Apparently tax cuts for the middle class are chicken crap, according to the heir apparent speaker John Boehner. Okkkayyyy.
One of my most serious pet peeves with the Democrats is their ability to drop the ball and allow the Republicans to define their rhetoric. Today the House votes to extend middle class tax cuts created during the Bush administration, in accordance with what President Obama campaigned for. The tax cuts would expire for anyone making more than $250,000.
As I sat up in the night listening to all the days events, suddenly this tax cut vote had turned into democrats voting for a tax increase because the Republicans would never pass it. STOP! That isn’t what happened. The Democrats voted to extend the tax cuts for those making less than $250,000. Nothing more. Nothing less. Any spin is just that, spin.
If Republicans fail to get on board with extending tax cuts for 98% of the American people, then it is they who are going to have the problem. At least half of Congress are millionaires. It should be perfectly obvious that the Republicans are playing to their country club buddies who hand over the big checks. If the Republicans had the stones, they would jump on board with this or …they could have compromised and probably gotten the ceiling changed to $500,000 or even a million dollars. Or, they could go in after the first of the year and propose new legislation to include their sort of rich buddies.
Hopefully the middle class will not forget that they are going to be sold out for 30 pieces of silver. Where are the jobs that are supposed to be created? We have had the Bush tax cuts for a long time. Where are the jobs? The jobs excuse is what is chicken crap, Mr. Speaker. I see Congress circling the wagons for their rich cronies and spewing rhetoric.
If your taxes go up after January 1 and you are in the middle class, send a big thank you note with a chicken on it to the Republican Congress because that is who you can thank. And its time for the Democrats to stop letting the Republicans define who and what they are about. Democrats, stones time!!
Slow, I am not talking about borrowing anything.
Why assume I want to borrow. There are certain obligations that have to be paid for.
You keep dreaming up things you think I mean. It wont work.
I don’t think you can really say that nothing has created jobs. Keeping jobs is important also.
There are obligations that must be met. Salaries, salaries and nilitary equipment, medicare, social security, contractors, national safety, benefits for employes…..This is a lot more complex than ‘stop spending.’ I have no problem cutting out waste. I have no problem trimming departments. I do have a huge problem freezing pay, not extending unemployment benefits, and then voting to protect the rich from a tax hike of 3%. Its always the little guy who gets screwed it seems.
If the rich were going to create jobs, where are they? duped duped duped.
Congress doesn’t want its taxes increased and it looks like the Republicans and the 4 turn coats are protecting them and giving them their way.
You can’t cut taxes and cut the deficit. I feel like I live in bizarro land. 98% of the people sold out to protect 2%. Thanks alot guys.
Can we just have a little historical perspective about Bush’s tax cuts. They were meant as a STIMULUS! Not to be permenant. I feel like I am speaking into a friggin vacuum of space. These tax cuts are not paid for, never were, never will be. Why is it people are freaking out about the deficit but UNWILLING to agree where to cut our spending. It is a lost revenue and will not be recovered.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/07/16/128564378/alan-greenspan-let-bush-tax-cuts-die
Do I want our taxes to go up, no, hell no. But at some point, we have to start thinking of our children’s future. There is no data, credible to me at least, that shows making these tax cuts permenant for ANYONE, espcecially the top 2% earners, will not have long term damages consequences.
I just heard Bernanke say that there won’t be another recession because things can’t fall any farther! Take a big whiff, folks, you wanted change, you got it!!
@Elena
You dont’ “pay for” something you don’t have and aren’t entitled to. Can you name one person who has to “pay for” the lottery they didn’t win? The notion of “paying for” tax-cuts is invalid. You just don’t spend. Now why they can’t agree on what spending to cut? Good question. In fact, it’s THE question. That’s the part I can’t figure out. Finding spending cuts is almost too easy, but they immediately go to Social Security, Health Care, etc. Nobody is asking that question in Washington.
Slowpoke, let’s wait until you are ready to go on SS and then cut it. How dare you talk about pulling the rug out from under millions of people who have paid in to a system, expecting something in return. These are people who have played by the rules, not people with their hand out.
No politician is that stupid. There are some real stupid ones out there but not that stupid. Suggesting that SS be cut out or even cut is a good plan if you want to get ushed out of Washington.
