2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDo you realize what Obama actually did here?
Last edited Wed Jan 2, 2013, 01:32 PM - Edit history (1)
I'm not seeing much that indicates that folks actually realize the scope of what Obama actually did.
He changed the subject entirely, and made this no longer about the "fiscal cliff" at all, but about renewal of the Bush tax cuts without the top bracket. Did you notice that spending cuts magically disappeared?
He extended the Bush tax cuts two years ago with the top bracket included, this time he got them made permanent with the top bracket removed and with other increases included. He also got renewal of some social safety net programs, which is just icing on the cake and pokes a stick in the Republican eye. That's the bill that just passed.
Let's not get wrapped up in quibbling over the numbers, they don't really matter, he won on principle in a really big way.
Update: Those who are asking if I'm going to be happy in two months, of course I'm going to be happy.
Don't you get it? Those spending cuts were what Republicans traded off for the debt ceiling increase last year, and now they are going to be negotiating those same spending cuts for a second ceiling increase this year. That's like I sold you some property, kept your money and the property and am now selling you the property a second time. I am going to enjoy the hell out of that.
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Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)We just had three plus weeks of endless predictions about how Obama was definitely about to cut social security and raise the medicare age.
Didn't happen.
Do you have a specific prediction about what's going to happen in 2 months?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)and Obama should just let Congress work out the bills
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)CranialRectaLoopback
(123 posts)But then that is rather obvious, isn't it?
George II
(67,782 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)And last summer during the initial debt ceiling fight?
And a number of times prior to that?
So to be clear, you are predicting that a deal will be made in which the chained CPI will go into effect, the medicare age will rise, and there will be means testing ... and that will happen during the next debt ceiling fight?
Just trying to make sure I know what the prediction is.
patrice
(47,992 posts)
pnwmom
(110,261 posts)
Maraya1969
(23,497 posts)None of that was ever going to happen and he knew it.
Now we are in a new congress. He'll have to assess what they are like. But thankfully they are going to be a lot more cooperative. This one he knew was going to say "NO", until their asses were up against the fire.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I'd say you have quite the talent for picking screen-names.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Other than a debt ceiling fight, what else are you predicting?
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Refuse to talk to them about it. Just make speeches informing the public that the GOP are threatening to crash the global economy to get their way. If and when the time comes Obama can raise it himself. There is no legislative requirement for raising the debt ceiling.
I really believe he should just flat out refuse to play their little games any longer. That would take the air right out of their tires.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Other than to claim "something bad" will happen.
Got any specific predictions?
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)probably unwarranted.
Which is exactly what we've had here at HairOnFireUnderground over the last 3 weeks.
And endless stream of angry "Obama is going to cave" threads. They were sure Obama was going to make a deal to raise the Medicare age, sure that he'd cut Social Security ... some said he was going to cave and give Boehner "everything he wanted".
The gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments continued on and on.
And then, none of that happened.
But many of the outraged remain outraged. They move the goal posts, and even the field.
We've seen this time and time again around here. The predictions that Obama will cut those programs surface every couple months, people freak out, and then it doesn't happen.
But the outrage remains. So I've started to ask those who seem sure that Obama is about to do something terrible to simply be specific about the evil thing they are sure that he's going to do.
I ask them to make a specific prediction that is worthy of the level of outrage.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,454 posts)I love it more each time I hear it, cause it's true. 
"H.O.F.U." 
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)the USA's credit rating. This means he will invoke his 14th amendment prerogative.
SunSeeker
(58,283 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)That chained CPI was on the table at one point.
Never bet with something you don't want to lose.
George II
(67,782 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)and last summer, will again be "sure".
George II
(67,782 posts)
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)It seemed to me Repubs made it a teaser.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)They only use "entitlement" programs to make promises to their shrinking base in order to get themselves elected!
They will never actuality cut any of them entirely (or even partially now), even when offered to them, because, simple....
Because they KNOW they will never WIN nationally again once they would have actually DONE the cuts they only promised, but never DELIVERED.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Why offer it as chained-CPI? Why not offer it explicitly as a cut if they would never take the offer? I mean, if he knew they weren't going to take it, why not make it sound like a sweet deal rather than like he was correcting a calculation error? Why did he make it clear that it would also be attached to other programs that were valuable to the wealthy?
In fact, why should any democrat feel Social Security is threatened at all? I guess Bush's proposal to make a percentage of it privatized wasn't a threat at all and nobody should have been concerned.
You seem to count on Republican opportunism, which is definitely real, and give no account for Republican ideology. There are people in the Republican party who believe the whole country would be better off without Social Security. They would take the opportunity to damage the program if taken.
It's a little beside the topic, but if what you say is the case, why-- after Obama proposed it-- would some people here then present Chained-CPI as though it wasn't a cut, as though Obama had just performed a mathematical miracle, saving the government money without cutting benefits, and they did this before making any calculations?
I think trusting that it was "just a teaser" is as huge an error.
