TheMulletMutilator
Member
Which is why we should have less government... A lot less.
Which is why we should have less government... A lot less.
The truly insane part is that they're shaving social security receipts as part of a new tax cut.
This is only going to supercharge the argument going forward that social security needs to be repealed.
Obama is literally giving away some of the greatest Democratic achievements of the last century as well as breaking key campaign promises because he's too big a pansy to play chicken.
This is only going to supercharge the argument going forward that social security needs to be repealed.
Obama is literally giving away some of the greatest Democratic achievements of the last century as well as breaking key campaign promises because he's too big a pansy to play chicken.
I must admit, I am not surprised by anything anymore, but when this broke yesterday, I was dumbfounded. This is like letting Charles Mansion get a foot in the door.
TheMulletMutilator
Member
The issue must poll well with the center and Independents. I can't really think of another reason why he would do it.
Obama, speaking economically, is doing the same thing every president has in the last twenty years...listening to the smartest guys in the room. Where that's gotten "them" is in the situation they are in now.
The Dems have to cave on taxes, they have no choice. The need the tax issue to be an ongoing problem, they need the rich to be the villian. The Republicans in a perverted way actually screwed this up. The Republicans should have caved on the hiking taxes for the rich in exchange for making the taxes becoming permanent. This would have been a clean sweep in removing the two main thrusts of the Dem party for the past 15 years...healthcare and taxes.
The Dems have nothing to run on for maybe a generation. They would have been left to relentless defend themselves.
You're mixing two different forms of measurement here: collective and individual.
The Dem. argument (or at least my version of the dem argument) has been that the vast majority of the total dollar amounts of those tax cuts have gone to the top. For example, the top quintile received 64.6% and the top 2% received something like 20% of the total pool. In 2008, the effect of the Bush tax cut on just the top 1% was $79.5 billion. To put that in perspective that's nearly double what the appropriation is for the Department of Homeland Security.
Where you change measurements is when you say that this must mean, according to Dems, that lower income families received nothing. The remaining 35.4% of total dollars was spread out among the bottom 80%. In many instances that's a couple thousand dollars (median-deduction median-income family tax burden decreased by $1247 in 2006). That's noticeable for middle income families. No one can seriously deny that much. But the debate was really about equity in the cuts, not whether or not they were noticeable.
I would have had significantly less problem with the Bush tax cuts, even if they were exactly the same cost in that we sucked the same number of dollars out of the tax base, if 64.6% had gone to the bottom 80% (largely to the 2nd through 4th quintile given that the bottom quintile's tax burden is generally somewhat negligible) and the 35.4% had gone to the top quintile.
Certainly it's not wise to inflict the pain of a noticable but hardly catastrophic tax increase on middle income families during a recession and a period of high unemployment. But the top 2% are the top 2 ****ing percent. They, by definition, aren't hurting and wouldn't have been hurting with the tax increase.
Fiscal policy as a method of economic regulation is completely broken because taxes are a one-way ratchet. I have no faith the tax cuts will ever go away now, even when the Dems were handed opportunities to put bills on the floor to preserve the cuts for 98% of Americans and force Republicans to publicly vote to screw everyone else in favor of the top 2%. Instead the Dems caved. They deserve to lose.
If I am not mistaken, the payroll tax holiday is right out of the Robert Reich playbook.
I understand your argument and don't disagree on your explanation. Unfortunately all taxes are individual and hence must be packaged that way.
D
Deleted member 365
Guest
This is a good interesting clip from Obama today.
https://www.cnn.com/video/#
One thing he said that was interesting (in another video on cnn) he said, "I know that the American people don't need any convincing about the tax cuts for the wealthy. But the Republicans are the ones that need to be convinced. And if anyone has any ideas how to convince them, I'm all ears."
It's amazing to me that a politician has gone this far, to the White House, without learning the art of propaganda.
If Bush and Rove were in the white house today, they'd fight and destroy the Democrats. They'd villainize them until they blinked.
Instead, the President blinked, instead of fought. As a result, he turned his own party against each other.
Now Demos in Congress are either:
A. Going to go against their own campaign promises and the desires of the majority of Americans to agree w/the other party.
B. Going to further isolate themselves from the political parties by agreeing w/the American people and voting against this extension. This opens them up to further criticism down the line when they seek reelection for not wanting to give unemployment benefits. That they were preferring to play politics instead of putting the American people first.
What might irritate me most is how pathetic the Democrats are. Republicans deserve it in 2012. In the past 2 years they've been attacking nonstop over the Internet, tv, and radio. The Democrats have no spine. They don't fight. They're so weak with their propaganda. They're the victims, all the time. While the Republicans are always much more aggressive.
https://www.cnn.com/video/#
One thing he said that was interesting (in another video on cnn) he said, "I know that the American people don't need any convincing about the tax cuts for the wealthy. But the Republicans are the ones that need to be convinced. And if anyone has any ideas how to convince them, I'm all ears."
It's amazing to me that a politician has gone this far, to the White House, without learning the art of propaganda.
If Bush and Rove were in the white house today, they'd fight and destroy the Democrats. They'd villainize them until they blinked.
Instead, the President blinked, instead of fought. As a result, he turned his own party against each other.
Now Demos in Congress are either:
A. Going to go against their own campaign promises and the desires of the majority of Americans to agree w/the other party.
B. Going to further isolate themselves from the political parties by agreeing w/the American people and voting against this extension. This opens them up to further criticism down the line when they seek reelection for not wanting to give unemployment benefits. That they were preferring to play politics instead of putting the American people first.
What might irritate me most is how pathetic the Democrats are. Republicans deserve it in 2012. In the past 2 years they've been attacking nonstop over the Internet, tv, and radio. The Democrats have no spine. They don't fight. They're so weak with their propaganda. They're the victims, all the time. While the Republicans are always much more aggressive.
Kicky,
The big screw up was the failure to seize the day on a once in a generation, the stars are perfectly aligned, for a massive coast to coast infastructure project financed at the cheapest 30 year borrowing costs since the 50's. The ROI from now to infinity would have been off the charts.
The big screw up was the failure to seize the day on a once in a generation, the stars are perfectly aligned, for a massive coast to coast infastructure project financed at the cheapest 30 year borrowing costs since the 50's. The ROI from now to infinity would have been off the charts.
D
Deleted member 365
Guest
I would hate to be a Demo right now. No matter how they vote, they're going to be killed....