Yeah, you are when you’re talking about the deficit. Yearly deficits add to total debt. You get what debt is, right? You can dream of ways to run away from what you’re saying, but it won’t work.
@Slow, you are being obstreperous. Paying it back isn’t borrowing. But you knew what I meant. Think what you want.
with todays technology, is it really a burden to require 1099’s for the $600 dollar range? Any small business that I know today, is using software for their accounting and reporting – so tell me how the reporting requirement is really a burden?
Many of these small business’s are skirting around the tax laws anyway – with the hiring if illegal labor – how does the small business manage to pay these employees without paying taxes on the income?
How to balance the budget: http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/05/how-to-balance-the-budget-with
Restrict spending to 19% of the GDP.
“A balanced budget based on 19 percent of GDP would mean $1.3 trillion in cuts over the next decade, or about $129 billion annually out of ever-increasing budgets averaging around $4.1 trillion. Note that these are not even absolute cuts, but trims from expected increases in spending.”
Go take a look a the chart.
“To get a more concrete sense of what getting to 19 percent means, here is a table of projected major budget expenditures in total dollars, followed by the amount that needs to be cut each year from the expected budget to get an annual 3.6 percent decrease across the board.
Looking at the chart below, the question becomes: Could you, say, find $129 billion dollars of cuts in a 2016 budget that squeezes through the door at $4.3 trillion?”
So, can you find $129 billion to cut? Lets have a new parlor game! Heck! Lets cut $150 billion! Repealing Obama…um, HCR would help. Prescription drug bill, kill a few departments, raise SS to 67, kill Congress’ pensions 🙂 , I don’t know…. Heck, sell a carrier to India for $1 billion – the USS Kitty Haw is just sitting there…..
That would be USS Kitty Hawk. Write, edit, THEN POST.
raising taxes is always a disaster in the long run. you just stifle people’s desire to make money. this is economics 101. raise taxes on cigarettes, people will smoke less. raise taxes on income, less income will be generated.
ss is a scam, and like any other ponzi scheme, about to go bust.
there is no middle class, lower class, or upper class. we are all americans, despite democrats’ best efforts to divide us by race and class.
the govment has no business meddling in retirement, healthcare, or social “justice” involving plundering money from one group of folks and giving it to another. the country was founded by thomas jefferson and other likeminded freedom and liberty loving folks, not karl marx or bill ayers. live free or die
e,
Do you use services? Do you drive on roads, do you have a police force? An army that protects you? These sort of things cost money.
As for ‘meddling in retirement,’ you might want to rethink that. Should we just send the old folks who fall on hard times out to the local neighborhood steam grate and let them die? Now THAT’s a death panel!
police, army, roads, THAT is the legitimate reason for govment. entitlement programs are ponzi schemes that steal from future generations and future streams of revenue that are unsustainable. what is going to happen to all the old folks when it costs $100 to buy a loaf of bread? what is going to happen when medicare pays pennies on the dollar and it’s impossible to find anyone willing to slave through years of medical school for nothing? the road to hell is paved (sometimes) with good intentions, and the temperature is about to get very hot
@e
This is jumping off bridges mentality. Let’s go back to social security and medicare, two entitlement programs people love to hate until they get close to tapping them. Have you ever talked to anyone pulling SS or using medicare that doesn’t like them? They are free to give them back, to not accept them. No one says you must accept them. I am sure some people don’t.
However in my circle of friends and acquaintances, I have never known anyone to do so. Considering the boomers are arriving, coming of age, that isn’t going to be a real popular position to take. No politician will be able to survive it, so I suggest that they all find another way to cut money. The numbers are not on their side.
I posted the following on my FB and thought it was just as appropriate here.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/40530740
When Social Security was established, life expectancy was 64 and the Social Security retirement age was set at 65, whereas today life expectancy is 78 and the retirement age reaches 67 in 2027 under current law. The brave souls on the Commission recommended increasing the age to 69 in 2050—most affected Americans are too young to vote.
I like the outside of the box thinking… 79 to get retirement (SS). Interesting.
We might have a solution to the tax cut game of chicken. 🙂