George II
(67,782 posts)caseymoz
(5,763 posts)What's President Obama teasing if he ends up at the position that he would have been at if he had started there? He counted them being dumb enough to turn him down that doesn't make him smart.
Perhaps he did it just to demonstrate how unpopular it would be, and how much people wouldn't be fooled? If so, the Obama-fans who came out praising chained-CPI because he proposed it weren't doing the President any favors. We won't know what the method was to this madness, if there was any, until his term is long over.
I'm not ready the say the guy is a genius, though I am happy he's President and not Romney.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)those you are arguing with will never get the message. Talk to the rest of us, because you and others have good things to say, but the Hair on Fire (too bad "HoF" is taken by another group) clan just isn't listening.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)I am not the one talking about how good this bill is
DCBob
(24,689 posts)The GOPers have totally humiliated themselves and will be gunshy. Their infighting is increasing by the day so any coordinated/unified vote will be very difficult. We will have more members in the Senate and House and there will be fewer TP radicals to deal with.
I think the President and the Democrats definitely have the upper hand.
elleng
(141,926 posts)Interesting contrast with others' points of view.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)you want to tell me this deal was a good thing, tell me that it extended unemployment benefits, and the earned income tax credit and other stimulus measures.
I'm not buying any of the strategery stuff.
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...1%. But not now. 
Bush tax cuts were extended for most people and small businesses. However...Top 1% got them ended permanently. 
to the market, pass up the sales, 'not buying' and that's on you, only. Don't buy, who cares.
sofa king
(10,857 posts)We raised revenue significantly and raised our bargaining power over the GOP immensely.
All that was going to happen no matter what as a result of the expiration timetable set two years ago.
But what the President and Sen. Reid couldn't get all by themselves was an extension of the cuts for the middle class. That had to be made permanent by Congress. If cuts expire for the rich, that brings in revenue, but taking additional revenue from those who are already struggling is counterproductive.
It was the one hostage the Republicans had left, and the President got the lame duck Congress to give it up! That issue is over, forever, the President having achieved everything he set out to do, by tricking the Republicans into giving something up at every turn until now they have nothing left except obstruction and delay.
Oh, and if only five percent of voters noticed that Republicans blocked the middle class extensions last August, that still spelled the margin of victory in six Senate races in November (Republicans won only 8 out of 33 Senate races). So we beat their ass with it in the ballot booth, too.
You know what happens when the last hostage is turned over in an actual hostage situation? They keep the hostage-taker talking on the phone while the assault squad moves in to take him down. So we'll see what that looks like, probably very soon.
imanamerican63
(16,176 posts)Just ask Romney!!!!!
MjolnirTime
(1,800 posts)
Raggaemon
(70 posts)Yep ! this is a gut level, personal reaction by the tea-bag fringe, they hate Barack Obama not for his policies, they can't handle this man sitting at the head of the proverbial table because it upsets their notion of what's right.
freetrucker53
(36 posts)You mean you're either for him or against him? You don't have to be a hater to realize that Obama is either a lousy negotiator or has had his eye on entitlement cuts all along. Where's his leverage in future negotiations? He used it all up yesterday. Seeing as how he also voluntary appointed deficit hawks to a cat food commission, I believe he's had his eye on entitlement reform all along.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)How's that? The Budget Control Act sequestration and automatic spending cuts DO NOT include Medicare or Social Security.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)you just put yourself in the hater camp. hate on, hope it makes you feel better, but I doubt it.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Not at all. There is criticism of his policies and speculation of his motives and ranting about his negotiating style ... the former is, in my view, a legitimate activity, worthy of discussion; but the policy must go to a vote to have that discussion. On the other hand, what many here wish to engage in is the latter, speculating on what might happen, based on the same media reporting that assured them the the Presidential race was a dead-heat, and generally an incomplete knowledgea of the issue (see: pages and pages of "chained CPI" discussion with no mention of the exemption language in the deal that didn't happen; also see: pages and pages of "I welcome going over the cliff, with no mention of the millions of working poor that would have been immediately harmed).
Or, we have those that wish to claim that President Obama is the worst negotiator ... ever ... amen; because he did strap-on his Batman Utility, along with his GWB Cowboy hat and put them there republicans in the place.
Guess which category you fall into?
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)They were hoping for a Jill Stein or Ron Paul or Gary Johnson. But alas! Obama beat them all and his loyal detractors here are furious.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)as the 3rd partyites ruined the nation in 2000.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)
freshwest
(53,661 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)isn't it?
freshwest
(53,661 posts)
marble falls
(71,926 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 2, 2013, 02:50 PM - Edit history (2)
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)They have been postponed until March, just in time for the fight over them to coincide with the fight over the debt ceiling. If there's an upside for the President in that timing, I confess I don't see it.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)robinlynne
(15,481 posts)9 billion in revenue per year, every year, forever. just on that one part.
one year of unemployment insurance extension.
tax cuts forever. permanent.
This doesn't matter?
This is quibbling?
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)The Clinton tax rates were "permanent" until they were changed. UE was supposed to be temporary, but it got extended.
