post anything at all - except attacks on me and Feisty. So look in the mirror, scum, and see who is truly worthless and posts nothing!

musician by night - President Obama was NOT responsible for the monument for 9/11 you moron! It was a committee and determined by New York - and is paid for by a non-profit organization - not the Federal Government Oh Please - and I'll bet you vote Republican!

garcher - when you speak of bumbling idiots you are talking about the entire Republican party and all those who support them. Oh my - looks like that includes you!

This is absolutely hilarious, Johntho says i am stupid because the president can't spend a cent, only congress. Now Larry says i am a fool because congress doesn't initiate spending, the president does. I appreciaite the good laugh.

Now Johntho, go get Larry as he directly diputes what you are saying.

And Larry go get Johntho, because he 100% opposes what you say.

Explain to me how takiny more money away from people and businesses will encourage them to grow?

Giving them extra money hasn't helped them grow, either. The taxation rate doesn't affect the growth of a business.

And how the govt can be more efficient with it than a business?

Government is ALWAYS more efficient than business at anything it does. A business tries to do the minimum acceptable at any service or product at the least possible price and with the maximum profit. This profit does absolutely NOTHING for me.

That is why any serious generational technological advances and improvements that make our standard of living higher tend to come from the government. In general, business is good at taking whatever gets handed down to it from government and refining it and taking it to the mass public.

Stifle government, drown it in a bathtub, and you will have much lesser growth. The government is the infrastructure that lets business and the economy thrive. It is no coincidence that the countries with the lowest tax rates are 3rd world countries and the most advanced countries also have the highest tax rates.

I think it's high time, President Obama shows these clowns what an angry black man looks like!

Mr. President you ran on raising taxes on the 1%, while maintaining tax breaks for the middle class!

The people of this country put their faith in YOU and re-elected YOU!

We expect YOU to keep your promise!

WTF is wrong with this country for continuing to manufacture economic "crises"???

God Fiesty I love you!! LoL! :)

All bills at the Federal level of government start in the House of Representatives. The House needs to pass a bill, then it goes to the Senate, then it goes to the president. 3rd grade civics lesson.

All the Dems keep saying that the rates should go to 39.6% (like Clinton had), but I have yet to see anyone say that they should go to 43.4%, which is what the rates will actually be when you add in the 3.8% Obamacare surtax. I also see "talking points" that taxes are only going up "3-4%" on the wealthy. Actually, the President proposed to tax investment income (capital gains) at the ordinary income rate, even though the Senate proposed to only raise them by 33% up to 20% instead of 15%. When you add in the Obamacare surtax, taxes on capital gains are proposed to go up by 189.3%! Why would anyone want taxes to almost TRIPLE, especially when it won't really accomplish anything? I wonder why we don't hear the entire truth about ALL the tax increases. Even the AARP opposes the President on extending the SS tax reduction, which continues to weaken SS.

We need fiscal responsibilty. None of these proposals even come close.

The house has passed to bills and the dems won't pass them in the senate, This is what obama wanted all along, he gets a massive tax increase and gets to blame the repubs and he gets to cut the military in half making us too weak to defend our own country, smaller military since WWI and he gets to cut welfare etc and blame the repubs, that is why he has not been willing to compromise at all in this debate. he gets everything he wants and gets to point fingers and blame all at the same time... his entire plan is to weaken this country so we are no longer a super power but all countries are then equal and then the dollar i equal to others and world currency can be created bringing all countries together under one currency and control the New World Order... and you people gave him 4 more years to get his task done. and he will because you people dont want to open your eyes and see what he is truly doing. Your to busy arguing over crap that doesnt matter and its the old ball and cup trick, you look at one thing while he does another. People have been falling for it for years

obama ran on a platform of raising taxes on the top earners

he was re-elected

the gop ran on extending the bush tax cuts

the lost seats in the house and senate

they would have lost the house all together if not for redistricting. in PA the dems got over a million more votes than the gop and won every seat. the american people have spoken, the gop just aint listening and in 2014 they will lose control of the house and be the modern day version of the whig party. the tea party has destoyed the gop and they will never win another whitehouse with only one demographic voting for them. if not for old white guys they would'nt win a single state

I pay my tax's, raise them, at least everyone get taxed this way.

What's the matter Fiesty? Are you afraid Obama will stop acting like a &^%$#$ with a stolen credit card? Are you scared that you and the rest of the nipplesuckers will stop getting freebies from the gov'ment? Are you worried that Barak will take back your ObamaPhones? You need not fret, your Afirmative-Action-Hire President doesn't know how to do anything but give away money he doesn't have.

after reading this article..i decided at the risk of being called a cliff dweller...not to dwell on it ...i mean why not... it's so easy a cave man can do it...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psIGJdyPtwg

The president of NO! In goose step with his Party of NO!

You Libbies must be so proud of this incompetent partisan charlatan you re-elected.

Yes, well, he has a responsibility to the 70% of the Americans who agree with him on this issue - more people than voted for him, actually.

Spending.... the house proposes a budget and gets the ball rolling, required by law.

The president proposes a budget to be in by around mid Febuary, by law. Used as a guideline for Congress to work from as it has no official bearing.

The Senate is supposed to propose a budget by April 15th, by law. Countering the house. Although Reid violates this law to no consequence.

Then they meet in Committee and iron things out to have a budget and spend money.

Sorry Larry you are incorrect. I would side with Johntho over you, as he is technically more correct.

Perfect example of the Right's (I mean Wrong's) meatless rhetoric JimSpence. Just Rash Limpbough BS. The Selfish Right refuses to raise taxes/revenue and you accuse the left of "No compromise" and "Party of NO"? It's a perfect example of what happens when you think with your adrenal glands rather than your brain.

Each and everyone of them we all know who they are as we voted for them will lose their jobs,

they are all on the naughty list..

Obama has never even ran anything at a profit, or even recieved a paycheck that did not come from tax dollars, yet we are expected to cling to his financial advice ? I wouldn't ask a mechanic or a babysitter how to pave a road, why should anyone give a damn what that moron thinks should be done when he has zero experience ?

So why should we listen to you? What have you demonstrated, aside from the fact that you are absurdly pugnacious?

As far as the people who "do things at a profit", do you seriously expect us to believe that the Koch brothers and Mr Norquist are looking out for us?

Way to go, RepubliCONs... Tank the American economy, stick it to the Middle Class, protect your Rich buds, all in the name of partisanship!

Not one of these treasonous criminals has the best interests of this nation at heart.

The Greedy Obstructionist Party has not backed down one iota on their positions, all the while demanding more concessions from the President, and THEY have the nerve to try to blame it on someone else?

Watch carefully folks, the CONservatives are shooting this country in the back, in the name of partisan politics.

They don't seem to understand what the "Will of the People" means.

Every single reputable poll I've seen says that the vast majority of the people want taxes to be higher on the Upper Class (that starts at around $400K annual income), they want the existing tax rates for the Middle Class to remain the same, and they want reasonable spending cuts.

Note that the Greedy Obstructionist Party has not given one inch.

The GOP doesn't want anything but a class of wealthy who can buy their offices and perks for them, and have the rest of the people being poor, disenfranchised, unable to effect change, and incapable of standing up against the moneyed wealthy.

They want a return to the early 19th Century, when only the wealthy could do everything and anything. They are today's "Robber Barons" They want a Plutocracy.

Why these Right Wing Nut Jobs don't see this, and further, why they refuse to grasp the implications, is frightening. Do you not know your own history? Do you not care about the economic health of your nation? You love to spout off about being "Patriotic!" but you are willfully blind to the fact that it is the Middle Class that is the economic engine of this nation. And that, my fellow Americans, is treasonous.

When you have to break your back from sunup to sundown, you have no time whatsoever to do anything except worry about feeding your family. You can't protest the wealthy elite who are keeping you in poverty, and you certainly can't group together to vote them out of office. You're powerless...

That's what the Greed Only Party wants!

They want the power to do whatever they feel like, and to hell with the average American. Alexis de Tocqueville said it best: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." And if an entire class of people have no extra money at all to buy things other than the barest necessities, that impacts the economy far more than one billionaire buying or not buying a new yacht or jet, or mansion.

Over the last 30 years, we have seen an immense shift of wealth from the middle class to a class of only the top few incomes. One fact: take the ratio of the richest in America compared to the average of the middle class and you find that the wealthy have over 25 times more wealth than do the average of the middle class. They are 2,500% wealthier than they were in 1980. The middle class has remained stagnant. This is what the Greed Only Party does. They enact policies that empower and enable only those who are able to afford it. The rest of us are the drones, the workers, the minions who are nothing.

Here's another fact for you: For the third consecutive year, the rich got richer. In the 24th annual edition of The Forbes 400, the collective net worth of the nation's wealthiest climbed $125 billion, to $1.13 trillion. All but 26 people on that roster are billionaires. Surging real estate and oil prices drove up several fortunes and helped pave the way for 33 new names on the list. Think the economy is poor? Look around you. There are new buildings going up, there are new cars being sold, and there are plenty of fortunes being made in the stock market. The only people who are whining about a "poor economy" are the wealthy who don't want to pay a decent wage, provide healthcare benefits, and who refuse to take good care of their workers. They want to profiteer. At the expense of the Middle Class. The Economic HEART of this nation.

Our government is no longer of the people, by the people, for the people. It is of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. And their tools are blatant manipulation, misleading propaganda, and influential conservative talk show hosts. We see it in a comment above that "what's wrong with people who know economics saying the truth?" No - they are people who know manipulation and greed. What's wrong is letting them run the economy for their personal gain by intentionally destroying unions, eliminating pensions, offshoring jobs, lowering wages, and do everything they can to suck more for themselves with no regard for the long term harm that they do to America. Here's what's wrong with it: When the vast majority of the population cannot afford basic services, cannot afford basic health care, and cannot afford decent housing, you end up with a third-world country.

That, my fellow citizens, is what the GOP wants to do to you. Bribe you with your own money, separate you from one another by blaming someone else for your problems that they created, and disempower you by making you irrelevant. You think that they care a bit about who gets a tax break, if that person can’t donate to their campaign coffers?

They’re making a POLITICAL issue out of NOT continuing a tax break to AVERAGE CITIZENS.

Who do you think will suffer if they get their way? Certainly not the fat cats who wouldn’t miss that little tax. If you honestly believe that your fellow citizens don’t deserve your help, then you are living in the wrong country.

If you do not demand that the Greedy Obstructionist Party accept the President's offers immediately and without complaint, then you are just as treasonous as they are, and should be deported.

This has not one %$#! thing to do with "paying for slackers"

It has EVERYTHING to do with giving the Middle Class the economic power to grow the economy.

And the RepubliCONs are purposely and intentionally willing to tank the economy for no other reason than partisan politics.

Yes, well, he has a responsibility to the 70% of the Americans who agree with him on this issue - more people than voted for him, actually.

What about his responsiblity to the 70% of the Americans who did not want ObamaCare -more people than voted for him, actually? This malignant narcissist in the White House doesn't give a sh*t about anyone or anything but himself.

"Fiscal talks conclude as Obama makes no new offer"

Thank you Mr. President, for standing your ground!!!

Who in the world would think Obama would agree to cut spending when he's bought every vote for 5 years....this is tragic comedy at it's best.

Now who's the PARTY OF NO?

Feisty....please at any time take that last drink and dry up.

This is the plan agreed to by both Democrats and Republicans back in 2010. This whole fiscal cliff is here now because Obama and democrats are not willing to do what is right. CUT WASTEFUL SPENDING!

The claim about draconian spending cuts is a bunch of BS. The spending cuts for 2013 will amount to 0.0031% of the total budget. To make it easier to understand, for every $100 of the budget, that is a $0.03 (or 3 cents) cut.

The more interesting part of this is the tax increases which will hit almost everyone. The left is really up in arms about that one! If find it very interesting the left is all for raising taxes on somebody else, but when their taxes are about to go up, they go crazy!

Even though my family's taxes will go up about $10,000 (largely due to Obamacare), I say let's go off the cliff and see what happens! My guess is another recession. All you lefties should be happy with all the tax increases, right? Ready, one...two...three...JUMP!

Why would anyone want taxes to almost TRIPLE, especially when it won't really accomplish anything?

Reducing the deficit is not "accomplishing nothing." It's what so many of you have been whining about for years, and now that someone proposes fixing the problem, you have conniptions.

The question really was would Obama make and offer, make new demand, or stay put. The early leaks say he stayed put.

What a pathetic excuse for a President. He's nothing more than a novelty act voted in and back in by those that are clinging to their entitlements and others that actually believed the only ones to be taxed more are those horrible 1%ers. And what's even more pathetic is the liberal base that believes him. Do you people actually think taxing just 1% of the population a little more will amount to anything?

Why aren't ya'll demanding that he actually negotiate; not just say "it's my way or nothing gets done". He's acting like a petulent little 10 year old.

I'm in the highest tax bracket right now; so I'm good with holding hands and jumping off the cliff so we can all pay more.

