WaPo:The supercommittee failed because Democrats insisted on $1 trillion in new taxes

[spanone]

written by: By Jon Kyl, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, Jeb Hensarling, Fred Upton and Dave Camp, Friday, November 25.

We do not choose to add more to the blame game for failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction , but one Democratic talking point needs debunking: that the talks failed because of Republicans’ attachment to the Bush tax cuts.

The untold story of the negotiations is the significance of the Republican offer of fundamental tax reform. It is critical to understand the interplay between the proposal (dubbed the “Toomey plan”) and existing tax law.

First, a bit of history. The 2001 and 2003 changes to the tax code reduced marginal rates for all taxpayers as well as the rates for capital gains, dividends and the death tax. For technical reasons, all of these provisions expire at the end of next year — meaning that if Congress does not act, Americans will face the largest tax increase in our history.

This prospect has put a wet blanket over job creation and economic recovery. It would be the wrong medicine for our ailing economy. As President Obama has famously said, “You don’t raise taxes in a recession.” Partially to avoid this result, but also to try to meet the Democrats partway — given their absolute insistence on big, new tax increases — Republicans offered a proposal that would have both reformed the current code and produced significant new tax revenue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-supercommittee-failed-because-democrats-insisted-on-1-trillion-in-new-taxes/2011/11/24/gIQAZRI8wN_story.html?hpid=z2

[marmar]

1. ........

[PDJane]

2. If those taxes had been applied to those who could pay it,

I've got no problem with it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Dems had no incentive to do anything else

The hand-wringing about the dems accepting Social security cuts were simply ignorant assessments of the trigger mechanisms. There was absolutely no incentive for the dems to cave in the debt committee on anything whatsoever. They merely had to put their demands out there and wait for the repubs to either accept or reject. The sequestration was as dem friendly as you were going to get from a cuts perspective. So, really, why negotiate anything else. Ask for revenues, and if you can't get them, take the sequestration. This was pretty clear to many of us in August when the deal was made. It was only those who insisted on seeing some evil design in it that "assured" us Social Security and Medicaid would be on the table.

[gratuitous]

4. "For technical reasons" the cuts expire

Yeah, the "technical" reason being that if the Republicans hadn't made the cuts self-expiring, they would have violated their own bullshit rule from back in the day about busting the budget and exploding the deficit. Those days are gone now, and after kicking off two wars on the cuff, they're ready finish the job they started back in 2001.

Unadulterated grade A horseshit. These fuckers need to become former Senators and Representatives, and that right soon.

[Major Hogwash]

5. Toomey has been in office for all of 10 months & he helped write this tripe!!

And now we're all supposed to bow down to a tea party dude??
I don't think so.

[appleannie1]

13. That sleaze is from my state, I am ashamed to admit.

[0rganism]

6. alright, so where's the Democratic version?

I trust the Democrats will have something to say, too, right WaPo?

[EC]

7. Boy, those repubs sure hit the papers with articles

placing blame real quick. Paul Ryan had a piece in the WI opinion pages this past week too. As did most rw opin writers...Sowell, Baron etc.

[spanone]

11. got to get the meme out there....and the compliant media opens it's doors

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8. The supercommittee failed

because repugs favored their contract to Norquist instead of their committment to the people in the U.S.

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9. And BTW

these guys are fucking, lying assholes.

[McCamy Taylor]

10. WaPo: We Are a Lying Sack of NeoCon Shit

[neverforget]

12. Grover Norquist's puppets wrote this latest screed because taxes are

evil. EVIL I TELL YA!

[aquart]

14. Gosh, I hope so.

[hyphenate]

15. I shared the article on FB, but I don't know

how many people will respond. I hope it will be a significant number, but I don't know.

Has anyone else gone over to the WP article and posted their own comment? I have done so, and I think people should also respond as well. I might get a lot of angry Freepers over to blast me, but hell, I've been getting that for the past ten years, so it's no surprise. I think that even if we can influence only one person, that one person is one more ally than we had yesterday.