After almost 30 years, the GOP just agreed to raise tax rates. They had been unwilling to do so for incomes of 1M, 5m, 10M 20m, or even higher.
Try this, draw a number line that starts at 0 with increments of 250k. Stop when you reach 20 million, put a dot at 20M.
Then put a dots at 250k and at 450k.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)And while I used 20M as the top, its actually much higher than that. Recall that Mitt Romney made something like 24M in 2011.
The big money isn't hiding between 250k and 400k.
johnnyrocket
(1,773 posts)...loopholes with super low rates (like Romney's tax rates). I believe the 250k to 400k was a massive loss. They aren't taking much more from the millionaires, they know how to hide their money.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)I simply cannot imagine what I would do with $250k. That is twenty-fucking-thousand-fucking-dollars-per-fucking-month. You can live in a fucking mansion for $4k and drive a new Porsche for another $600, what the fuck does anyone do with the other $15k?
That was a huge loss, IMO. And believe me, anyone making that much money can easily, effortlessly afford to throw in another lousy $150 per week into the pot. Fuck, I spilled that much money on cigars alone. I was smoking Cohibas, I paid off my house and put my kid through private college on half of what the poor Rs are crying poor mouth over.
I guess the only saving grace is that a new Congress can adjust the brackets any time they want and claw back some of that money, and I hope they do. It's criminal to leave so much money on the table with the debt load we have, which will all be passed onto our kids.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)There are several thousand people, but just for an example, Mi$$ RobMe declared abt $245,000 - a week - in 2009 or 10., slightly less for 2011, I think.
we know he buys $600 T-shirts for the wife, perhaps so she won't laugh at him as many people do. And one can only buy so many car elevators.
So the question still hangs...
shireen
(8,340 posts)in NY and San Francisco, $250k is a lot less money compared to other parts of the country. No matter where that threshold is set, the spending power of that money is going to vary across the country.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)Easily get you a 5,000 sq ft McMansion, a few Beemers in the driveway, and you'd still have $12K per month to spend on sushi, lipstick and cigars.
Nope, with the possible exception of Beverly Hills, $250K is a simply staggering income.
And I knew a few VP types making $600k in salary and another $2mil in stock options that would stick the engineers with the fucking dinner bill. These guys were pathologically addicted to greater and greater incomes. It became a game of high score for them. Their compensation became completely and utterly disconnected from their worth.
Money is an amazing invention, but it can be a sickness. The more you have, the more you think you need.
blcartwright
(12 posts)in my part of Pa, a $250k house is a mansion, but in northern Va, where I lived for 20 years, even today that might get you a Cape Cod. In the DC suburbs, a husband and wife making over $200k is nice but not huge.
Sure, that's enough money to live on, but what else do rich people do with their money? Save, invest and give to charity. All of which are good and benefit others. Even if they spend that money it helps someone have a job to make and deliver stuff to them. More taxes to the government will mean a reduction in savings, investment and charity, in the hopes that the govt can do those same things better, when it's politicians playing with other people's money.
Oh, and check back over the last few decades. How often has the govt actually collected as much tax money as estimated after an increase? How many times have programs cost more than expected. I am very confident is saying, they (almost) never bring in as much as expected, and (almost) always spend more than expected.
Let's say I own a fancy restaurant, most of the folks who dine are rich. My wife's been running up the credit card and I need more income. I'm selling 1000 filet mignons a month for $35, that's $35k/mo. If I just raise the price to $40, I'll make $5k more a month, $60k more a year, $600k more over the next 10 years! Problem solved. That's assuming I'll sell just as many at $40 as I did at $35. Maybe they'll decide to get the salmon for $30. Or maybe go to the guy down the street. Or a recession hits. Or whatever.
Dead serious, honestly - I've been trying to make more money than my wife spends for 30 years. I make 10 times what I did when we got married. It doesn't work - she still outspends me.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)to the rule, as I bought a very modest home compared to my income peers. I could never see the value in a $400,000 home. Having lived through several real estate bubbles and crashes, I knew that a lot of people would end up underwater on their loans.
Having said all that, I stand by my assertion that $250K is a staggering income. Sure, you can buy a mansion, but don't come crying to me when one earner loses their income and the house has to go. I always lived well within my means.
Maybe we should be teaching how to do a basic budget in high school or earlier.
DFW
(60,186 posts)If you're making $80,000 and suddenly get a promotion to $150,000 you're still insane if you suddenly go to a lifestyle that costs twice as much.
My elder daughter lives in Manhattan, grosses around $60,000, which after taxes in Manhattan is nearly slave wages. After her take-home pay gets raided for rent and food, she has little more than pocket change left over. But it's her choice, and she knows what she's doing--it's her conscious choice, and as long as she's still living in the USA, she has to take whatever job she can find. She is jealous of her sister's vacation time (6 weeks as opposed to her 2), and is toying with the idea of finally moving back to Germany. She never gave up her German citizenship, so if she wants to do that, she'll have no administrative barriers.