What you don't understand is Obama WANTS TO GO OVER THE CLIFF. This way he can blame, as usual, the GOP. The liberal biased media will blame the GOP and he can laugh behind your backs as he can now tax everyone, instead of us horrible 1%ers.

What's even funnier, he appoints Kerry who makes Romney look like a poor, homeless person when it comes to wealth. No complaing from the Party of the Hypocrites. Didn't Obama get re-elected by demonizing the wealthy. And Kerry keeps his $7.5 million dollar custom built yacht in the state of Rhode Island so he doesn't have to pay the $500,000 luxury tax he'd have to pay if he kept it in his home state.

Wake up liberals.

Byron,

Exactly how is the government more efficient over the private sector? The government is built upon waste, inefficiency, and mediocrity.

redhead: I'm sure that I must have misread your post. You appear to be upset with Obama. I know that can't be the case because you've been a staunch supporter of his policies from the get-go. Assuming you pay taxes, and that's a big assumption, you must be thrilled that your taxes are going up. One can only conclude that you and all libs are thrilled. Obama is standing firm, just like you want. Sure, the House, led by the repubs, have passed legislation to make sure the tax rates don't go up. But, Obama's superior leadership is showing that it's more important for taxes to go up on everyone than it is for the 1% to maintain their same tax rates, just like the 99%. Some call it leadership. Some call it stupidity. The one thing that is for sure, raising taxes in either case won't do a damn thing to improve the economy. But, then again, I could be wrong. Libs do seem to think that having less money in their pockets will cause them to spend more. We'll see.

The Liberal "savior" with all the power in the free country is powerless here because of partisan pride. He will save his pride before the people over a 150k$ difference in taxation threshold.

We will go over the "cliff" and the blame game will start. He will blame the Repubs. (like always) , but it's his Presidency and the history books will point to him, not congress. He will get tax hikes on everyone (like he wants anyway) and reduced military spending (Iran and others will love him for that one) and who suffers......... the 99 %?

With the increase in taxes there will be even less of an incentive for employers to hire and even less of an incentive for those on welfare to find work. (What a way to build a constituency!!)

Remember, you voted for him.

Please chime in Feisty, and like with comments on Crapo be sure to include the religion of anyone you discuss.....

Bigot.

Wow Byron you really believe the govt is MORE eficient than business? I do both, i work for the federal govt and do business. I have over 20 with the Feds and i can tell you that is 100% laughable. If i operated 1/10th the way the govt does i would be done in any business environment. The amount of waste i have seen over that time is just jaw dropping. Our favorite saying at work is "if it makes sense it aint gonna happen".

If you don't think taxes effect businesses, go look up the 10% tax on luxury boats passed in the fall of 1990. That is the first time i heard "pay your fair share" from the Dems. They estimated more revenue, after all the rich can pay extra right on 10% tax over 100k? The result .......they got much LESS revenue and it decimated the boat business. Over 7000 in that industry lost jobs. And also other support industries. In 1993 congress repealed that tax with a broad bipartisan support and the industry slowly recovered. When people just yell TAX ... they don't take into account behavior.

Happening again with the Medical device tax in Obamacare. Re-living history. Look up Cook medical in Indiana and how they canceled plans to build 5 new plants because of that new tax. How many jobs lost? How many in construction? Support industry? Lost revenue to Local, state and federal? Happeneing with others in the idustry also.

You can't tell me taxes don't affect business.

sonmanvb

WTF is wrong with liberals? Why do they hate success so much?

Let's go over the "fiscal cliff", after all, that will give liberals every thing they want. Higher taxes and huge cuts to our national defense and take back to the Clinton taxes rates.

I'm good with all of that. You know who gets raped? Those living off of Capital Gains. You think Wall Street isn't going to rape the Republican Party for allowing their capital gains to be taxed at +34%?...I smell blood in the water.

Feisty - Amen, Sister!

JK1963 - I can assure that Feisty did not mean her "Angy Black Man" comment to be in any way racist. I think she was reflecting the fears and prejudices you right-wing racist nuts have towards black men, in general. So far, President Obama has been amazingly calm and shown restraint. I would certainly have shown your side my middle finger by now.

So, Feisty (#1), Obama promised to raise taxes on the 1%, and you and your fellow low-information voters elected him.....so what? There was more than one election on Nov 6th, and a whole bunch of more economically informed voters elected a lot of US Representatives who promised not to let Obama get away with such a financially stupid proposal. So, is your mandate bigger than ours?

@ seekingsanity: nice trifecta you managed to degrade belittle and put down 3 people in one post. your contributions and insights to the vine are appreciated.......

ATC, it will encourage them to grow by increasing their will to produce, work hard and earn more for themselves, instead of relying on federal welfare for a living, you know the same argument republicans always use about the destructive nature of an entitlement mindset where you come to expect that the government should just hand you a living. The answer to your question is an often touted principle of conservative republicans are they now going to tell me they don't believe what they say, or that it somehow only applies to liberals, or democrats and they are exempt from their own theories.

Have you ever heard a sales manager tell his staff to stop selling because the company does not want to pay the taxes on the extra sales? Have you ever heard of anybody saying they would not like to win the lottery because they would hate to pay the taxes? Your argument has no basis in fact whatsoever, lower taxes has not provided growth to the economy, and it has not created jobs, if it did we would be $hitting in tall cotton by now. The only thing that grows the economy is putting more money in the paychecks of workers who promptly spend that money, they are the engine that grows the economy, you need millions with a few bucks to spend, not a few with with millions to spend.

You heard your President. Now get off your BUTTS and get this deal done. NOW!

Great points BigATC!

High taxes is why California is dead last in business friendly states. Between the high taxes and excessive environment regulations, businesses are either going under or are moving to states that are business friendly.

As for governments being more efficient than the private sector, well that claim is just laughable. Americas greatest acheivments have been built by the private sector...space shuttle to name one... Do you really think the government would have been so nimble and efficient to pull that off?? So please, Byron, give us an example of where the government has excelled at being more efficient than the private sector??

Kim,

I'm quite certain that poster meant it the way it was intended. It's unfortunate that others that come to that posters defense aren't calling her out. That comment was totally racist. Why else use the adjective of "black" in describing the president?? It was calculated and malicious, something that has been the norm on this board. Other posters have been berated for saying far less about the President's race, but yet, this poster's rantings go unchecked. Believe what you will, but why else use the term "black"?? Think about that first before you reply...

so seeking continues her/his/its ways and becomes very indignant when challenged.

i see she was offended by the words chosen by a poster that was basically quoting the icon of the left bill maher.

@BigATC "You can look at historical data on raising taxes and it doesn't necessarily bring in more revenue. When cap gains was raised in 1987 from 20 to 28%, there was less revenue coming in for the next 10 years than we took in in 1986."

No chit. Guess who rich people would rather pay if FORCED to make a choice, the government or their workers/families? Gee I wonder which one they would pick and for extra credit which helps out the economy more? Would it be giving money to the government or directly to the people cutting out the middle man (government)? How stupid can you be, or do you not really want the middle class to do well and instead be slaves to you?

Raising taxes reduces the wage gap between rich to poor which has been widening ever since taxes were lowered from 90% back in the 60's. If you really want the economy to do well you need a strong middle class to buy your crap or chit service many of which are just rip offs that nickel and dime people all just to turn a profit.

The rich only provide opportunities when it comes to new ideas or inventions and the majority of the time new ideas and inventions come from the private sector or the middle class (the people) and not companies. When it comes to already existing products or services the rich TAKE AWAY opportunities for small business by driving them out of business all so they can compete with other large groups/corporations. They increase the cost or amount of money required to get involved in the game in the first place to once again drive out competition. They all want a larger share of the market and will do anything to get it including breaking any rules.

Any system, economies included will have problems any time it becomes EASIER to make more and more money the MORE money you have at some point. Meaning once you acquire so much money it allows you to make even more money then you could before, and enter into a condition that is known as exponential runaway which no system can sustain for a long period of time. There must be something to limit the magnitude, velocity, voltage, mass, energy density, etc. OR ELSE THE SYSTEM BREAKS AND FAILS.

"All 3 times rates were lowered since 1980 i looked up revenue went UP. Including the Clinton tax CUT, yes a Clinton tax cut, in 1997 when he lowered cap gains from 28 to 20%. Wonder why nobody ever mentions that?"

Because they are short term gains and cannot be sustained for long. Why are we having a problem with our economy again? I am still pissed about NAFTA and GAFTA still and were short term gains that hurt our economy by allowing companies to ship our jobs overseas which Bush Sr. also played a part in. Why does no one mention them?

"Forrest, the biggest thing we need to do is grow the economy. That is the only cure for what ails us. How does taking money from people and businesses encourage them to grow? And how is the govt going to be more efficient with that money than you or i can?"

B.S. another moron that wants me to chase after carrots all so he can ride on my back... How can we continue to inflate the bubble and chase after carrots moron? Where are we going to get all the water, food, land, resources with which we will need to sustain "growth" like you want. Every time some moron has to go to work and drive a car it takes or requires how much in resources? Every moron also has to eat, chit, have some place to sleep, etc. which also takes resources and creates waste. This planet only has so many resources and we are running out of them.

The fiscal cliff is the first of many bitter pills the remaining humans will have to swallow. My job could be on the cutting block too since like teachers, firefighters, police, people in the service, etc. it comes from taxpayer money. As we burn through more and more of this planet's resources just to sustain our "standard of living", and stupid "ideals of life" we will be forced to swallow some more. That or we will kill each other like always over what little remains.

What great leaders greedy people that only think about themselves turned out to be. How stupid can people be to let greedy people that only think of themselves be in charge?

It should come to nobody's surprise that Obama's answer is to tax more and spend more. That's exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.

JK1963 - I can assure that Feisty did not mean her "Angy Black Man" comment to be in any way racist. I think she was reflecting the fears and prejudices you right-wing racist nuts have towards black men, in general. So far, President Obama has been amazingly calm and shown restraint. I would certainly have shown your side my middle finger by now

Hiya Kim!

Precisely my point, but the RWNJ's never pass up the opportunity to distort the "race card"!

President Obama has shown amazing restraint IMHO - see my #4.1 comment below... ☺

Shame...

They have NO critical thinking skills, everything out of them is a rerun from either NewsforDumbFux of Rush Limpballs! lol

Hope 2013 brings you much joy, peace & happiness!

warning...CLIFF DWELLER'S AHEAD...and behind...

These people are morons! A little non-partisan logic please! If they are sooooo convinced that raising taxes will cause a recession, then raise them on "everyone" one percent a year for five years until the original tax breaks would be gone.

Personally, I welcome the "cliff". Then all these Congressmen can go home and get a real job because the budget will have been created that eliminates the peoples need for their employment.

Byron Raum

Government is ALWAYS more efficient than business at anything it does.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the most imbecilic comment I have ever read here, or on any Liberal site for that matter.

Byron, please tell us you were suffering a mild concussion while you were typing this and have now recovered and you want to apologize.

Lemme give you a few examples of how “efficient” our criminal government is.

1. The federal government made at least $125 billion in improper payments in 2011.

2. Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.

3. The Congressional Budget Office published a “Budget Options” series identifying more than $140 billion in potential spending cuts.

4. Examples from multiple Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports of wasteful duplication include 342 economic development programs; 130 programs serving the disabled; 130 programs serving at-risk youth; 90 early childhood development programs; 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities; and 72 safe water programs. This report identifies more than $100 billion to $200 billion in annual government spending on 1,500 different programs that are wasteful, duplicative, or inefficient.

5. Health care fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $750 billion annually.

And this is my favorite.

6. Government auditors spent the past five years examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them–costing taxpayers a total of $123 billion annually–fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve.

Here you go Byron.

If you like, I have over 400 more examples of your “efficient” bureaucracy.

Pay close attention to #6. This is our OWN government telling us that almost 25% of your Liberal/Progressive sacrosanct government programs DON’T DO ANYTHING FOR THE PEOPLE IT’S INTENDED TO! At a cost of $125 billion EVERY YEAR!!!!

Now tell me, how many businesses do you think would survive more than a year or two if 1/4th of it wasn’t productive or profitable?

Son, you have to STOP chugging the Kool Aid.

You may also be interested that this program by the governments own auditors was started by Bush in 2003, surprisingly Barrack Hussein cancelled it when he got into office. Could it be his transparency nonsense was threatened?

Of course, with all this waste, fraud, abuse and corruption in our criminal government the incompetents in Washington can’t seem to find any way to cut spending.

By these reports I think its safe to say we can just cut 20% of our government and no one will even notice.

But of course you indoctrinated Libbies will defend this stupidity and then even have the balls to demand that the rich should pay more in taxes.

FOR WHAT!!!!!

So that more of our money can just be wasted?

You Libbies need a very strong dose of reality injected in your tin foil protected heads.

We’ll all wait for your apology.

