The fiscal cliff looms ever larger as the intransigent Republican leadership in Congress steers America directly for it at highway speed. As in all earlier negotiations, Obama's agreement to any demand was met not quid pro quo, but with more demands.
Republican leadership floated the idea that if the President would accept, say $400,000 to $450,000 as a floor for releasing the tax cuts, they would accept the idea of the wealthiest of Americans not retaining the Bush tax cuts. The President said he thought that would be possible if there was a corresponding offer of ways other than Social Security cuts to make up the revenue loss. Big mistake. On talk shows this past weekend, America learned what was really going on. One Representative said that he could not vote "in good conscience" for a deal that included dropping the tax cuts for Americans with incomes of $450,000. Why? Because it was obvious to him that if the President agreed to $450,000, he would agree to an even higher number. He also saw no reason to offer anything in return for Obama's concession, since agreeing to any tax "increase" was a concession in its own right.
In fact, as a demand to go along with their agreement to allow the tax cuts to expire on the very wealthy, the Republicans insisted agreed on a "chained CPI," a way of calculating the consumer price index that resulted in rates of inflation lower than real world rates. Although the President agreed to consider it, Democratic leadership would not, since it essentially paid for the lost revenue between incomes of $250,000 and $450,000. In other words, the GOP would agree to tax wealthy Americans if the Democrats would agree to indirectly tax the elderly. Eventually they were persuaded that such a scheme would be a really hard sell in everybody's home district, and the GOP abandoned the idea.
Now, GOP Representatives and Senators are touting the idea that cliff diving at this particular cliff might not be so bad "in the long run." How so? Well, proposals are being floated for attacking the whole fiscal cliff thing incrementally, leaving some of it in place and fixing some of it. First to go, of course, would be the rescissions of the Bush tax cuts, and the ending of the Social Security "tax holiday." The "what" holiday? At some point in the past four years, Congress removed two percentage points from the amount each wage earner pays into Social Security. That holiday expires at the end of 2012. Some Republicans have said it will allow them to claim they are responsible for "cutting" everybody's taxes in early 2013. But other items in the legislation that caused this mess might stay. For instance, some agencies might not see their ten-percent budget reductions rescinded, and extended unemployment compensation might not be renewed.
The problem with all that is that all Americans would feel the pinch of as much as several hundred dollars suddenly disappearing from their paychecks while the absurd negotiations that have produced nothing in more than a year continue for weeks, if not months. During all this, Wall Street would likely tank again, a process already begun in the Asian markets in response to the lack of agreement today. 401k plans would lose huge chunks again, along with all the compounding that should be happening, and household budgets would, in many cases, suddenly be unable to cover mortgages, insurances, and daily expenses. This nonsense needs to stop, and this cliff needs to be walled of by Monday night, New Year's Eve. And those self-involved, hyper important folks in Congress need to remember that American citizens, all of them, not just the rich ones, do matter.
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Comments: 29
Confiscate all of the money of those that earn over 100,000 and it still will not balance the insane rate of spending.
The Demoncrats should try to solve the actual problem of runaway spending rather than trying to destroy job creators.
Ronald Reagan would have no problem with Obama's suggestion, if it were accompanied by deep cuts. The job of Republican legislators was to say okay to the tax raise, but turn around and demand deep cuts. Instead, they stumbled over the tax raise, which is going to happen no matter what they want, and never even got to the spending cuts, which they claim are vital to our survival as a nation. their incompetence is glaring.
It's called Teapublican tunnel vision. They could not see the forest, because they were fixated on one single tree.
Let’s remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Budget cuts: $385
Not cutting spending is going to doom everyone.
Eric, you're just not seeing what's happening... they're taking all the money. They've gotten incredibly rich against inflation since 1980, while we... we have lost against inflation. Why? 'Cause they've figured out a way to take their share and ours too. If we can't get some back for ourselves, let's at least make them pay SOME of the costs for the wars and bank crashes they caused. Don't you remember? We sent money to help out those super banks, and the bastards took it home as bonuses, watched us lose our homes, and told us they were entitled to the money.
They aren't "wealth creators," Eric... they're wealth thieves. They've stolen America's wealth, sent it overseas, and we will never see it in this economy again.
Who will lend money to a country that does not and can not pay it back?
... and just the the libtards, it is not a comparison of a federal budget to a household budget, it is the fiscal explanation with 8 zeros removed from each number.
referring to the above "household budget" the bill passed will add $6 to to income side over ten years instead of the $16 that Oblama was pressing for.
Result is instead of $16500 new debt every year, it will only be $16498.
We can all give a big sigh of relief on this major accomplishment by our elected leaders.
Libtard fails to grasp concept. 'Nuff said.
Libtard fails to grasp concept. 'Nuff said."
You were the one who cited the information and its source. If it's such a stupid concept, why'd you put it out there?
"'Nuff said." Yes, it is--please quit tossing around your insults.
The lefties want to use coercion and force of government to redistribute wealth.
This always fails.
I would prefer pure unadulterated capitalism, which is not what is happening now so don't go there. To much interference and regulation have caused a lot of the imbalance in the economic system ... Henry Ford used a purely capitalistic solution to build his company. Use that as your model for a solution, not Robin Hood style forced redistribution.