Every Dollar the Rich Keep in Tax Cuts Comes from Poorer Pockets

[Tom Rinaldo]

Letting the Bush tax cuts on the rich expire is settled law. They are scheduled to end by stature, but on a more profound level that law was settled by the public in a presidential year national election. The 2012 elections were fundamentally about making the rich pay their fair share. Obama won in a landslide. Against all odds and expectations, Democrats also picked up two seats in the Senate, and Democratic candidates for the House got more votes overall than Republicans, while Democrats there picked up 8 seats. Voters took preserving tax cuts for the rich off the table and Democrats should never have put it back on. That flies against the public will, and the public is equally adamant about protecting Social Security. Overwhelmingly polls say they Americans don't want those benefits cut

Republicans insist that we still can afford letting Americans earning over $250,000 a year to keep getting tax cuts that were designed to be temporary. Clearly our backs can't be against the fiscal wall with such low hanging fruit left unplucked. Yet Obama is willing to take $112 billion out of the pockets of current Social Security beneficiaries over the next 10 years alone, and hand it over to Americans making ten to twenty times more than the average person on Social Security annually has to live on. That is income redistribution of the worst kind. It mandates putting the squeeze on the elderly and the seriously disabled, people no so called “job creators” will ever hire no matter how much Bush tax cut savings they manage to keep pocketing.

Yes the American people expect compromise, but not the sort that compromises the health and well being of the least among us. After the rich pay their full fair share, then we can look at what further revenue increases and budget cuts are needed to bring our fiscal house in order. That will take more revenue increases not less, and yes further spending cuts too. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have been fully litigated in the court of public opinion; they belong to history now. With that as the starting point let negotiations begin next year, after we cross over the fiscal cliff.

[marew]

1. Very well put! Thank you!

[kentuck]

2. Many do not seem to understand that...

or do not care. They are not Democrats, in my opinion.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. I get compromising. I really do.

But the talks should have started with matters that weren't the foucus of a national election. The Republicans could have negotiated something different about the Bush tax cuts after the 2010 elections, but they felt cockly. They thought they would control the government after 2012 so they pushed for a two year extention in full of then and put their platform up for a vote. They lost on that. Badly. It is immoral to give them through negotiations now what they failed to win at the ballot box, especially when doing so means cutting deeper into the income of poor people so rich people don't have to "sacrifice". Even with full repael of the tax cuts on incomes over $250,000 a year more hard choices will need to be made. We won't get everything we believe in, but that is all the more reason not to give up something the people already spoke on.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. Does anyone really believe the Republicans will agree to any other tax rise?

The only reason taxes are going to go up on some level of income over $250,000 a year is because the Bush tax cuts had a sunset provision - they automatically expire unless new legislation extends tjem. All the talking heads, from the President on down, say we really need to lessen the deficit by at least another 4 Trillion or so over ten years. Democrats already accepted a trillion in cuts last year. Republicans are already fighting tooth an nail to preserve tax cuts that they don't have the votes to pass again. So what are the odds that in further budget cutting measures they would actually pass new taxes into law in the Republican House?

[fleur-de-lisa]

5. Excellent! Thank you! - eom

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. I don't care so much if more people read this OP...

...I'm kicking this because I want the OP title to stick around a little longer on the front pages list. It is statement enough.

[AAO]

7. Excellent! If only I knew what to do about it...

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. Our negative reaction to this must be much stronger than anyone expected

That is what it will take to shake the complacency at the top - in both Parties.