So we’re going over the cliff! Looks all the middle class Obama lemmings who slept through their introductory economics class are going to receive an overdo education. The bad news is that unlike Obama phones, it isn’t gonna be free. Once they get their first paycheck minus $20 in added social security payments and another $40 to $50 in higher income tax rates maybe they will understand that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. Maybe they will finally realize that they benefitted far more from the Bush tax cuts than did the rich despite liberal demagoguery to the contrary.

Big government costs big money and Obama knows where he can get it. I think its pretty clear to everyone but his lemmings that it was his plan all along was to roll the republicans or take us all over the “fiscal cliff”. Either way he gets the revenue he needs to pay back his cronies. The best part for him is his rich golf buddies like Warren Buffet and GE CEO Jeffrey Imelt really don’t care since they are well protected against mere tax rate increases. After all, Obama has made sure they each still have access to all those unclosed tax loopholes and plenty of pricey lawyers to exploit them. I bet they probably even get a deduction for using those pricey lawyers.

Obama knows that the easy money belongs to the middle class. After paying ever increasing costs for food, college tuition, gas, credit cards... and now taxes, with no corresponding increase in take home pay who can afford to invest let alone hire a tax lawyer to exploit the loopholes benefiting rich people like our president and his pal Warren. Too bad for you lemmings, but the dirty little secret is that you’re the mother load of revenue! Obama is gonna let you help fund Obama World, and boy does he need your help! How else could he at least put forth the illusion that all those goodies he promised his followers during the campaign would be paid for? It seems the credit rating agencies are on to his sleight of hand even if Mr. Boehner hasn’t quite figured out how to convey the depth of our debt crisis to the public at large.

So its back to Clinton era tax rates! Wooo Hooo! Time for the president to trot out old Bill Clinton belt out a duet of “Happy days are here again”. Enjoy it while you can Mr. president, its your economy now.

Happy new year!

The real estate bubble had ZERO to do with tax policy. That is the major factor of our crappy economy, not taxes. I doubt an underwriter woke up one morning and said "hey, rates are 35% think i'll write a crappy loan"

On one hand you say the only thing that will grow the economy is putting more money in the pockets of Americans, yet at the same time you want to take more money out of the pockets of Americans? If you think the rich will just take it, read 1.161 above and go look them up.

So of the one million or so businesses that will get taxed, where is that lost money going to come from? Not every business can just "work harder" and automatically get that money back. It will come from reduced hours, benefits or jobs in most cases.

You look up the cap gains cuts in 81, 97 and 2001-03 and see how revenue rose dramatically?

I find it hard to comprehend the concept of someone taking money from me, then expecting me to grow. "Hey work harder". LOL The growth just isn't there in every sector to do that. What sounds good on paper doesn't always translate to the real world.

In my opinion the president slightly misplayed his hand by not making any new offers, he should have offered them less than he previously did, he should have raised the republicans because they have a losing hand. It may have even helped Boehner, who is tasked with herding cats. The president budged and republicans in the house would not allow Boehner to budge. The president was kind, it is time for the republicans to call or fold.

More BS from the fact that you show yourself to be a racist... YOU are the one that was first to post on this topic and first to throw the "race" card. It's par for the course of the kind of crap you post.

Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions. And that's what we have to change first. We have to change our politics, and come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans.

So Republicans want to take MORE from the poor and middle class, while giving the rich more tax cuts. Apparently Mitt Romney needs to pay even LESS taxes, according to Republicans.

So I have one simple question: When you Republicans take more and more money from the poor and middle class... who the f*** will be left to BUY the products and services from businesses the rich own?

Seriously... did any one of you brain-dead Republicans stop to think about that. How do the rich people, you love so much, make their money? Who shops at the businesses they own? That's right, the poor and middle class go into their businesses and spend money. That money goes to their revenue and profit stream, and eventually into their pockets. So what happens when those poor and middle class customers have less money?

The ironic thing is that the rich hate the idea of raising their taxes to pay for entitlements, even though that same money will come back to them through their business, when those people spend that money.

Tired, if raising taxes reduces the income gap, why did the boat tax in 1990 on the rich almost bankrupt the industry? The people that got hurt there were the thousands of middle income workers that lost jobs.

The medical device tax just caused Cook medical to scrap 5 plants. That just cost thousands of middle class workers in the medical, construction, support, and other industries jobs.

How are these fitting in with your thesis?

when did facebook get in on the blog?

@John P

during the last two years of Bush and Obama's first two years, our national debt ceiling was raised seven times, from $9 trillion to $14.7 trillion.

Do yourself a huge favor and do a little research and learn the difference between the "debt ceiling" and the "federal deficit". They are two different things. It's bad enough you don't know this without broadcasting it for all to see. This is what happens when all you listen to is Limbaugh and Faux Nues. I'm amazed at how many of you think they're the same. I guess Rush never told you did he.

Was there only large businesses in the 1950's? All you here from conservatives squeal is that it will hurt small business. How did small business make it in the 1950's with those tax rates and the country was pretty damned strong then. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. He shifts, he grinds, he'll drive you out of your minds!

It's because the president is black isn't it Republicans..? Mr. Bohner, Mr. McConnell, tear down this wall!

JK1963 - Totally incorrect theory about Feisty. I realize that nothing would make you and your kind happier than to believe that Feisty and any of her friends on here are racist and mean and hateful. The fact that we don't agree with you doesn't make us bad people. We think you folks are as crazy as you think we are. Fortunately, our side won. Suck it up, little man.

Boner is orange - does that make bigoted towards orange people?

I say it's about time we, The American People, hold a vote on whether or not we should EXECUTE these TRAITORS to The United States of America, for if they do drag their feet and cause the economy to slide into recession once again, that is what they are - TRAITORS!!! They are causing harm to the bulk of Americans to protect a very few wealthy people! It's a same all of these shooters in the news wasted their bullets on the innocent when they could have unloaded in Congress opening up a few dozen positions for some new open minded people!!!

Republicans - your presidential candidate lost, the American People spoke stating that they want the wealthy to pay their due! Now get to work in Congress and earn those hundreds of thousands of dollars, We, The American People pay you!

Forrest it would be like herding cats on both sides. Reid never put anything on paper or he would have had the same thing. Try putting a bill with a medicare or SS age increase in the Dem Senate and the same thing would have happened that happened in the house, it would have got shot down. Republicans won't raise taxes and the Dems won't do anything to entitlements or spending. Boles Simpson was the best thing that would have come about but neither side would do it. I'm at a loss as we have 2 parties that are beyond reason. A few on both sides are decent but not enough to matter. Sad.

"angry black man" is only a racial epithet if used by someone that is not in-step with the left mantra.

Okay, so instead of leading by brokering a deal on fourth and long he is punting to the cheerleaders. Great! Does anyone know how to score that?

KimH,

Of course it doesn't make you a bigot, it just makes you a moron...

23skidoo, the 90's did indeed have a 90% tax rate, but there were enough tax exemptions back then you could drive a truck through. Remember things like deducting interest on credit cards and lots of things like that. The rich back then put lots of money in tax exempt municipal bonds also.

If you look at the revenue it brought in then, in the upper17% range of GDP is pretty much the same as the 80's, 90's and 2000's as revenue/GDP. No matter the rate in normal times we bring in the same amount averaging 18% or so of revenue/gdp.

Bill Clinton made deals with Gingrich. Clearly Obama is no Clinton.

If we had a leader and not some dumbass community organizer for Pres we might get something done.

DB i don't think BO will sign anything. He has his political cake and eats it too. Tax increases across the board, big defense cuts and polls showing Reps as the most to blame. Although that gap is tightening up quite a bit for the blame game.

Forrest Grump 2.0

Have you ever heard a sales manager tell his staff to stop selling because the company does not want to pay the taxes on the extra sales?

No, but what they will do is just pass those increased tax costs to the consumers by raising their prices.

Do you really think the owners of business just reach into their profit stream and take the losses higher taxes cause? If you do it’s a good thing you never started a business, you’d be out of business in a year.

concernedamerica...

I see no one has the balls to contradict you on the numerous tax hikes that will soon occur. It looks like the left is so busy trying to spin obamas message positively, that they are too dizzy to see reality any longer. I wonder how many of them will question box 12 of their W-2's when obama slips it to them that what their employers paid for their healthcare insurance will soon be treated as earned income and effectively raise their tax liabilities.

I watched the banner headlines go past the screen on bloombergTV around noon today. They implied that obama was willing to actually compromise from his "m,y way, or the highway" stance. Looks like the bloomberg reporters got it all wrong.

Ol_Doc

I'm good with all of that. You know who gets raped? Those living off of Capital Gains.

Yes, millions of retirees living off their savings and investments.

Spider:

There was more than one election on Nov 6th, and a whole bunch of more economically informed voters elected a lot of US Representatives who promised not to let Obama get away with such a financially stupid proposal. So, is your mandate bigger than ours?

Yes. The dems won the White House, the Senate (which nobody thought they could do), and made gains in the House. The only reason repubs held onto the House was redistricting - if the landscape in the '12 election was the same as '08, the dems would hold the House as well.

You can call yourselves 'more economically informed' if you wish - that's what's called 'the self-righteous calling themselves good' - but judging from the posts above, y'all seem completely lost on the most basic elements of economic theory. For instance, right now the wealthy 'job creators' are not creating jobs, because the middle class can't afford their products. And your plan is to give them MORE money? Folks: supply side economics cannot work when there is no demand. Can you understand that, or do you need remedial classes?

Why is it that the most ignorant are the most arrogant?

The Khan

The Democrats STILL don't have the House either! The Democrats have blocked just about anything the Republicans have sent for two years now.

The Truth is that if you read one source liberal and one source Conservative, you will see that the conservatives have given more voice, more time of day to the Senate than the Senate has given the House. Any bill Reid doesn't like get's put on the committe shelf. Every Bill Reid sends to the house goes to the floor at some point and gets voted on. BIG, BIG, DIFFERENCE!

No one except those who offer the ridiculous statement that raising taxes and cutting out unwarranted bonuses to businesses that are making huge profits for their owners will not help our economic standing. The super rich can pay more than any other segment of our population without damaging our economic advancement. Any other view on helping to solve our problems is false. We must pay off our debts,increase our taxes, put our population back to working and paying their fair taxes,cut out our needless bribes to other countries .Refuse to encourage any more Israeli expansion aims.decrease our Military budgets to what is reasonable to protect this country.Let the countries that are having their military problems solve them.Increase the Health and welfare of our country before helping the rest of the others and stop this present huge economic advancement of our 1+% population. This should be accomplished as the only way to return this nation to the former standing that we enjoyed.

SeekingSanity: Thank you for your post 1.110 & 1.122. Zapped them both; oh I love that ignore button.

Yep Jim, and the artificially low rate policy they have put forth over the last several years also is killing the retirees as they can barely meet inflation with CD's and bank rates. Also dividends going up from 15% to a top of over 43%. Interesting to see where the big money boys go with their money. Money starting to pour back into tax free muni bonds.

Mac Forrester, #1.8- LMAO!!!! Got lots of votes on that one. Very deserving. That's only as far as I could read, too, #1.8. Can't take this sh!t ANYMORE!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! to you on this 5th Day of Christmas (5.... Gold...en... Rings.....) and 3rd Day of Kwanzaa!!!

WAY-WAY-WAY-WAY-WAY COOL!!! article the other day about the 7 principles of Kwanzaa and some of the best and COOLEST People who embody them.

Hope you're having a "GOOD" one!!!! "M"

It is too bad that we not have a leader in the white house. Instead we have a clown that has to have it his way or else. He would not even address this until after the election just in case it came back to bite him. What a joke.

Snakebone

First of all, in the november exit polling, Romney scored higher on Foreign Policy, Spending, and Taxes. Obama scored higher on likeability. Likeability was the tie-breaker, not policies.

As for the House and Senate, Read between the lines. The public doesn't want their taxes raise, don't mind if rich people pay more, the greater portion want spending cuts, but want to keep all the goodies that can't be paid for.

How on earth can you say you have mandate with that pot of leftovers mixed into a stew that is about to boil over?

I would call it the best Congress ever. The less of this Presidents liberal agenda getting passed into legislation the better.

It is too bad that we not have a leader in the white house. Instead we have a clown that has to have it his way or else.

Ok, guys, which one is it?

Jim Spence,

IF their product or service is not in competition with a foreign product or service, they will try to pass the cost on. When they do, there will be plenty of people with lower overhead who will snap up their business.

If they have competition, they will slash costs meaning salaries and benefits and try to keep their business. If they cannot cut enough, they will close when they have run enough red ink up to become insolvent.

OK LIBBIES, HERE’S THE REAL STORY ABOUT YOUR ICONIC CLINTON ERA OF SHANGRI-LA

In September 1993 he increased the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%, slapped a 4.3 % per gallon tax increase on gas, expanded the taxable portion of S.S. benefits and increased the top corporate tax rate to 35%.

When Billy Blue Dress was inaugurated the economy was already on its way to recovery. He didn’t have a dot-com bubble blow up or the largest terrorist act in history cripple the economy.