As for me, I still get paid in dollars in the States but have to pay German taxes and live in Euros, so I'm in the 50% bracket already ($160,000 gross is enough to get you there) with a huge cost-of-living disadvantage. No Republican whining about going back to the Clinton years rates will garner a lot of sympathy from me.
robinlynne
(15,481 posts)
subterranean
(3,762 posts)It reinstates phase-outs of personal exemptions and certain itemized deductions above a given income level ($250K for single, $300K for married). This is expected to bring in additional revenue of $152 billion over 10 years.
SunSeeker
(58,283 posts)
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)People making good money and expanding their business, hiring more people, competing with the large chains, paying their employees living wages and providing health care. I could see Obama moving up to $400,000 to make sure that group doesn't get stuck paying the part of the bill that belongs to higher up the food chain.
With the tax cuts above $400,000 being "permanent" it's almost an incentive for people to not be as greedy. Someone said down post that at $134 thou a year he had a great life, maybe we can reign in all these excessive CEO salaries that they get even if they blow the company to pieces. I'd like to see a law that caps it at 75x the lowest paid employee vs like 400x like it is now.
To have a zone where people can be rich and rewarded, still pay their fair share and not let them get away with whining about it seems like a good idea. You know, hey, no one has anything against people getting successful and keeping a good portion of what they earned, but we need enough taxes paid to run the country. PITCH IN and QUIT BITCHIN. 
I've heard there has been a "sweet spot" in regards to the AMT - Alternative Minimum Tax - as well. Once you get past $300,000 it can be used it to bring the traditional tax rate of 35% down to 28%. Then it varies going up too. Give the rich folks their niche where they still feel like they are getting away with something, but keep working to rig the system back up to be fair instead of completely tipped to the top tier.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/feeonlyplanner/2011/12/16/the-alternative-minimum-tax-sweet-spot/
iemitsu
(3,891 posts)is if the $400,000 yearly income cut-off, that we are supposed to believe is a middle-class income, becomes the new cut-off for the SSI payroll tax. At least then that system would be shored up for years to come. Otherwise we have just shifted the burden of our lousy economy downward again.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)It's all going to happen again and again!
And I think that is f**king great.
JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)The Bush tax cuts were not part of the "fiscal cliff" to begin with. That was a deal regarding the debt ceiling last year that had to do with spending cuts as a trade off for raising the ceiling. Part of that deal was a Democratic insistence that the deal would include revenue as well as spending cuts, but the deal was all about the spending cuts as a trade off for raising the ceiling.
When the time came to implement that deal Obama threw in the Bush tax cuts as part of the revenue part of it, then he managed to drop the spending cuts out of it. The "fiscal cliff deal" was about deficit reduction, and this tax deal does what doe deficit reduction? It eliminates about 1% of the deficit. So in terms of what was trying to be accomplished by that deal, what was accomplished this month was pretty much zero.
Obama made it about tax rates instead of deficit reduction, and then he got what we wanted.
Indeed, in two months we may be singing a different song; probably will. But we wanted the Bush tax cuts extended without the top bracket, and we got that. What the hell do you want? You are barefoot and get a pair of shoes, so you're going to reject them because you didn't get a new coat with them? Grow up. Obama pulled off a coup. Enjoy it.
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)Obama's stated ask was $1.6 trillion in new revenue.
His non-negotiable demand ("I get that for free" was $800 billion in new revenue.
He settled for $620 billion in new revenue.
Getting 1/3 of what you asked for, and only 3/4 of what you absolutely demanded, is hardly "a coup." Maybe it was the best he could do, but that's not the same thing.
Wernothelpless
(410 posts)That a company or person can expect about .50 cents on the dollar of the total amount of their claim against another other party hoping to collect ... so in my experience, Obama won ... a clear victory ... he got 3/4 of his demand ... that's 25% higher than a normal settlement ...
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Obama settled for more like 33 cents of what he said he wanted, and $200 billion less than Boehner *offered*
The fact that the Tea Party doesn't like it only proves they're the Tea Party.
This was a weak compromise unwarranted given the Republicans' weak position
Wernothelpless
(410 posts)the claimant went into the project at about 150% of cost, upfront, knowing there's always fight waiting at the end ... it's simply part of the biz ... If parties want to drag it out for years the only winner are the attorneys ... For instance, if it takes you three years to collect 150k, but the attorney fees will be a minimum of 55k so one does settle before the vultures drain every last drop of blood ... it is, after all, what they do ...
An attorney friend brags that he got rich selling AIR ... and it's true ...
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 2, 2013, 03:38 PM - Edit history (1)
...the rest. Those cuts were to happen at midnight last night. Those cuts...10% across the board...won't happen now for two months.
The two month delay gives time to negotiate a better way to cut. 10% across the board is cutting with an axe. Hopefully, saner minds will prevail and the cuts will be smarter ones(cutting with a scalpel). Two months and a new Congress could ...maybe...do a better job. 
