Fiscal Cliff

Yeah, that should work, because the voters in these districts really want to see taxes raised.

Yeah, and i'm sure that they're so simple-minded as to think that finding a compromise which does not allow taxes to go back to pre-Bush levels will raise their taxes. Your math sucks, Bubba.

I suppose you think they'd rather have their Representatives working for Norquist rather than the voters who elected them.

Here's an idea being floated and attributed to Romney. Whatddyathink?


Grover's gonna be pissed

No, no, no, a million times, no. This is just another too-cute idea that will do nothing to actually raise revenues! 700 billion over 10 years is insufficient to combat our fiscal problems.

Raise the rate for the top brackets. End the preference for Cap Gains by taxing it as normal income. Period. No gimmicks, no 'pro-growth' bullshit.

Cycloptichorn

First of all, let's establish that no one in Washington actually cares about balancing the budget. If they did, they would love this so-called Fiscal Cliff. It raises taxes and cuts spending, so it would massively reduce the deficit. Isn't that what all of Washington has been pretending to care about all of this time?

Second, understand that this so-called compromise they are talking about in order to avoid this supposed calamity is a trick. In fact, it'll be the greatest robbery in American history. Think about it -- they say they are worried about all those tax increases and spending cuts. But that's not true. The Grand Bargain would dramatically increase spending cuts, not alleviate them. So, in fact, the only thing they care about is paying less taxes, as always.

Right now, according to the sequester $1.2 trillion in spending cuts are set to take place if nothing happens. Half of that would come from defense. Of course, this is the real problem because there's no way the defense contractors are going to allow that. Whenever people in Washington complain about spending cuts they mean spending cuts that would affect defense contractors. They want to massively increase spending cuts everywhere else in the budget.

President Obama has proposed that the Grand Bargain include $4 trillion in savings. He has said over and over again that the ratio would be $3 in spending cuts to $1 in tax increases. This is before his legendarily disastrous negotiating begins. So, let's do some quick math. According to the president's own plan that would be $3 trillion in spending cuts, which is significantly higher than the current plan of $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.

Let me add one other fact, if all you do is let the Bush tax cuts expire for people making over $250,000, you would already have $1 trillion in tax increases. And we were told because of this election that was already non-negotiable. That's what we fought to make sure would happen and the president has guaranteed it. So, what exactly do progressives gain out of this Grand Bargain?

The reality is that this is cost shifting. They are going to move the spending cuts away from defense and on to the middle class and poor by hacking away at Medicare and Medicaid. This is defined as courageous in Washington. What a load of crap. What would be courageous is taking on the rich and the powerful and the large political donors, which is the exact opposite of what's going to happen.

President Obama has already promised corporate tax cuts (from 35 percent to 28 percent). Think about that. Why are we doing tax cuts if we are trying to reduce the deficit? The administration tells us not to worry because they will close some loopholes and make it revenue neutral. But wait a minute, I thought the whole point was not to make it revenue neutral. I thought we were trying to raise revenue.

There's a good chance they'll pull this same kind of crap on income taxes, after all, if they wanted to raise a trillion in revenue all they would have to do is do nothing. Once the Bush tax cuts expire, you re-instate the middle class tax cuts and voila, you're done. That way, you don't have to give up anything in return!

Yet, the White House is planning to give up at least $3 trillion in spending cuts anyway. If you were progressive, if you cared about the middle class, if you were honest, why in the world would you do that? The reality is that this robbery is indefensible and my math here is irrefutable, that's why they will do this deal as quickly as possible. The more people think about it, the more they have a chance to get enraged. The Democrats and Republicans have to agree to this deal in the lame duck session before the public realizes their pocket has been picked.

They're going to raise the Medicare eligibility age even though Medicare costs less than private insurance to the country overall. That's not going to save us any money; it's going to cost us money. But it will shift money from the middle class who would get the benefits of those years of Medicare to private insurance companies and to the rich in the form of extra tax cuts they finance in the federal budget.

If you think these politicians have your best interest in mind, then you're living in an alternate reality. And are you telling me that no one else in the media did the simplest math in the world on this? They also don't want you to know (they don't want to know themselves, that's why they avoid thinking about the obvious problems in this charade), because they're also rich and powerful. The money gets shifted to them. So, why would they want to tell you about how you are about to get robbed?

The Grand Bargain is a Grand Lie. Anyone who argues for it is either a fool or a charlatan. If President Obama was anything but the establishment hack that he is, he would never consider it. There is nothing wrong with compromise, but this isn't compromise. This is a robbery.

Watch Cenk Uygur on Current TV every weeknight at 7et/4pt. Go to current.com/GetTYT for channel information. Watch The Young Turks on YouTube here.

I proposed a tax system to Obama, but heard nothing in return. The way to revise our tax system is to tax income above the inflation rate at higher rates.

It's very simple; if income increases by 10% over the inflation rate, tax it at a much higher rate than those incomes that increase by just a little over inflation rate.

It becomes very easy to compute, and it's "fair."

What if tax policy was written such that no more than xx% of anyone's income could be taken in taxes, and that percent covered all State, Local and Federal Taxes. Then we just let Local, State and Federal representatives fight over what percentage of that pie they each deserved. Would that work?