The end of the Cold War, thanks to Reagan, and the stabilization of the Middle East thanks to GHW Bush, spurred global economic certainty and the resultant growth. Add to this the incredibly low cost of energy which stayed consistently under $20 a barrel, the Fed keeping interest rates about 2% and the concurrent technology boom that increased productivity and efficiency. Neither Al Gore, nor Clinton was responsible for this growth, the dot-com bubble was the free market on steroids. I remember those days as I day-traded the hell out of the NASDAQ tech sectors and its subsequent “irrational exuberance”.

Despite all these benefits significant growth didn’t start until his second term. Between 1993 and 1997 the economy grew at a respectable but not robust 3.3% annually. We’d love to see that growth today wouldn’t we? At the same time real wages declined despite claims of great growth.

It wasn’t until 1997 when he slashed the capital gains tax rate from 30% to 20% that the economy truly grew. Business investment soared after the tax cuts. The economy grew at a 4.4% rate and wages grew by 1.7%.

Of course we all know how that irrational exuberance, coupled with skyrocketing home ownership and prices due to his “National Homeownership Strategy” which was the launching pad for both the dot-com and housing bubbles, ended up. Yes, most Americans portfolios grew three to four times what they should have been based on the perfect storm brewing. First the dot-com bubble collapsed and subsequently, 8 years later the housing/liquidity bubble collapsed.

Throw the mythical “Clinton surplus”, which was nothing more than typical Beltway smoke and mirrors by manipulating the Public Debt and Intragovernmental Holdings into the fray, and of course the illusion was complete.

Yes, Billy enjoyed a nice run, but most of the seeds were already planted before he was sworn in. His defining moment came when he dropped the capital gains rate and Americans began tapping into their personal ATM machines, their skyrocketing home values.

Add to this his realization that smaller government was better, assisted by the Republican Congress and their spending cuts, and you or I could have run that economy.

Bush’s mistake was the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Not because he got us into them but rather that he didn’t have a significant exit strategy. Iraq should have ended as soon as Saddam was found and executed. Afghanistan should have ended when we beat the Taliban or at the latest when we killed Osama Porn Laden. Afghanistan is truly the graveyard of empires. The recent exposure that their heroin exports have increased by more than 20% should tell us what a failure that endeavor truly is.

So, having said all that, Billy Bob Clinton is not the great economic wizard nor is he the first black president. He walked into a very prosperous time, and as your boy-toy Barrack Hussein would say, “He didn’t build that”.

So, you see things were very different than what we are facing today. This economy is nowhere near as stable as what Clinton walked into. I don’t see another dot-com on the horizon to boom the economy.

Most importantly the main driver of the Clinton economy wasn’t seen until he cut the capital-gains rate.

Good luck with these useless negotiations creating any prosperity.

Let the cliff come. This country needs to be awoken from its Progressive nightmare that has been created for a century.

It’s time to change course and become competitive in the 21^st century economy.

Real Americans need to step up and prevent our Statist-in-Chief.

Big ATC

I noticed the public blame gap was narrowing.

Well Jim Spence I owned my own business for many years, and you can't just arbitrarily raise your prices as you wish, you have to stay competitive with others in the sector in which you operate.

Did you ever own your own business Jim Spence? You armchair quarterbacking about your knowledge of owning a business, because I am not.

"angry black man" is only a racial epithet if used by someone that is not in-step with the left mantra."Mmm Hmm.... and what, exactly, is the 'left mantra'? Mo' guns is betta guns? Let 'em eat cake? What?

(and while we're at it, what kind of moniker is 'billybob'? z'at some kind of southern deal? Synonymous with 'really really intelligent person, what's bin to skool? a double-naught spy? What?

DB

the greater portion want spending cuts

And what happens to the businesses of the "job creators" when the cuts take money out of the pockets of poor and middle class Americans? Here is a clue: Those people are also called "customers". So when customers have less money, what happens at the businesses they spend money at?

That's right, less money is spent at a business owned by a "job creator". Now, when less money is spent at a business, what happens? You said it in another post...

they will slash costs meaning salaries and benefits and try to keep their business. If they cannot cut enough, they will close when they have run enough red ink up to become insolvent.

Now when they "slash costs meaning salaries and benefits", what happens at the businesses their employees spend their money at?

Then when those businesses make less money, what do they do?

And around we go, down the drain.

Now tell me again how cutting these "entitlements" that you hate is good for business owners. Because those cuts you praise are "passed through" to the businesses that money is spent. When the customer has less money, they pass through that cut to businesses by spending less money. And how many businesses hire more people when they make less money?

Jim Spence

You missed what the Clinton policies did to Jobs. The taxes on the rich actually stopped the decline of unemployment in just 8 months. Here's the findings.

The modest tax height you promote was not signed into law until August 1993 and was retroactive to all of 1993. It was adding two higher tax brackets to people with taxable incomes over 89,000. Most people in that range of income pay estimated taxes and did not pay the difference until April of 1994. After
getting stung, then they make adjustments.

Under Bush 43, unemployment peaked in June 1992 at 7.8%. From that point the economy was expanding and unemployment dropped to 6.1% by May 1994. That's a decrease of .70 points per month over 24 months.

After the tax increase unemployment continued down to a low point of 5.4% in February 1995 or a drop of .7 points over 8 months for a .88 decline, BUT then unemployment rose hovered in the range of 5.4 - 5.8% saying mostly between 5.5 and 5.7% for the next 16 months except for the last month it dropped from 5.6% to 5.3% in June of 1995. Basically the economy was expanding only enough to maintain that level of unemployment.

At that point the unemployment slowly dropped to 4.8% in August of 1997 or at a .015 point per month drop over 26 months.

I got curious and did some digging. There were no rate changes from August 1993 until August of 1997, BUT starting in 1995, bracket indexing was returned by the Republicans. Apparently, reducing taxes from bracket creep allowed some growth to occur.

As you know in August 1997, the Capital Gains was cut from 28% to 20%. Again, this is something republicans fought for and won. From August 1997 to April 2000, unemployment dropped from 4.8% to 3.8% or at a rate of .031 points per month.

Tax increases on the Rich HURT, not helped not only the economy, jobs.

I know I know it was BUSH he made the whole thing happen. If he never would have put those tax cuts into effect we would not be in the fix we are in now :)

"The Democrats STILL don't have the House either!"

(yet)

DB Akron:

First of all, in the november exit polling, Romney scored higher on Foreign Policy, Spending, and Taxes.

Are you still reading Rassmussen polls? The ACTUAL exit polls put Obama ahead of Romney on foreign policy by 56% to 33%. Voters were also more likely to trust Obama more than Romney in an international crisis by 7 points.

60% of voters nationwide also said (in Nov. 6 exit polling) that taxes should be increased on the wealthy. Hard to believe that 40% is bigger than 60%. I suppose if you say so...

I haven't seen polling on the spending side: care to provide a link, or should I just take your word for it again, like I was supposed to take your word last month that Romney would win because Nate Silver is a liberal?

You know, DB, I understand that you, as an evangelical, are conditioned to form your beliefs on blind faith, but there are facts in the world. You'd have a bit more credibility if you actually used them.

Hey Feisty, we also elected a majority of Republicans to the House with the intent of NOT raising taxes on anyone and cutting spending. And you ask: "WTF is wrong with this country for continuing to manufacture economic "crises"???" WTF is wrong is Democrats using the treasury to buy votes. We're out of money and all they want to do is spend.

db: Just you wait and see. Conservs don't understand nuthin'. Taxes are going to go up on everyone! This is good because everyone will then spend more money so that they pay the govment less. So the economy will boom! How else can you explain all the libs standing by their man to raise taxes on them if they don't get their way.

withrunner, please wake up. It's ok, it was a bad dream. If taxes go up on everyone, that means each person will have less money to spend, not more. Maybe your math teacher wasn't too good, but if you take 5 from 10 you have 5, not 15.

Hey Feisty, we also elected a majority of Republicans to the House with the intent of NOT raising taxes on anyone and cutting spending.

Really?

Pull your head out from between your butt-crumb "cheeks" and tell us how many seats the House lost again? lmao

The sooner losers like yourself accept you got your ass's beat the better off this country will be!

Wait until 2014, scum-sucker... you ain't seen nothing yet! ;o)))

There is nothing that brings me as much pleasure as watching you impotent little people try to grab a seat at the table!

Enjoy your misery as much as I AM! LMAO@U

hey Fiesty, I think you got your arse handed to you on this one. I didn't vote for the Republicans but they are in power in the House and do control the purse strings. We spend way too much money in this country. It can't keep going on like this. And to call someone a scum sucker is just plain wrong.

Mguy

First off, no one is going to put people who cannot work on the street, or starving. There isn't one proposal brought up by either side to do this.

The bottom line is that when business does not have the income, they cut costs before the loses make them insolvent.

That's what happened to me when I lost my full time job. The owners had held on to people because they thought they would win more contracts than they did. When the didn't, they cut people, AND benefits to those who remain. Later to keep going they cut the work week from 40 - 32 hours for all non-essential personel. When I was there they were over 50 people today they appear to be only 20.

People are hungry because there is a lack of jobs. You are not tackling the first problem, Jobs. IF economics was really understood by Democrats we would have jobs and lots of them. But what they understand is socialism which works out to people becoming more dependent upon government. When you take enough away from those who produce, at some point the producers become overwelmed because people by nature will take the easier road, which is handouts.

DB Akron

And this:

Year-------------------Tax receipts (revenue) in constant FY 2005 (Billions of dollars)

1999-------------------2,136.4

2000-------------------2,310.0

2001-------------------2,215.3

2002-------------------2,028.6

2003-------------------1,901.1

2004-------------------1,949.5

2005-------------------2,153.6

2006-------------------2,324.1

2007-------------------2,414.0

2008-------------------2,288.1

2009-------------------1,899.0

2010-------------------1,927.9

2011-------------------1,998.7

Estimates

2012-------------------2,089.4

Source: Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, Table 1.3 whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals/

It seems that even with the nasty, mean, “unfair” Bush tax cuts revenues (in constant FY 2005 dollars) grew from a low of 1,901.1 in 2003 (after the dot-com recession and 9/11) to a high of 2,414.0 in 2007 before the economy collapsed. They even surpassed the highest revenue year under the Clinton administration (2000).

Yes, deficit grew also, but that was because of Bush’s exorbitant spending.

NOT BECAUSE OF REVENUE LOSS!

When will Liberals finally understand that our economy is collapsing because of uncontrolled spending, not because the tax rate isn’t high enough? Or, as the left likes to blather on not “FAIR enough”.

Austerity is the ONLY economic principle that will work. Our decade long fiscal insanity of spending our way out of debt will never work. Keynesianism didn’t work in the Depression and it won’t work now!

Decades of fiscal malinvestment into unconstitutional entitlements and social programs, monetary malfeasance and elimination of a commodity based standard have created this mess we are in.

Today Spain is teetering on collapse as its bond rate reaches 7%. It will need further massive infusion of capital to save its economy. Just as Portugal, Ireland and Greece have refused Draconian austerity so will Spain and it too will eventually collapse.

We generate enough revenue, but we spend more than we make. Any middle school student can explain it. Imagine what can happen if we get growth of 5-6%?

DBAkron:

When you take enough away from those who produce, at some point the producers become overwelmed because people by nature will take the easier road, which is handouts.

How can anyone take you seriously? Right now taxes on the wealthy are the lowest they've been since the Great Depression. The gap between the rich and the poor is greater than at any time since the Civil War. These are facts. Remember those: facts? And you have the grapes to suggest that we're anywhere near 'taking (too much) away from those who produce'? That's like saying we're on the verge of having too few guns in the country.

The wealthy in this country are absolutely loaded. They are not creating jobs. Why? Because the middle class can't afford their products. This is not rocket science. To get growth in this situation you have to prime the pump, by investing in the middle class. When they have money to spend, the 'job creators' will get to work creating jobs, because there is demand for their products.

Supply and demand. Supply and demand. Basic economics 101. All the rest is a bunch of partisan baloney.

Since Bonehead told Reid and the Senate to deal with the fiscal cliff I hope you right wing nuts don't get mad when they are doing what they were hired to do and Bonehead couldn't get done with his republicans in the House. Remember the President is the Executive Branch and has brought the parties together since the do nothing House, with Crybaby Bonehead, was totally incompetent to get anything done!

DB

Actually this comes down to two different ideas of economics. You, as a Republican, believe in supply-side economics. I, as a liberal, believe in demand-side economics. That is the difference.

You believe that cutting taxes on the wealthy will give them more money to create jobs... and you believe they will create jobs with this money, regardless if demand is there.

I believe that demand, not taxes, creates jobs... and if there is greater demand, meaning more money in customer hands, then business owners will create jobs to meet this demand.

THAT is what this comes down to.

Your own example is testament to MY economic side. You lost your job because your company lost DEMAND (lost contracts). You had less customers, and less money coming in from customers.

Now ask yourself, if taxes were decreased on the business owner, would he have kept your job? Hell no, because you still did not have those contracts. Sure, the owner would have pocketed more money for himself, but there is absolutely no reason to keep you when the contracts were lost.