Eddie Haskell
(1,628 posts)Don't kid yourself, this was a Republican win in every respect.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)Can you tell that to the Republican (mis)leaders? They don't seem to see it as you do. They're freaking out BIG time - and not good in any respect.
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...it. If people get behind the President and DEMAND cuts to wasteful defense programs and wasteful corporate welfare (like subsidies to oil companies), etc. instead of what the GOP calls 'entitlements' then it will be a DEMOCRATIC win. An AMERICAN win.
Cha
(319,076 posts)freetrucker53
(36 posts)And if I were a betting person I'd give odds on Obama having to give up something big in a couple of months. Back to the chained CPI and raising the retirement age I believe. He has no leverage any more. He used it up last night.
barbtries
(31,308 posts)nothing's perfect and nothing ever will be. i expected the republicans would block the bill and so am pretty happy with the result.
dkf
(37,305 posts)I didn't realize all those years ago that the vast majority of the Bush cuts were great and only the tippy top were baaaaad.
I guess I was misguidedly happy by the Clinton projections of a budget surplus and paying down of debt. Stupid me.
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...about the surplus and the possibility of paying down debt. But the context was that the economy was good, we had been making smart economic choices (mostly) under the Clinton Administration, and we were getting ready to benefit from 21st century global changes.
When GWB became president...that was also the context. He then started making all the wrong choices...threw away the surplus on tax cuts and started unnecessary wars. I believe that is WHY the economy tanked and that those tax cuts were the wrong thing to do. Stupid, actually.
The context for President Obama is very different. The economy was already WAY out of balance...and tanking...when he started. It needed to be stabilized. Paul Krugman has written extensively about how to do that (as a progressive) in Conscience of a Liberal. The short version is 'the economy needs an infusion of cash (liquidity) and the way to do that is to feed cash in through programs liberals support...clean energy, fix infrastructure, unemployment benefits and health care, and financial support to the middle class.'
AND we should change economic policies that only benefit the wealthy and corporations...like subsidizing oil companies.
What President Obama is doing is NOTHING like GWB's policies, IMHO. 
dkf
(37,305 posts)Clinton rates.
Then we would have had certainty and a path towards equilibrium.
Now we have permanent tax cuts and no way back, especially after we've seen the inability of the GOP to raise taxes.
There is no way out now that everyone is convinced they are paying "their fair share".
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)..."no way out now." I think the cuts made permanent for the middle class is a good thing, because the middle class (mostly) did not reap the benefits of the 'good times' during the Clinton years as the top 1-2% did. So, in my mind, now the top 1-2% get to pay up.
As to finding a 'way back' to the Clinton rates, I would guess that the middle class will continue to see other costs rise...like heathcare, college/education costs, energy costs...and will now be in a better position to afford them. But these things...healthcare, education, and green energy...are not things the GOP would ever help them pay for. So they WILL pay their fair share...
dkf
(37,305 posts)I wonder if you realize how ugly this could get.
Johnny2X2X
(24,207 posts)The author of this thread hit the nail on the head. Look at it from the other way, could you imagine if the deal was all cuts and no revenue and then Obama told us, hey we'll do better next round of negotiations when he'd already given up his currency to bargain with without anything in return. All Libs and Dems would be losing their minds right now.
I cannot believe the Pubs took this deal.
johnnyrocket
(1,773 posts)...so I don't even know why the Dems negotiated the 400k level, they should have stuck with 250.
George II
(67,782 posts)There are 45 republican senators, 40 of voted for it. I'd say 40 of 45 IS a majority in the branch that created the deal.
Why should they have stuck with 250, and what would be the result of votes in both houses have been?
Politicub
(12,328 posts)Everyone at work is talking about how the fiscal cliff was avoided today. No one has even mentioned the GOP talking points about deficits and spending cuts.
Hats off to the senate dems and the president for making a crack in the logjam that the GOP has created. At last.
2013 is off to a great start. Can't wait to hear the SOTU.
And next year, the notion of pre existing conditions will be consigned to the proverbial dustbin of history.
George II
(67,782 posts)...you got it, you make sense. This was as major a victory, ON PRINCIPLE, than any victory for any president I've seen in 40+ years.
Glad you can see it.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,957 posts)the Tea Party folks in and out of Congress are not happy about this deal.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)The long term view is more important than thinking in immediates.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Just my opine.
lark
(26,081 posts)no or little cuts to the war machine, the one good thing from sequestration. Repugs lost on principle this time so will be hell bent to score points of their own on the debt ceiling. Anyone who doesn't think that Obama and the spineless dems will substitute cuts from Medicare and SSI for cuts to defense hasn't been paying attention or is over their head in kool-aid.
Raggaemon
(70 posts)The tea-party fringe went to Washington threatening to shut the government down, they were chosen by their angry constituents in 2010 to STOP OBAMA by any means necessary. The radical reactionaries from the right made it clear that as far as they're concerned there would be NO COMPROMISE with Obama. Now the voters who sent these people to Washington are getting exactly what they asked for, it's their mess.