The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks

This Obama character is a genuine idiot... nothing he does is intended to improve conditions.

Obama To Demand $1.6 Trillion In Tax Hikes Over Ten Years, Double Previously Expected

H2Oman,

You realize the election is over, right? The American voters have spoken and Obama will be our president for the next four years.

Are you really going to keep this up for the next four years? I think you amuse most of us, but it can't be pleasant for you to be this miserable all the time.

By Neal Boortz

A Tweep alerted me to this. He visited the WhiteHouse.gov website and took a look the SCOAMF’s schedule for yesterday. Here .. you can look at this for yourself. You will note that Dear Ruler and Boy Blunder first attended their Presidential Daily Briefing at 10:45. Then, 45 minutes later, this is what showed up on the schedule:

11:30 AM

The President and the Vice President attend a meeting with members of the labor community and other progressive leaders to discuss the actions we need to take to keep our economy growing and find a balanced approach to reduce our deficit.

The Roosevelt Room

Closed Press

Now do you see anything odd about this? Does anything just leap off the page at you? The purpose of the meeting was to discuss some ways to keep our economy growing and to find a “balanced” approach to reduce our deficit, right?

Okay … first point. Where were the business leaders? Isn’t a big component of economic growth encouraging the expansion of the business sector? Wouldn’t it be nice if business owners would invest more in growth and expansion and perhaps hire more workers in the process? You’re right, I’m no economist --- but it seems to me that any meeting – especially at this level – would include business owners.

Next point: What about people from the financial sector? Don’t these people also have a role to play in economic growth? Perhaps a business would need to borrow some funds, or reorganize some debt to facilitate an expansion. Where was the financial sector in this meeting?

But just who DID Dear Ruler meet with? Labor unions and liberals. That’s it. No businessmen. No business finance experts. Nobody representing the free market. Just labor unions and liberals.

Now look again at the last seven words of that meeting description. “… a balanced approach to reduce our deficit.” Study these words for a while and something will slowly dawn on you. The phrase addresses reducing the deficit, not reducing spending. Obama, you see, is an all-time champ when it comes to spending. Even with increasing tax revenues he has managed to rack up the four greatest deficits since World War II; over $1 Trillion each and every year. But government spending is the Holy Grail to Obama. He flat-out stated that it is government spending that makes this country great, and if you’re a president who believes that moose squeeze you are not going to willingly going the allow the very thing that makes America great – government spending – recede.

So .. the focus is not on spending but on reducing the deficit. And just how do you do that? Of course! By raising taxes! At the end of the meeting Richard Trumka, a leading union goon, announced that the rich need to “start” paying their fair share of taxes. START? You mean that group, the evil 1% that earns about 18% of all income, yet pays almost 38% of all income taxes, needs to START paying their fair share? And after the meeting Obama, of course, once again bleated about raising taxes on the rich.

Today Dear Ruler will have a press conference. There is not one ounce of doubt that he will once again preach the mantra of tax increases on the rich. This has been the focus of his political life since he was a Senator. Raising taxes on the rich is and has been the be-all and end-all of Obama’s life right now.

Meanwhile .. that jobs council that Obama formed at the beginning of this year? Hasn’t met in more than nine months.

Obama brings CEOs in for fiscal cliff talks

The republican party has become terrorists; they have made our fiscal cliff hostage to demand what they want. Most technocrats know you can't negotiate with terrorists, because they'll want more the next time.

Obama just needs to keep his word. If he doesn't, it's the "death knell" for many Americans who can't afford higher taxes on their meager incomes that hasn't even kept up with inflation.

While the republicans play chicken with our fiscal health, our stock market is taking a beating.

Some conservative investors should get pissed, and never vote for any republican again.

In other words:

"He won, so shut up and get in step with the Forward March (even if you think it's on a road to Hell). You'll be happier if you just assimilate."

Well, you can either get in line or the automatic cuts and tax increases will happen anyway. That's the beauty of the entire thing... the GOP has no choice.

Cycloptichorn

I know i've said that Mr. Obama should get tough with those clowns in the House, that he should go on national television to ask people to contact their members of Congress. However, the more i think about, the more i think he should just let the idiots in the House drive us off the cliff, and then explain themselves to the electorate. It might be the first time an entire house of a legislature was give the Darwin Award.

No Finn,

I mean that H2OMan (and those like him) should accept the fact that his side lost because American voters said they preferred for more years of president Obama.

This doesn't mean to stop being part of the opposition, it just means being constructive about it. If H2OMan really thinks that democracy is a road to Hell (and those are your words not mine), then I suppose that I am asking for too much.

But the point is you lost, now get over it. I have been on the losing side myself, I didn't have that much of a problem with accepting the results of our democratic process.

I agree; the republicans still believe they have power in our government. That has to be taken away once and for all, or they'll continue to play their ****'g games of chicken.

The majority of Americans already said they want the richest amongst us to pay more in taxes. What's their problem? Can't accept their defeat?

Their corporate paymasters don't want to accept defeat.

Neither do their constituents in many cases. As individuals, these folks were elected by right and right-leaning constituencies. They're looking at their own reelections too (which, unfortunately, we're already talking about). They can't very well vote for something that will guarantee their defeat in the next cycle, which is the primary reason I embrace term limits for Congress.