This has nothing to do with socialism, or the perverted definition of "socialism" that Republicans now believe in. This has everything to do with getting money into the hands of customers, so that they can spend money in businesses, so that those businesses will hire people to meet the increased demand, so that more people will have money to spend in business.

It is not about "taking" money from the rich to give to the poor... it's about getting the poor money that they can spend in businesses owned by the rich. And that starts a chain reaction of creating demand, which creates jobs for those poor people to work in.

Your own personal experience is the perfect example. No one will hire unless they have the "contracts" (DEMAND) for that job. So we need to create the demand that will get people hired and working again.

It all starts with demand. If supply-side economics worked, then you would still have a job because you were the "supply". It DID NOT work. Your own life is proof of that.

The over-whelming amount of people that vote republican and post here, either do not see, do not understand, or just plain do not care, that President Obama is fighting republicans on their behalf.

Republicans want the middle class to pay for the huge tax cut they want to give to the already rich, but die-hard republican voters that still believe only what republicans tell them, I don't think they know that republicans are using them as bargaining chips to force the President and the democrats to approve the tax cut for the rich and that republicans don't give a damn about them or the rest of the nation, they only care about making the rich, richer.

Republicans don't give a damn about the fiscal cliff because they know the United States will not collapse.

Through out the primary, and all through the debates, republicans had a one track mindset, making sure the Ryan budget passed into law and they are still on that quest today.

Look what Bush did to the middle class, so it does not matter how bad republicans treat the middle class, there will always be idiots that will blame President Obama and the democrats, even lying to themselves and everybody else stupid enough to listen to them.

Speaking of rates, imagine what will happen when our interest rates start going up. We pay a crazy low rate of 1.7 or 1.8% right now as a country for our money. Now imagine when, not if, the debt gets to 20 trillion in a few years and our interest rates go up to say 4%? Then we will be paying interest in ONE YEAR that all these taxes are supposed to bring in in ten. Think about that.

If we pay Clinton era rates we will be closing in on a TRILLION dollars a year in interest. We pay about 250 billion or so now. This is the danger of our debt people don't realize. BO has it sweet right now at the very very low rates we borrow at. Increase our outlays for just interest 750 Billion and we will be in one hell of a mess. This is how important our debt/spending is yet they seem to not care.

Nearly every economist agrees that spending is the problem. I think republicans, even the house republicans, would compromise on the tax increases that they don't agree with in exchange for real spending cuts now.....not promised ones down the road. We have to cut spending so darn much money that we don't have. Taxing the high income earners will do nothing, but hey, if it makes the liberals feel better then lets do it on a compromised income amount of, say, $400 or $500K. Does that sound fair? Then lets cut spending by about 3 to 4% this year and a bit more next year and year after if need be. At some point, they need to re-do the tax code so the average taxpayer can figure it out and that we believe it is somewhat fair for everyone.

mguy-478, #1.214- Ya think??????????????

Oh yeah, I'm not exactly sure but I think "lifetime" payments and benefits to Congresspeople after they leave office (any way it happens) might be UNconstitutional. Just a thought....

And here's ANOTHER Republican "Fave"........."No NEW taxes....Read my lips.....No NEW taxes" (We're not talking about "NEW" taxes, we're talking about putting back "OLD" taxes that were TAKEN away). Naany-Naany-Boo-Boo.....works on everything else they do!!!

The Republicans want to let America rot so they can blame the black man. They took a crap on America (2001 to 20012 and continuing today) and not they are looking for someone else to blame.

• The last recession was the BUSH Recession, but the next one will be the Boehner Recession.

Snake taxes aren't the lowest now. They were 28% for awhile in the 80's.

Mguy, how does one create demand? People having money to spend creates demand. So how would you get the money to spend into the pockets of the people?

sic n tired, what policy from bush caused the real estate bubble and credit freeze, which caused our recession?

And what has Reid put forth in the way of comprimise? Nothing. BO and Boehner put forth things and all Reid does is go to his podium and yell...Boehner this, Boehner that.

People are crazy:

Nearly every economist agrees that spending is the problem.

Well, there's your problem right there. When you start out with a big fat falsehood, you got nowhere to go. The fact is, ONLY partisan republican 'economists' think spending is THE problem. I can name a dozen economists right now who disagree with that.

Try again, with a little less hyperbole this time. That is, if you want any credibility...

Snake Bones

The cost to do business is at an all time high and increasing while the ability to charge more is FROZEN.

You got to get your head out of those left wing sources. They make Karl Marx look generous.

OK Snake, when we get to 20 trillion in debt and normal interest rates in a few years........and we are paying a trillion a year in interest, you still gonna say that? You gonna be fine with that?

So what is our problem then? or do you even think owing 16 trillion is a problem?

Big ATC:

Mguy, how does one create demand? People having money to spend creates demand. So how would you get the money to spend into the pockets of the people?

Hmmm, how about stimulus spending on long overdue infrastructure building projects? You know, the ones republicans oppose with their catchphrase "big government'? Just one of many, many ideas.

Snake taxes aren't the lowest now. They were 28% for awhile in the 80's.

Effective tax rates on the top 10% right now are just under 21%. Much lower than at any time in the '80's, and the lowest since the Great Depression.

Snakebone

I can name a dozen economists right now who disagree with that

Name them.

Thats what the first stimulus was supposed to do and they didn't allocate it that way. Wonder why not?

DBAkron:

You got to get your head out of those left wing sources. They make Karl Marx look generous.

What does that even mean? You just dying to use the name 'Karl Marx?' That's about how far your intellect goes, huh? Oh, I got one: Saul Alinsky! Oh yeah, take that you liberals.

Maybe you should stick with theology.

Feisty Redhead Roselle, IL "I think it's high time, President Obama shows these clowns what an angry black man looks like! Mr. President you ran on raising taxes on the 1%, while maintaining tax breaks for the middle class! The people of this country put their faith in YOU and re-elected YOU!"

Yes, and the Republican members of the House ran on NOT raising taxes and cutting spending, and they also were re-elected with a sizable majority - in fact, 54% of the Republicans got elected compared with only 51% of the vote for Obama.

You sound like an "angry Black woman" - am I right?

It's time for ALL parties to 'compromise'. The Republicans need to allow some increases in taxes, and Obama needs to agree to some cuts in spending. In fact, if we REALLY want to get the Deficits under control, we should have a Dollar cut in spending for every Dollar increase in taxes - THAT would be a real 'compromise' and would double the reduction in the Deficit vs only tax increases or spending cuts.

Big ATC:

OK Snake, when we get to 20 trillion in debt and normal interest rates in a few years........and we are paying a trillion a year in interest, you still gonna say that? You gonna be fine with that?

Am I going to say what? No I wouldn't be fine with that. What makes you think I - or any liberal - would? Assume much?

Jim Spence:

Name them.

Robert Reich, Paul Krugm... wait, I'm not your trained monkey. Look them up yourself. If you don't believe they exist, then they must not, huh?

Roy Wilson:

Couldn't agree with you more. Maybe you should contact your congressman.

Is my way or the highway, Democrats are the only ones that will accept Obama's demands well ,they all are Democrats, they all have to vote blind like a flock of sheep's. This is not about the country , this is a about a populist regime giving away money we don't have, how many more billions is Obama asking, where are the cuts he promises to bring sanity to our unstoppable increasing deficit. What is next, another fight to raise the debt ceiling again, because Obama need more money to spend?.

BigATC "OK Snake, when we get to 20 trillion in debt and normal interest rates in a few years........and we are paying a trillion a year in interest, you still gonna say that? You gonna be fine with that?"

Correctamundo. Obama's own 2013 Budget projections call for the National Debt to be $20.4 Trillion by the end of fiscal 2016 (less than 3 years from now). The average Interest Rate on the Debt over the 30 years before Obama was 4.97%, which means that the Interest alone on the Debt could exceed $1 Trillion per year, which dwarfs the $199 Billion per year average under Bush.

Obama and the Congress are arguing about $300 Billion in taxes/spending over the next 10 years. Perhaps we should be a little more concerned about the other $8 Trillion in new Interest payments.

At this rate, we will be joining Greece with their severe 'austerity' and 30% Unemployment Rate much sooner than we think.

Personally, I think that we should just do nothing on the 'fiscal cliff' - There will be a $4 Trillion increase in taxes and a $1.2 Trillion cut in spending, for a net Deficit reduction of about $5.2 Trillion over 10 years, and the tax rates return to what they were under Clinton, when everyone says they were 'fair' - and the beauty of this approach is that it requires Obama and the Congress to do what they do best - NOTHING. The changes are automatic.

Snakebone

Robert Reich, Paul Krugm... wait, I'm not your trained monkey.

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Nice try Snakey. You have no idea what you're talking about do you. I assume you mean Krugman. So far you gave me 2 Liberal progressives that sniff Barrack Husseins chair when he gets up. Why don't you just add Geithner, Bernanke and Moochelle.

Snake, actually saw Reich debate Steve Moore and he thinks no such thing. They agree on spending too much, but differ on how to get there.

You aren't fine with those numbers but spending is what is getting them there. Taxes don't remotely come close to a deficit like that. You would have to take every cent from every billionaire in this country to come close to closing the deficit.

Our debt is about 7 times what we take in. Translate that to your household. Say you NET 50k each year, that would put your credit card debt at 350k. Could you look your spouse in the eye and say "honey we don't have a spending problem"?

Snakebone "Roy Wilson:Couldn't agree with you more. Maybe you should contact your congressman."

It wouldn't do any good - he's a Liberal Democrat that votes 'Party Line' virtually 100% of the time.

BigATC "Our debt is about 7 times what we take in. Translate that to your household. Say you NET 50k each year, that would put your credit card debt at 350k. Could you look your spouse in the eye and say "honey we don't have a spending problem"?"

I LOVE THAT ANALOGY.

The only thing that I would add is her retort, which (imitating Obama) would likely be "We need more income, so get a second job".

With your permission, I will use that in the future - thanks.

Yep Roy thats going to be the monkey that breaks our back. The catch22 is that if the economy starts rolling again rates are going to go up. There is a big difference in paying 1.7% and 4.7%. And the more it rolls into that situation the higher rates our lenders will want. Hence the 7% rate Spain, Greece etc are paying. We have 2 choices, we can take a little pain now while rates are low, or a whole lot of pain when the debt and rates soar and the market fixes it for us. Then the poor are really going to get hit very hard. We will have to debase our dollar and a loaf of bread will cost $10 if we are lucky.

Fiesty is living the good life and has no concern for the generations to follow. She spews off at the mouth supporting anything that this failed administration endorses. I did not see an angry black man today, I saw a black man that had accepted the fact that he was a complete failure.

This country deserves better and the Republicans are determined to make it happen, this time. Thanks for standing up for the future of this Nation.

The Evil Tessmacher,

Great post, and it is telling that not one single right winger has even tried to dispute what you wrote. Personally, I think that most of them on here are paid trolls who obfuscate, deflect, and out right lie to try and justify the rape of our economy by the top 1%. They list figures without truly understanding what they mean, and provide interpretations that simply do not hold water when examined with the facts. The sad part is that they are not even getting a decent wage, but they continue to post drivel supporting positions that will only hurt their own economic positions.

Keep posting the truth, The Evil Tessmacher, some of us are listening, and know what you post to be true.

As I have said on many occasions, we should just do NOTHING.

It's better to 'bite the bullet' at $16 Trillion than at $20 Trillion in 2016 or $26 Trillion in 2020.

Bye - gotta go now.

Oh mathew....this should be interesting, explain how our wealthy fellow americans rape our country.

ROY WILSON-336103

It's time for ALL parties to 'compromise'. The Republicans need to allow some increases in taxes, and Obama needs to agree to some cuts in spending. In fact, if we REALLY want to get the Deficits under control, we should have a Dollar cut in spending for every Dollar increase in taxes - THAT would be a real 'compromise' and would double the reduction in the Deficit vs only tax increases or spending cuts.

Roy, as much as I agree with most of your posts I respectfully disagree with you on this.

If this were a different time and president I might bend a little.

We DO NOT have a revenue problem. Revenues for 2014 are estimated to be $3.215 trillion with an 18.7% revenue of GDP ratio. Unfortunately the spending to GDP ratio is expected to still be 22.6%.

We have a spending problem.

If we broaden the tax base with real jobs, instead of these minimum wage jobs the $863 billion $timulu$ is creating the revenues will increase accordingly.

You and I know the spending cuts will never happen. They will be the typical decreases in already increased spending rates. Barrack Hussein is already bamboozling us by claiming the savings from ending the wars are being counted as spending cuts.

You know none of the increased revenue will go to paying down the debt either. This will be camouflaged as “infrastructure investments”. Investments are the new code word for spending just as revenues is strictly increased tax rates.

As you stated, Barrack Husseins own projections are for a $20.4 trillion National Debt. This is insanity. We just burned through the $2.1 trillion debe ceiling increase from last August, that's over $123 billion a month.