To my way of seeing this, the GOP congress boxed themselves in, they said NO tax increases on anyone, but they managed to see taxes going up on the group that they love calling "job creators", while the Obama administration extended unemployment benefits without making concessions involving social safety net programs.
Without any doubt we can expect the radical reactionaries to double-down, we'll hear from Eric Cantor & friends threatening total default unless draconian spending cuts targeting social programs are given to them. No matter how the GOP tries selling this it'll leave them in a bad light, again.
The republican, tea-party controlled congress is the problem !
Tarheel_Dem
(31,454 posts)"He still wants my granny to eat catfood". That should be the headline from DU's Doomsayer Brigade.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)cow excrement is really chocolate ice cream, so eat up.
Yummy.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts) colsohlibgal
(5,276 posts)Big money still rules DC and until that changes little moves around the edges are all we'll see.
I think back to Eisenhower's time, when the top tax rate was astronomical - and that enabled a lot of things, including the Federal freeways we enjoy all over the US. That came out of the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956 that he championed, an enormous and quite expensive public project. Our overall infrastructure is crumbling in 2013 - do we have the bipartisan will to fix and update it?
The right rails against taxes but I imagine they drive on freeways, use libraries, etc. All the "Keep Government Hands Off My Medicare" signs at Tea party gatherings pointed out that they are sometimes not very bright in addition to being hypocritical.
I think of the ultra wealthy not wanting taxed and I drift to people like the Walton heirs. People with a fortune of maybe 500 million. I find that absurd and I don't get it. Are they like Scrooge McDuck, sitting on big warehouses of cash? I know I'd never keep that kind of money. I'd have a great house here and in a place where it didn't snow. I'd offer that deal to my two children. I'd pass some money to some good friends. I'd keep a good amount in savings for emergencies and whims. That might leave me with $470 million or so extra, and I'd donate it to worthy causes. What good is all the excess other than to feed runaway greed?
juajen
(8,515 posts)and, one of their favorite toys, Washington, D.C. Second, the Walton's are worth a hell of a lot more than 500 million. More like billions and billions. It is a game to the rich. The more they have, the more they want. All of this money buys power, and that is the end game. Of course, we think differently. We weren't born with their power and money.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)I think he might have had a little push in that direction from the millions of calls and emails to Congress by grass-roots activists.
That movement deserves some of the credit for avoiding cuts.
Warpy
(114,615 posts)and what little he gave--allowing most Congressmen to keep their Bush tax cut while removing it from the real grabbers.
I also see a great rope-a-dope played when he put his first offer of cutting Social Security on the table, then whisking it away when the Tea Party bozos didn't jump right on it.
Oh, they'll shriek for all their regressive spending cuts when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling again. However, my guess is that they aren't going to get much of anything. Obama now has nothing to lose by telling them to go ahead and shut the government down, see what that gets them, just as Clinton once did. Remember how that turned out?
I'm actually OK with this one. Most of Stupid's tax cuts are gone and widows, orphans and old folks aren't paying for them.
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)I would drink your milkshake every time! Any person that offers the following should never be allowed to negotiate financial matters:
"Let's not get wrapped up in quibbling over the numbers, they don't really matter, he won on principle in a really big way."
LOL!
liberal N proud
(61,194 posts)patrice
(47,992 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 2, 2013, 10:02 PM - Edit history (1)
because it makes the dollar much stronger, here. However it continues the process of pissing on (by not investing in) the 26 million of our brothers and sisters the BLS says want a job, the 47 million on food stamps, the near 50 million in poverty, the 50,000 families that will be yanked out of their homes in completed and unnecessary foreclosures this month, and a tax increase of $800 or $1200 a year or whatever to pay for their social security, if they live that long. That's not really assured, since people who are the victims of foreclosure and have little money for food, much less health care will, in fact, not live as long as everyone else. And, of course, the lives of the kids in the report on the Great Recessions ongoing impact on children, here.. So for more than a few people, it's pretty much fuck 'em...
But not everyone. We are still sending $40 billion a month to wealthy people so they won't lose money on their mortgage-backed assets, and zero interest loans to banks so they can loan it out the the 10.3 million people we euphemistically call "working poor" at usurious interest rates. And another $205 billion in tax breaks for corps, here.
If you are well off, or one of the politicians that do their bidding, it should put a smirk on your face.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)Unfortunately, it won't penetrate. Too many are too happy with the 11th dimensional chess scenario they've constructed.
Change Happens
(1,559 posts)14% next time around, capital gains are going from 15% to 20%, PLUS: the Medicare tax in the ACA of 3.8%.
Super rich people who always lived off their investments at a capped tax rate of 15%, will now go to 23.8%! A 56% increase in taxes. A very good thing...
Obama won BIG here...
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Never mind deficits, just give everyone a tax break! Isn't that the hole we were trying to get out of?
Now all the Richie Riches get a $20K tax break in perpetuity, and the working stiffs get to keep all of $500 bucks. Talk about the 1%'ers taking care of their own!
SunSeeker
(58,283 posts)Yes he could have let all the Bush tax cuts expire, but that would have done nothing to save the 2 million long term unemployed whose benefits were set to expire at the same time. How else do you think he could have gotten that 1 year extension on their benefits from the House?
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)expire - for what, a few days? In those few days he could have driven home the point that the Rs don't care if families are destitute and kids go hungry. The screaming from on the ground would have been deafening. The new Congress could have extended them again. And yes, I have skin in this game - an unemployed family member and children whom I would be supporting 100% without their unemployment.
How many of those unemployed do you think are registered Rs? A good few, I'd guess. What long-term benefits might have been gained by opening their eyes to the Rs agenda of protecting the rich at the expense of everyone else? And what overall benefits to workers, the poor, the entire commons might have been gained by holding to that $250.000 and making plain just WHO is wealthy in this country and who isn't?
Short term pain for long term gain.
That's the thing about negotiating - you have to be willing to go to the mat. You think strikers and their families don't suffer when they're not getting that paycheck?
SunSeeker
(58,283 posts)And Hurricane Sandy victims are considered "deserving." The long term unemployed have been maligned by the right as being moochers who need to be forced to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. And for the most part that meme has stuck. What makes you think the "the screaming from the ground would be deafening"? It wasn't before, when they cut off benefits in the past for the long term unemployed. These 2 million don't have lobbyists, many can't or don't vote. They are among the most powerless and vulnerable in our country. The Rs would have no problem cutting them off and have done so before, gleefully.
And what damage to the commons would occur if that happened...even for a month? Untold misery and homelessness and a huge suck of money out of the economy. That is not "short term pain," particularly for the long term unemployed, many of whom will be made homeless, along with their families. Homelessness is like a death spiral many people never get out of.
Strikers choose to strike. They often know in advance they will do it, have time to prepare for it, and many unions have strike funds. The long term unemployed are among the most vulnerable; one unemployment check away from homelessness. Most don't have a bread_and_roses who will support them 100% if their unemployment is cut off, like your lucky family member.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)Because the eyes of the nation were firmly fixed on this fight, and it became more clear by the day that the Rs could care less how much suffering they would cause for ordinary workers and families. People were paying attention. And, a huge coalition was mobilized nationwide to fight the cuts, and we would have stayed in action for the unemployed.
And btw, strike benefits are not wages and don't cover much, typically. I know. Also, this bread_and_roses is not about to let children go hungry or cold, but supporting the unemployed family - even at the rate I do while they're receiving UI - is not exactly easy for me, or a matter of mere pocket change. Upping it for even a week or two would indeed have been a hardship. So I did not much care for your tone.
I have been intimately familiar in many capacities, including the personal, with the lives of the working class, the working poor, the destitute poor, those forced to depend on the appallingly inadequate so-called "safety net" we have in this country - which might as well be called the "starve slowly and die" net - for more years than many on this Board have been alive. I have also been an activist and an advocate for longer than some on this Board have been alive. I am old. And I am quite aware of the suffering that even a few days delay in the cash flow can cause.
I have also seen us - and by "us" I mean all of us - acquiesce to less and less and less over and over again to avoid short-term suffering - when does it end? When we're all living in the Company Barracks and buying our toothpaste on credit at the company store?
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Another 2 million long-term unemployed have no benefits at all, and never have had anyrthing but food stamps.
SunSeeker
(58,283 posts)The Rs have been gunning (pun intended) for the unemployed for years; they see the long term unemployed in particular as worthless layabouts resting in the "hammock" of unemployment benefits. As you point out, they've already cut off 2 million--with little public outcry. Rs would have had not qualms about cutting off 2 million more.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)But it's nothing to be proud of, yet. Let's see what happens in March.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)this is brilliant win for our side.
Did we get everything? Of course not-- who expects everything?
But...
In addition to a deal that is far less hurtful than it could have been, we have seen the end of the Norquist pledge and probably Norquist himself.
We're seeing the end of teabaggery and its influence on the House.
We've seen the limits to big money in campaigns and policies.
We're seeing a Republican party in the vary unfamiliar throes of disagreement and rupture. (That's usually us.)
We might have displaced a Speaker without winning the House.
So...
Although there's still much complaining in this thread, I suspect most of us get it-- in two months we get the big budget battle where Obama doesn't have to worry abut being re-elected but the House does. Watch and learn, grasshopper.
Enjoy the quiet revolution.
leftyladyfrommo
(20,005 posts)What you see is not what is happening at all.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)... and, as Jennifer Granholm pointed out very well last night, the grand bargaining of the last few days is the way democracy works, like it or not, the REALLY IMPORTANT conversation that keeps getting placed to the wayside is the path to sustainable job growth.
You'll have to excuse me, but I'm a little busy in PA trying to get persons to understand what the oil and gas industry "promise" means, which is not new jobs, but more export of natural gas offshore, while we continue to heat up the atmosphere.