None of the buffoons in Congress want to fix this. You know the negotiations are more about how to preserve their sacrosanct congressional seats.

Barrack Hussein said he’s “moderately optimistic” about a plan;

I’m totally pessimistic.

Republicans won, period. They may not have gotten the spending cuts that they wanted, they may have not gotten the reductions in retiree benefits or the privatization of Medicare that they voted for, and they may not have saved the Bush tax cuts for their wealthy backers, but they won in the long run. Last year, for the first time in American history, our nation got downgraded in the face of defaulting on our debt. This year, we are on the brink of falling off a cliff that will darken our futures for well over a decade, bickering over whether rich people create jobs (which they don't) and whether they deserve tax cuts as a bribe to keep the economy humming. This year, we shot down a bill that would have signed a UN treaty promoting our beloved Americans With Disabilities Act, even when its promoter, the disabled Vietnam vet Bob Dole, came to the Senate in his wheelchair to plead for it. Right now, Americans are not only tired of their government; they are sick of it. That is the way Republicans will gain power; the Machiavellian means to their ends. They will fight as outsiders against the establishment Democrats, win elections, and advance their goal. And their goal is the destruction of just about every function and service that has defined our government since the 1930s. Social Security, Medicare, Department of Education, EPA, unemployment insurance; the whole shebang. And why would they do such a thing??? Why would they eliminate such vital programs??? Simple; because they represent the goodness of government and the weakness of the free market.

Modern Republicans worship the free market; Gingrich Republicans fight for it, Tea Party/Ron Paul Republicans worship it, and moderate/establishment Republicans die for it. The free market isn't a utopian exchange of goods and services based on product values determined by a higher power; it is the capitalist means of production, the utopian symbol of a commercialized society and economy. Democrats like myself respect and/or recognize the free market; Republicans worship it. They think nothing is wrong with it, as if it came down from the right hand of God. Any affront to the free market; any intervention via government or a third party (trade unions) is an accusation against the free market and an affront to the very concept of capitalism. It is also a sign of the free market's fallibility, a fact many right wing officials and temple priests privately acknowledge but publicly disavow just like how the pope disavowed Galileo's scientific findings. The masses, the revolutionary-wannabes in tri-corner hats, lap this up like milk. And so, because any sign of an active government shows the fallibility (and thus the instability) of the capitalist means of production (to quote Karl Marx), the GOP has sought, ever since the rise of their fascist god Ronald Reagan, to shrink the government. They may not have done it now, but they have gotten the next best thing; the public distrust of the government. And if that emotion prevails, Republicans will continue to win elections, continue to sabotage our government at every turn, continue to pick away at every edifice of our beloved civil institutions until there is nothing left. And eventually, Republicans will destroy the semi-welfare state that we currently have, a relic of the days of the New Deal, and replace it with a fascist state in which money is power and moneyed interests are the state. And if we do not stand against this tyranny, you and me will spend the rest of our days telling our children, and our children's children, what it was like in America when men were free. Good night, and good luck.

Jim another goodie he uses is baseline budgeting. Things increase say 6% for no valid reason. Just because. Then they take that proposed 6% increase and increase it 4%. Then they call that 4% spending increase a "CUT". When the 6% increase had no rime or reason to it in the first place. Only in DC could an increase be called a cut.

I wouldn't want to be the one that takes the office of President in four years.

When Obama says he's "optimistic" he means optimistic about collaborating with Republicans in cutting social programs like Social Security and Medicare that keep millions of Americans out of poverty.

Here's something more about the so-called Fiscal Cliff:

On the eve of the “fiscal cliff”

Democrats, Republicans prepare major cuts in workers’ wages, benefits

By Patrick Martin

28 December 2012

Four days before the New Year triggers a series of tax increases and budget cuts, both the Obama administration and congressional leaders are whipping up a crisis atmosphere to justify attacks on the social benefits and living standards of working people.

Whether or not there is a last-minute deal to postpone some elements of the so-called fiscal cliff, the outcome of the political charade in Washington is not in doubt. The political representatives of the super-rich, Democrats and Republicans alike, are orchestrating events to insure that the main burden of the crisis falls on those least able to defend themselves, including the unemployed, the sick, the elderly and the poor…

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/12/28/fisc-d28.html

The whole point of the fake "Fiscal Cliff" is to cut entitlements. Cutting them will not make the economy better or create jobs. Just the opposite as people will have less money to buy things with (There will be less "demand").

Article below explains more about this:

America's Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff

by MICHAEL HUDSON

When World War I broke out in August 1914, economists on both sides forecast that hostilities could not last more than about six months. Wars had grown so expensive that governments quickly would run out of money. It seemed that if Germany could not defeat France by springtime, the Allied and Central Powers would run out of savings and reach what today is called a fiscal cliff and be forced to negotiate a peace agreement.

But the Great War dragged on for four destructive years. European governments did what the United States had done after the Civil War broke out in 1861 when the Treasury printed greenbacks. They paid for more fighting simply by printing their own money. Their economies did not buckle and there was no major inflation. That would happen only after the war ended, as a result of Germany trying to pay reparations in foreign currency. This is what caused its exchange rate to plunge, raising import prices and hence domestic prices. The culprit was not government spending on the war itself (much less on social programs).

But history is written by the victors, and the past generation has seen the banks and financial sector emerge victorious. Holding the bottom 99% in debt, the top 1% are now in the process of subsidizing a deceptive economic theory to persuade voters to pursue policies that benefit the financial sector at the expense of labor, industry, and democratic government as we know it.

Wall Street lobbyists blame unemployment and the loss of industrial competitiveness on government spending and budget deficits – especially on social programs – and labor's demand to share in the economy's rising productivity. The myth (perhaps we should call it junk economics) is that (1) governments should not run deficits (at least, not by printing their own money), because (2) public money creation and high taxes (at lest on the wealthy) cause prices to rise. The cure for economic malaise (which they themselves have caused), is said to be less public spending, along with more tax cuts for the wealthy, who euphemize themselves as "job creators." Demanding budget surpluses, bank lobbyists promise that banks can provide the economy with enough purchasing power to grow. Then, when this ends in crisis, they insist that austerity can squeeze out enough income to enable private-sector debts to be paid.

The reality is that when banks load the economy down with debt, this leaves less to spend on domestic goods and services while driving up housing prices (and hence the cost of living) with reckless credit creation on looser lending terms. Yet on top of this debt deflation, bank lobbyists urge fiscal deflation: budget surpluses rather than pump-priming deficits. The effect is to further reduce private-sector market demand, shrinking markets and employment. Governments fall deeper into distress, and are told to sell off land and natural resources, public enterprises, and other assets. This creates a lucrative market for bank loans to finance privatization on credit. This explains why financial lobbyists back the new buyers' right to raise the prices they charge for basic needs, creating a united front to endorse rent extraction. The effect is to enrich the financial sector owned by the 1% in ways that indebt and privatize the economy at large – individuals, business and the government itself.

This policy was exposed as destructive in the late 1920s and early 1930s when John Maynard Keynes, Harold Moulton and a few others countered the claims of Jacques Rueff and Bertil Ohlin that debts of any magnitude could be paid if governments would impose deep enough austerity and suffering. This is the doctrine adopted by the International Monetary

Fund to impose on Third World debtors since the 1960s, and by European neoliberals defending creditors imposing austerity on Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal.

This pro-austerity mythology aims to distract the public from asking why peacetime governments can't simply print the money they need. Given the option of printing money instead of levying taxes, why do politicians only create new spending power for the purpose of waging war and destroying property, not to build or repair bridges, roads and other public infrastructure? Why should the government tax employees for future retirement payouts, but not Wall Street for similar user fees and financial insurance to build up a fund to pay for future bank over-lending crises? For that matter, why doesn't the U.S. Government print the money to pay for Social Security and medical care, just as it created new debt for the $13 trillion post-2008 bank bailout? (I will return to this question below.)

The answer to these questions has little to do with markets, or with monetary and tax theory. Bankers claim that if they have to pay more user fees to pre-fund future bad-loan claims and deposit insurance to save the Treasury or taxpayers from being stuck with the bill, they will have to charge customers more – despite their current record profits, which seem to grab everything they can get. But they support a double standard when it comes to taxing labor.

Shifting the tax burden onto labor and industry is achieved most easily by cutting back public spending on the 99%. …

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/28/americas-deceptive-2012-fiscal-cliff/

Because Forrest you are taking from people who worked for their money because you want to appease the mini-masses...

So let's take it and turn it around to you..If it's chump change then why do it if it won't even make a dent?? You know what cuts the deficit?? Cutting spending and cutting the handouts we give to foreign countries that hate us....

Wouldn't it be More Productive if Our Elected Leaders Started Working Together as AMERICANS for AMERICANS and AMERICA, instead of just bickering, stalling and posturing for the next election as democrats and republicans! The American People have had it with this unproductive BS! The way that both parties having been operating for years just stinks! Neither party has really been looking out for the best interests of the US Citizens who elect them and who they're supposed to represent.

Both parties have sold out the bulk of the American citizens, who they're supposed to represent, by allowing the "out-sourcing" floodgates to open wider and wider without taking any sensible measures to stem the tide.

It shouldn't be all about Democrats or Republicans! It should be about Americans, especially our elected officials, doing the right thing for our country and its citizens. All the single-minded, left versus right, ideological one dimensional bull has got to go!

Both parties need to start working together and actually start doing something to fix the real problems in our country like "out-sourcing", illegal immigration, the out of control costs of health care insurance and our reliance on foreign fuel. If they don't start working together and actually start making progress by the next election, then American citizens should run a nation-wide campaign to vote out all incumbents regardless of party to send the message.

And yes - I'm Angry - As are most American Citizens right now!

What a useless president we have. So is he "leading from behind" AGAIN?!?!?

But more amazing is the incompetence of the liberals in this thread. Do you STILL not realize Obama WANTS your taxes to go up? Obama believes in big government. He believes in big government spending. And he needs more tax dollars to do that. His ObamaCare is ALREADY going to increase the taxes you pay nearly 5% not counting the insurance premiums that are expected to go up 15% to 20% in 2013 once implementation of ObamaCare starts.

But that is not near enough to cover the increased costs of ObamaCare alone. Obama is borrowing over $1 Trillion a year and taxing "the rich" will at best bring in another $50 Billion. That's pocket change. So his intention all along was for taxes on EVERYBODY to go up which will bring in closer to $500 Billion. Now we are talking!! And Obama can raise taxes on everybody and convince the uninformed voter that it is all the Republicans fault even though the Republicans are the ONLY ones who have proposed an extension of the current tax rates and all the Senate and the president have to do is sign it and your taxes will NOT go up. But Obama can't do that - he NEEDS THE MONEY!!

But more amazing is how liberals are STILL too stupid to see what their Messiah is doing. Obama is playing the liberals as fools and the worse part (or funny part?) is the liberals are too stupid to see it. Amazing.

Rob, forest is spot on most of the time. You are so wrong on so many levels but the most important one is the American people voted for Obama and one of the things that made Obama a winner was his promise to make those of wealth to pay a little more. 3% I think. It isn't even on the first $250000, it is only raising the tax on anything over that. By the way, Obama is one of those that whose taxes will be raised. Here is a little math for you. Those making a half a mill., will pay an additional $3500, Chump change to a person making $500000 a year. That is what your side is fighting for. Our side on the other hand is trying not to tax the middle class and that is what Obama is saying. He is not wrong. YOU are.

Off topic but appropriate.

Obama Sandy aid bill filled with holiday goodies unrelated to storm damage

President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

An eye-popping $13 billion would go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.

Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

Budget watchdogs have dubbed the 94-page emergency-spending bill “Sandy Scam.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/little_help_here_1kW6aQ8fElj4CKwbheEV0N

The Senate on Friday approved a $60.4 billion aid package to pay for reconstruction costs from Superstorm Sandy

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated about $8.97 billion of the Senate bill would be spent in 2013, with another $12.66 billion spent in 2014 and $11.59 billion spent in 2015.

$27.18 billion, almost half of this money will never reach our neighbors who need it more than ever.

As the fiscal cliff approaches our criminals in Washington still have time to reward all their hard work with more pork spending.

I hope all the Americans suffering can just wait a couple more years before they start getting the money our disgusting government promised would be there ASAP.

Just remember all the back-slapping and glad handing all the politicians did during their perfunctory photo-ops after Sandy destroyed so many lives and dreams.

This is an embarrassment!

Just another example of massive waste, fraud, abuse and corruption that I can add to my list I posted above.

dz: You must not have read my prior posts. Libs actually think that having less money will cause people to spend more. Most libs ignore my comments when I point out that by raising taxes on the employers, as Obama and the libs want to do, that the people who are going to end up being hurt are the middle class. The employers will naturally try to figure out ways to cut their expenses and that means that it will come out of the pockets of their employees (the middle class). One person actually said, and I think it was a genuine thought, that forcing employers to pay less taxes will cause employers to spend hire more people so that they don't have to give as much to the government. I'm assuming that the person must have learned that from one our fine socialist public school systems. So, just following through with logic, then they too would like to have less money so they can spend more. Of course, the facts are that the economy will go further into the tank than it already is if anyone's taxes are raised. But, that's why we've yet to see Obama, Pelosi and Reid actually propose anything that will help the economy. There only interest is to cater to their base and "punish" the rich. And their minions obviously agree with that thought. How else can you explain their support for Obama. The repub House has already passed legislation to prevent their taxes from going up. Rather than doing the logical thing (if they don't want their taxes to go up) and support what they House has already passed, they are content to risk their own taxes going up for the sole purpose of seeing the taxes of the 1% go up. When you add to it the fact that raising taxes on the 1% will do nothing to help the economy or the 99%, one is left scratching their head wondering what in the world these people are thinking.

Feisty You got some of it right.

"Mr. President you ran on raising taxes on the 1%, while maintaining tax breaks for the middle class!

The people of this country put their faith in YOU and re-elected YOU!

We expect YOU to keep your promise!

WTF is wrong with this country for continuing to manufacture economic "crises"???"

You only missed on angry black man. It's more like muslim financial terrorist.

We are in this mess from the 2 years he had a tree hand with a democrat controlled congress.

If he really gave a crap he would stop sending billions of dollars to the muslime brotherhood so they can go buy weapons to attack us and the African countries they are overthrowing the governments of.

Obama wants us to go off the cliff and his actions aka reckless spending prove it.

People are getting tired of him blaming GW so now he's blaming Congress.

Until Obamas gone America will be a mess. It's Obama not anyone else that owns this mess.

Get your head out of Obamas a## and see the light!

Arch Stanton, you always come up with some interesting sources. The article you posted is claiming to know the motive of these fiscal cliff makers. They want to ruin the economy so someone can get America to sell off its lands and assets for a song. Who? A foreign country? Is there some plot? (I do wonder because what sane person would want to wreck an economy on purpose.)

Feisty Redhead Roselle, IL Comment collapsed by the community

I think it's high time, President Obama shows these clowns what an angry black man looks like!

Mr. President you ran on raising taxes on the 1%, while maintaining tax breaks for the middle class!

The people of this country put their faith in YOU and re-elected YOU!

We expect YOU to keep your promise!

WTF is wrong with this country for continuing to manufacture economic "crises"???

Its americans fault for believing Obama and what he said he is going to do. He just says what you want to hear to get him re elected.

As for what is wrong with this country for economic crisis... GREED. People being greedy of money. Society would work great if there was better control of money. If places werent taxed so much , then commodities could be sold cheaper , IF corporations would sell cheaper. Thats what would bother me the most. Lets just say the cost of everything came down , and what you normally would pay for an item X costed you 20 dollars, now would cost you 10 dollars, if everyone in the process of making item X, shipping, and then selling all did so with out the expectation of making a fortune off of item X.

Our society is doomed to fall, and it will one day. All governments collapse at some point and new ones are born. Perhaps one day America will split.. who knows.

Dennis Price

@John P

during the last two years of Bush and Obama's first two years, our national debt ceiling was raised seven times, from $9 trillion to $14.7 trillion.

Do yourself a huge favor and do a little research and learn the difference between the "debt ceiling" and the "federal deficit". They are two different things. It's bad enough you don't know this without broadcasting it for all to see. This is what happens when all you listen to is Limbaugh and Faux Nues.

Did you hurt yourself thinking of what to write? Perhaps you should think a little harder (if you can) about the subject matter. Did I state that the debt ceiling and the federal deficit are the same? No, I did not, but somehow you seem to believe that making your point about something I did not say makes you feel like a smarter person. The debt ceiling is related to our deficit because our government cannot control their spending habits. While Obama increased our debt ceiling with approval from Congress, our credit rating dropped and has not recovered since, and probably will not recover if our Congress keeps writing checks that our country cannot cash. This is simple common sense, not stuff from Rush or Fox News which if you read my previous posts you would know that I don't listen to or view Fox News and I will add that I don't listen to Rush either.

I'm amazed at how many of you think they're the same. I guess Rush never told you did he.

I'm not amazed at how feeble-minded you truly are.

Its funny how the democrats are blaming republicans and the republicans blaming the democrats. You people are no better than the idiots in Washington. Both sides of the aisle and the Obama knew this day would copme over two years ago and had been warned about stalling. Obama did not want to take up the issue back then because he had an election to win and did not want to dirty his hands. Both sides of the aisle had their heads stuck somewhere dark and also did not want to make any tough decisions.

It is now after election and none of them yet are willing to make tough decisions. I have news for all of you. None of you should be happy when the final decesion is made if it is ever made.

Washington is badly broken because of people like you. Instead of thinking about which side of the aisle you are for try thinking about America instead of yourselves. Jobs are a big issue and need to be considered. Another stimulas package is worthless. Its a false prop and past recent history proves that. How about we pass regulation and bills that would foster real business growth and less government growth. How about we reform entitlement programs and our entire tax code system. Both have become bloated and both cost this nation more than it brings in. We cannot continue to borrow more than we bring in. That is foolish.

Taxing people at the 2500,000 level is also stupid. It will hurt small business at that level. The level should be 1,000,000 and above. Even Warren Buffet said that. You know the guy all democrats loved to quote. Remove some of the senseless regulations that cost companies. Make the tax code so simple that small businesses can file taxes on two pages and individuals can file on one page. We have sued the tax code to choose who members in Washingtion like or dislike. Its time to use the KISS method in determining taxes due. Everyone should have to pay something in Federal Tax. We now use the child care and earned income credit has a means to redistribute wealth. That is just wrong.

But I guess if all of you are so bent on blaming one side or the other, then so will the members in Washington. Everyone wants the other side to give everything because they do not want to feel any pain. Talk about a bunch of mindless cowards. Try doing the right thing for once.

Kevin

Taxing people at the 250,000 level is also stupid. It will hurt small business at that level. The level should be 1,000,000 and above. Even Warren Buffet said that.

Bohener talk about that, and Pelosi support before to be against, I do believe most will agree, but the President NObama said, if this goes to his desk he will veto. Now Reid and Obama blame Republicans.Where is the reasoning.

First of all Rob you are not turning anything around on me because I do not say it is chump change, that is the republican argument, so then I ask them why if they believe it to be chump change they are willing to blow the whole deal over it.

Secondly, it is a matter of fairness and equity in America, there is no good reason anyone in America should get a better deal than everyone else just by virtue of them being rich. There is no sensible reason they should pay half the tax rate as a wage earner, it is a matter of simple fairness. I do not wish to punish people for their success, any more than it can be said I am being punished for my success, why should my success or anybody's be taxed at a rate much higher than theirs. You explain to me how somebody like Romney who makes $57,000 a day and has his money in offshore accounts is more valuable to this nation than say a man who lays bricks for a thousand bucks a week. Romney claims to have been unemployed for the last 8 years so what is he contributing to this nation that gives him a better deal than a wage earner. These people and their low tax rates do not create jobs, if they did where are those jobs? Nobody hires because their tax rates or lowered, they only hire if they have more customers they can't service with their current level of employees, and they lay off when they have more staff than needed so service the customers, it has absolutely nothing to do with their tax rates. You keep wanting to portray this as my wish to punish people who are rich and it has nothing to do with punishing people, as I said it is a simple matter of fairness and equity in America, if you think of taxes as a punishment then why are we punishing 98% of Americans with higher rates than the wealthy, are republicans punishing them simply because they are not rich. So is that the deal Rob republicans wish to take more money away from people who work for living and punish them for not being extremely wealthy, that is the logical extension of the republican tax argument and absolute refusal to raise the taxes on the wealthy to an equitable level of regular wages earners.

Feisty Redhead said:

I think it's high time, President Obama shows these clowns what an angry black man looks like!

Mr. President you ran on raising taxes on the 1%, while maintaining tax breaks for the middle class!

The people of this country put their faith in YOU and re-elected YOU!

We expect YOU to keep your promise!

WTF is wrong with this country for continuing to manufacture economic "crises"???

Why is it I'm detecting some doubt in your post? I thought the voters were so confident in this administration's abilities with the 'four more years!' mantra that all would be resolved. Instread, we're heading toward the 11th hour with nothing happening. Were the voters right? We'll soon find out...

3thirty3

Hey Feisty, we also elected a majority of Republicans to the House with the intent of NOT raising taxes on anyone and cutting spending. And you ask: "WTF is wrong with this country for continuing to manufacture economic "crises"???" WTF is wrong is Democrats using the treasury to buy votes. We're out of money and all they want to do is spend.

Umm... no, No, and NO.

The Republicans lost the White House for the 6th time in recent history, lost seats in the Senate, and lost seats in the House. In regard to the House, Republicans lost the popular vote overall for the House. If it had not been for Republican gerrymandering in 2010 after the census, they would have lost actual seats and would NOT have a majority in the House. (We're working to correct this injustice and travesty to democracy.)

The majority of VOTERS want taxes raised on the richest 2%, and do NOT want cuts in spending, specifically to trust funds of Social Security and Medicare. Perhaps you've missed all the polls, or let me guess, you don't believe in the polls.

If we are out of money, it's because we are not bringing in enough revenue. We should have tax revenues at 20% of GDP -- at the minimum. We are WAY below 20% of GDP, and this is because of Republican idiocy of waging unnecessary and unpaid wars, and then cutting taxes at the same time, especially the Bush tax cuts in 2003 on capital gains, dividends, etc. that only benefit the rich.

WTF is wrong with right-wing brains? Stop listening to the propaganda on FAUX Noise and Hate Radio -- that would be an excellent start. Make it your New Year's resolution.

patriot?: The problem with the left is that they don't understand economics. You want to blame the lack of revenue for the problem. You also think that taxing the top 2% a little more will solve the problem. I'm not sure what problem you think it will solve though. The fact is that if you double everyone's taxes, and that is all you do, the deficit will still rise substantially. And that assumes that people will continue to spend as much as they do with less money in their pockets, which is what libs always think will happen. Actually, they think people will spend more, but that's for another time. So, increasing taxes on the top 2% does nothing to solve our fiscal problem. Based on your post, I'm assuming that you think that if the truck is being driven off the cliff, but the majority of people don't believe it is being driven off the cliff, then you think it is the duty of the politicians to drive the truck off the cliff, full speed ahead. I strongly disagree. I think it is the job of the elected representatives to educate the people that the truck is going off the cliff. The problem is that most politicians are only interested in their next election and not in the future of this country. If they were actually interested in the future of this country, then we wouldn't have a bunch of politicians on both sides of the isle arguing over nickles and dimes as the truck is being driven off the cliff. The idea that the amount of the deficit doesn't matter is just incomprehensible to me. But, then again, I understand economics and know that you can't increase your interest payments to an indefinite level and expect growth that will sustain the economy. Just look at the difference between people with the same income, but who have managed their money differently. Those who make $100,000 a year and have no debt are clearly able to do more than those who make $100,000 a year but have a $1 million debt where they are paying $30,000 a year in interest. What's sad is that the left hasn't a clue what I just said in that last statement.

michigan northener

Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions. And that's what we have to change first. We have to change our politics, and come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans.

We really need to end the echo chamber of FAUX News, and lack of journalistic standards on Talk Radio -- perhaps reinstating something like the FCC Fairness Doctrine. We need to teach kids in grade school what a credible source is regardless.

In the meantime, rules will be put back in place for the filibuster ending the Teapublican Tyranny of the Minority in the Senate, and hopefully there will be legislation passed to make Citizen's United contributions transparent.

Standardized election procedures would be great (not left to individual states) as well as bi-partisan commissions to draw districts (no more gerrymandering) -- these being the minimum election reforms.

And just restoring the American Dream would do wonders. As posted by others above, we need demand-side economics -- End the debunked supply-side voodoo economics once and for all. And to understand that a fair market hybrid of capitalism and the social contract is FAR better than a free market in which we would all be wage slaves to monopolies like the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons.

Speaking of which we need something like the Glass-Steagall Act reinstated, along with progressive income tax rates but without tax-credit favoritism to any group whether capital gains/carried interest or the child tax write off. Fairness is key.

Don't let the Republicans make you hate our government, or become disgusted, apathetic, and disenfranchised. That's what they want so they can win elections and pursue their oligarchy agenda. Get out the vote, and with your vote government will improve... and so will your life.

Tired-2176559 -- Thanks for the chuckle. The False Choice arguments by rightwingers are always good for a laugh.

john-737278

...Personally, I welcome the "cliff". Then all these Congressmen can go home and get a real job because the budget will have been created that eliminates the peoples need for their employment.

Interesting, but once again, it's not that simple. Because it will eliminate things the people need along with what isn't needed (like defense spending) -- the hatchet versus scalpel analogy. However, you may be on to something -- that Congress already collects pay and benefits for doing nothing, but that isn't the same as having nothing to do.

I am absolutely disgusted at the hateful, anti-American, unpatriotic, and treasonous comments directed toward the President of the United States, made by these Right Wing Nut Job Mouthpieces.