Also busy in PA trying to manage municipal budgets, finding less and less to cut, while the kind of jobs are service oriented with no benefits. Meanwhile, talk about dealing with clueless people....
Also busy trying to get zoning laws at the municipal level that will allow alternative forms of energy business to grow.
So, while everyone thinks the fire on top of our heads should be over the unbelievable task of getting the US congress to promote tax reform, and not job growth, we're at each other in this thread over... what? I'm waiting for the REAL discussion to begin.
Please remember in one or two months to evaluate the national discussion on meaningful job growth. None of it was included in the grand bargaining when considering infrastructure related stimulus.
Ian62
(604 posts)How to throw America under the bus. Create a manufactured crisis. Leave the decision to the last minute. Spread some rumors of some terrible proposal (the shock tactic). Create some sham arguments about trivial issues or trivial amounts of money. Rush through the legislation excluding the shock tactic and without letting people have time to think. People breathe a sigh of relief without realising they just got conned big time.
Corporate welfare was protected while marginal and middle class taxpayers got a huge tax hike.
Linking Social Security (and other government expenses) to chained cpi is now part of the public consciousness.
It needs time to permeate in - it was way too early to actually implement it. Public Opinion is against it at the moment.
They will keep working on ways to cut Social Security and bring it up again at some future date.
Corporate profits were protected, even though they are at record levels.
Corporations are to share none of the pain.
The top 0.1% derive most of their income directly from Corporate profits. So the income of the top 0.1% was protected too.
Facebook kept their 0.34% Corporation Tax rate.
Google can keep diverting US generated profits to Bermuda to pay almost no Corporation tax.
There are many ways for multinationals to pay very little or zero Corporation Tax - just about all multinationals do it.
Closing these Corporation Tax loopholes would have brought in far more revenue than the expiry of the Payroll Tax break.
Mitt Romney's low tax rate was protected. He was a winner too.
Talk of higher taxes for dividend payments went nowhere. Carried Interest was not even mentioned.
Mitt Romney's donations to the Mormons are still to be treated as tax deductible.
The large subsidies to the oil industry were not touched.
Neither were the special tax breaks for the arms industry.
The big pharmaceutical companies are very happy with the fiscal cliff deal. Government gifts to them have not been touched.
Wall St is extremely happy - their subsidies and privileges were not touched.
The sum total of the fiscal cliff deal was to take an additional $200bn or so a year from the 99% without touching the $1,000bn+ of annual Corporate Welfare.
To rub salt into the wound, the fiscal cliff deal was stuffed with even more Corporate Pork.
"Sec. 328 extends “tax exempt financing for York Liberty Zone,” which was a program to provide post-9/11 recovery funds. Rather than going to small businesses affected, however, this was, according to Bloomberg, “little more than a subsidy for fancy Manhattan apartments and office towers for Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp.” Michael Bloomberg himself actually thought the program was excessive, so that’s saying something. According to David Cay Johnston’s The Fine Print, Goldman got $1.6 billion in tax free financing for its new massive headquarters through Liberty Bonds.
$9B Off-shore financing loophole for banks – Sec. 322 is an “Extension of the Active Financing Exception to Subpart F.” Very few tax loopholes have a trade association, but this one does. This strangely worded provision basically allows American corporations such as banks and manufactures to engage in certain lending practices and not pay taxes on income earned from it. According to this Washington Post piece, supporters of the bill include GE, Caterpillar, and JP Morgan. Steve Elmendorf, super-lobbyist, has been paid $80,000 in 2012 alone to lobby on the “Active Financing Working Group.”
Tax credits for foreign subsidiaries – Sec. 323 is an extension of the “Look-through treatment of payments between related CFCs under foreign personal holding company income rules.” This gibberish sounding provision cost $1.5 billion from 2010 and 2011, and the US Chamber loves it. It’s a provision that allows US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad.
Bonus Depreciation, R&D Tax Credit – These are well-known corporate boondoggles. The research tax credit was projected to cost $8B for 2010 and 2011, and the depreciation provisions were projected to cost about $110B for those two years, with some of that made up in later years. "
The 99% get a 2% increase in taxes while these corporate pigs go oink, oink, oink.
Fiscal Cliff Deal Sneaks In Wall Street Gifts, NASCAR Perk
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/fiscal-cliff-wall-street_n_2397933.html
From NASCAR to rum, the 10 weirdest parts of the Pork Laden #FiscalCliff bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/02/from-nascar-to-rum-the-10-weirdest-parts-of-the-fiscal-cliff-deal/
Senators got 3 minutes to read the 154 page bill before voting on it.
More details on what the Fiscal Cliff deal actually means.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022116278
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)amongst others
He changed the subject alrighty -- from "jobs" to that BS.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)
AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)However, if Obama caves to Republican hostage taking in two months, it might be.
However, why would Republicans take the U.S. Economy hostage again, especially in a time when their brand name is perhaps at a long time low point?
Nevertheless, it seems that Republicans think that they can win the government program cuts in the next round of negotiations.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)He's a real Leader