For the last four years, they have done nothing to support the average citizen of this nation, and they have done it by actively obstructing the President at every turn. What's most amazing is that they have the colossal nerve to then blame the President for not accomplishing anything! You treasonous bunch of bottom feeders should all be deported.

I remember Natalie Mains...

I remember a Congresscritter standing up on the floor of the US House of Representatives demanding she be charged with treason and not be allowed to re-enter the country.

I remember the well-publicized "Dixie Chicks CD Burning Parties" where her group's records were burned, along with her being burned in effigy.

I remember the well-orchestrated campaign in the media, led by the Right Wing, saying she committed treason by criticizing the President.

I remember the demands from the Right Wing saying that no one, especially someone with so much access to media should ever say anything negative about the President in public.

I remember her being pressured by the Right Wing politicos to make a public apology for her "disrespectful statement."

I remember the multiple reports of death threats aimed at her.

I remember radio stations announcing publicly that they were banning Dixie Chicks songs. Many of those bans are still in force today.

I remember calls from the talking heads on Fox that she be "stripped of her citizenship and permanently deported" for her "anti-American" and "unpatriotic" statement.

What did she say?

She said, (and I quote verbatim) "We're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."

Nothing else. No slurs, no epithets, no falsehoods, no outright lies, and no hatred. Just embarrassment.

Now, how is it that the Right Wing of this nation aren't standing up and demanding the same exact treatment for all of you who call the President names like "Obummer", "Odumba", "Barry the Empty Suit", "The Muslim Terrorist" and dozens of other more vile and hateful terms, those of you who said that he's "destroying America", who claim that he is a muslim, who claim that he was really born in Kenya, for those of you who call him a "socialist", those of you who claim he's made no accomplishments in the face of the most vigorous campaign of RepubliCON obstructionism in US History, those of you who claim that he is to blame for the economy, when it has been proven otherwise?

Claims for which there is no evidential proof, no veracity, and are known to be outright propaganda.

Why are none of you being held to the exact same standard?

Why is no one demanding any of you be charged with Treason?

Why is no one else asking these questions?

Why is it unacceptable that a RepubliCON President be criticized, yet a Democrat can be utterly slandered with racist, hateful, dishonest, and repugnant comments?

The lot of you should have your citizenship stripped, and you should be deported. You're not an American. You're a hate-filled, vile, ignorant bunch of treasonous sociopaths.

If you don't like the President, then move to another country. Get out, and stop poisoning my country with your hate-filled, treasonous screed...

I hear Mexico is nice these days. Oh, too hot you say? how about Bulgaria? China? In all of those countries, and many more, you would be imprisoned for your comments. As you should be.

You can't defend your comments, because they are indefensible. If you try to defend them, then you admit to a double-standard that only works in your favor. You're trapped by your own propaganda.

You sound more reasonable than evil to me Tessmacher.

There's some wild talk above that Keynesianism was a failure at dealing with the Great Depression during the 1930's. The people who post things like this are trying to rewrite history.

Here's what happened with unemployment during the 1930's when Keynesian ideas were put into action with the FDR administrations New Deal:

http://doughenwood.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/unemployment-1929-42.jpg

It went down quite dramatically. And down even further when we got into WWII and the government completely took over the economy and spent with out regard for the deficit. And by the way, that jog upward in the unemployment rate around 1936-37 was when FDR temporarily abandoned Keynesian policies of stimulating demand, and started cutting federal spending (austerity). As soon as they realized their error they started spending again the unemployment rate went down again.

Here's more about the New Deal of the '30s, it's too bad that both political parties today are "free-market" fanatics and won't learn from this period of our history :

By [economist] James K. Galbraith

The view that the New Deal was too small and accomplished little, that only WWII ended the Depression, is very widely held. But it is not correct. It is based on a mis-reading of reconstructed unemployment statistics from that time, which treat the workers actually employed by the New Deal as though they were unemployed. Which they were not.

In fact, the New Deal accomplished a huge amount, both in specific construction projects and in providing employment to the American people.

I am going to turn over my microphone, not for the first time, to Marshall Auerback, and quote at great length from his paper entitled "A New New Deal." Those wishing to get the whole paper should contact Marshall at mauer1959@aol.com

EXTENDED QUOTATION FROM [ECONOMIST] MARSHALL AUERBACK, "TIME FOR A NEW NEW DEAL"

On Inauguration Day, 1933 (then March 4), there were machine-gun nests at the corners of the great government buildings in Washington, for the only time since the Civil War. All banks in 32 states had been closed sine die. Six other states had closed almost all their banks. In the other 10 states and D.C., withdrawals were limited to 5 per cent of deposits, and in Texas to $10 a day. The New York Stock Exchange and Chicago commodity exchanges had also been closed indefinitely. The financial system had effectively collapsed, and was threatening to take the life savings of millions of people and what was left of the world's financial system with it.

In a fever of activity, Roosevelt guaranteed bank deposits, made the federal government a temporary non-voting preferred shareholder in thousands of suddenly under-capitalized banks - more than half the banks in the country - refinanced millions of residential and farm mortgages, tolerated cartels and collective bargaining to raise prices and wages, increased the money supply, effectively departed the gold standard, repealed Prohibition of alcoholic beverages (wrenching one of America's largest industries out of the hands of the underworld), and legislated reduced working hours and improved working conditions for the whole work force. In the next two years, in what became known as the Second New Deal, he set up the Securities and Exchange Commission, created the Social Security system, and broadened the powers of the Federal Reserve to equal those of other national central banks.

The Hoover agricultural policy had been to dump surpluses abroad, lend foreign governments the money to buy them, and then pursue them aggressively when the debtor countries defaulted. Roosevelt had farmers vote, by category of what they produced, on agreed production cutbacks, assuring sustainable agricultural prices, and compensated farmers for the production they had curtailed. The more extreme supply-side revisionists now claim that Roosevelt should not have stabilized food prices and financed, through public works projects, flood and drought control and rural electrification, because it would have been better to starve these people off the land and to the cities, where, a generation or more later, they would have had higher standards of living. This is the logic of the so-called Austrian School of Economics, taken to its logical and perverse extreme.

Apart from the fact that the resulting human misery would have been morally and politically unacceptable in the U.S., the already militant farm unions would have disrupted the nation's food supply. This policy would have put Roosevelt in the same general category of agrarian reform as Stalin and Mao.

The key to evaluating Roosevelt's performance in combating the Depression is the statistical treatment of many millions of unemployed engaged in his massive workfare programs. The government hired about 60 per cent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York's Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown.

It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country's entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.

Even pro-Roosevelt historians such as William Leuchtenburg and Doris Kearns Goodwin have meekly accepted that the millions of people in the New Deal workfare programs were unemployed, while comparable millions of Germans and Japanese, and eventually French and British, who were dragooned into the armed forces and defense production industries in the mid-and late 1930s, were considered to be employed.

This made the Roosevelt administration's economic performance appear uncompetitive, but it is fairer to argue that the people employed in government public works and conservation programs were just as authentically (and much more usefully) employed as draftees in what became garrison states, while Roosevelt was rebuilding America at a historic bargain cost.

I think the people above saying that we need to cut the deficit dramatically (austerity) are a few beers short of a six pack.

It's totally nuts and you don't have to look far to see that. In Europe, the EU, IMF and ECB have been cutting spending and forcing austerity policies on the governments there for the last 5-6 years and have only succeeded in plunging the continent into recession and depression.

On the other hand during the 1930's we and Europe did exactly the opposite and dramatically lowered unemployment and ended the depression.

Here's some more about national budgets and surpluses vs. deficits from a perspective you won't hear in the corporate media or from most politicians (they are all free-market fanatics because that's what the rich and corporations want):

I think the article below was written in 1998:

Think big deficits cause recessions?
Think again!

BY

FREDERICK C. THAYER

The chairman of the Republican National Committee predicts that a recession is on the way, blaming the usual suspects - deficits, regulations and taxes. His prediction is probably correct, but his reasoning is not. The culprit is very probably the recent reductions in the federal deficit as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. The record of history is totally at odds with economic principles and textbooks.

The annual deficit (spending minus revenues) has dropped from 4.9 to 2.3 percent of GDP since 1992.

This is the same pattern that immediately preceded the recession of 1990-91 that became a campaign issue in 1992.

The "recovery" that had begun in 1991 was not all that evident by mid-1992. Indeed, the beginning and end of "official" recessions can only be identified long after the fact.

Technically, recession occurs when the economy experiences negative economic growth for two quarters (six months). It then takes some time for the National Bureau of Economic Research to collect data and announce the beginning or end, a process that can take a year or more. If recession begins this year, we will know for sure only well into 1997, but the immediate effects will be quite visible.

I am not an economic forecaster, but I have uncovered unusual relationships that connect reductions in the national debt with major economic depressions, rising annual deficits with economic growth, and reduced annual deficits with economic contraction and recessions.

The record of history is clear and wholly consistent. Increases in the national debt and annual deficits never have harmed the economy, always have helped it. Significant reductions in the debt and the deficits never have helped, always have hurt. The record divides itself into two periods.

From the origins to World War II

In its first 150 years, the government periodically undertook systematic multi-year reductions in the national debt by taking in more revenues than it spent.

Each of six such sustained periods led to one of the six major depressions in our history. The last three of these crashes were the truly significant depressions of the industrial era.

This is the record:

1. 1817-21: In five years, the national debt was reduced by 29 percent, to $90 million. A depression began in 1819.

2. 1823-36: In 14 years, the debt was reduced by 99.7 percent, to $38,000. A depression began in 1837.

3. 1852-57: In six years, the debt was reduced by 59 percent, to $28.7 million. A depression began in 1857..

4. 1867-73: In seven years, the debt was reduced by 27 percent, to $2.2 billion. A depression began in 1873.

5. 1880-93: In 14 years, the debt was reduced by 57 percent, to $1 billion. A depression began in 1893.

6. 1920-30: In 11 years, the debt was reduced by 36 percent, to $16.2 billion. A depression began in 1929.

There have been no such multiyear budget surpluses and debt reductions since World War II and, significantly, no major new depression. The record suggests that reducing the debt never sustained prosperity, even when the debt was virtually wiped out by 1836. The highest deficits were those of world War II, ranging from 20 to 31 percent of Gross National Product. For a few years following the war, the debt was greater than GNP, the only such case in history. The wartime borrowing and spending actually ended the Great Depression.

Post-World War II

Both political parties pledge to balance the budget by 2002, and all budget-balancers hope ultimately to reduce the national debt. In the meantime, the nine recessions of the depression-free postwar decades have each followed reductions in the annual deficits relative to GDP.

Using data developed by Warren B. Mosler, economic analyst for a Florida investment firm, I suggest how some of the recent recessions have been politically significant:

· Deficit reductions, 1971-74, led to the recession that began at the end of 1973; a slow recovery did not help Gerald Ford in 1976.

· Deficit reductions, 1977-80, gave way to a recession in 1980 that damaged Jimmy Carter’s re-election hopes.

· Deficit reductions, 1987-89, were followed by the 1990-91 recession that harmed George Bush.

Meanwhile, the longest period without a recession was from November, 1982 to July, 1990.

The Republicans who now praise that "Reagan boom" never refer to the deficits or blame the Democratic Congress, while Democrats repeatedly attack "Reagan deficits." Neither side seems aware that a steep rise in deficits began in 1981, preceding the "boom" by almost two years.

When deficit reductions finally began in 1987, they paved the way for the next recession. Political irony is everywhere.

When the economy slides downhill, the incumbent president is badly damaged, and it does him little good to proclaim "success" in reducing deficits.

Ronald Reagan suffered no political harm because of the deficits of the 1980s and, even at his advanced age, might have been elected again in 1988 if he had been permitted to run. Whatever citizens say to pollsters, they vote against recessions, not budget deficits.

Driven by what appears to be wholly fallacious economic principles, politicians have put together such monstrosities as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollins deficit-reduction policy and the more recent "zero-sum budgeting" (all new programs must be financed by cuts in existing programs), along with the Clinton administration’s "reinvention of government" ("downsizing") to virtually guarantee a new economic disaster, perhaps more serious than any in recent decades.

Extreme danger ahead?

Europe as a whole has been in deep economic trouble for some time, and even Germany now has 11 percent unemployment.

Following the Maastricht criteria the prerequisites for monetary union, European countries are attempting to reduce their annual deficits to the less than 3 percent levels required by the treaty.

There is reason to believe that this effort is hurting European economies which, along with Japan and this country, cannot sell as many consumer goods and services as they need and wish to sell. A spreading recession virus could be very dangerous indeed.

The relationships outlined above deserve serious study, even if they are wholly foreign to widely accepted economic principle that blind even sophisticated analysts to such possibilities. It may be time to question what has been considered unquestionable principle.

http://www.epicoalition.org/docs/thayer.htm

Cutting the deficit usually does not create a good economy but it's a very handy weapon of class warfare for the rich to attack the middle class and poor.

Arch Stanton, are you an economics professor? My dad was and you sound a lot like he did.