He said Obama wants to go over the cliff and let the Bush tax hikes to expire because it would then force the republicans to vote sometime early next year to reinstate the Bush tax cuts for the "middle class" while raising taxes on the so called wealthy.
Since the Bush tax cuts expired, the would no longer be called the Bush tax cuts. They would now be referred as the Obama tax cuts for the middle class and he and the dems would get all the credit for lowering taxes for the middle class, even though the taxes would just be going back to the rates they are now.
Of course I don't believe for one second the MSN would report the facts nor would the 51% have enough sense to see the truth and I can see the headlines now....
OBAMA/DEMS FORCE REPUBS INTO SIGNING LANDMARK TAX CUTS FOR MIDDLECLASS while raising taxes for evil rich and for immediate relief back date cuts to January 1st 2013.
My friend went into much more detail but this is the gist of what he was saying and has gotten me to rethink my position on this.
What do you all think?
All the taxes are in Obamacare.
NEWS FLASH!!! 0boober already won. The GOP is caving and looking for ways to purge the party of Tea Party supporters. It’s always the same, when the GOP wins conservatives had nothing to do with it, it was “moderates” , so pat the conservative on the head and put him back in the closet. When the GOP loses, then it’s the conservative base’s fault and the party must be purified of those awful conservatives, because they frighten minorities.
I think this fiscal cliff business is a joke. We are talking about cutting $700 billion a year when we are increasing the deficit from last fiscal year from $80 billion per month to $200 billion a month in the first month of the fiscal year. Any “savings” will be eaten up in 3 1/2 months.
The House originates ALL spending, and they could de-fund ALL the Regulatory Agencies, Obamacare, Czars, IRS bloated payrolls to handle all the new Obamacare Taxes, and de-fund ALL the handouts to welfare Queens and Affirmative Action bullshit programs to re-distribute Whitey's money.
It ain't gonna happen, because there is no "Aisle" anymore; it's one big happy socialist group with token (D) and (R) in front of the communist's names that means nothing.
You still don’t get it...
It’s not Obama.
It’s communism.
Regardless of what Republicans do or don’t do, Communists will win as long as they control the media.
Taxes are going up on everyone on Jan 1, tons of new ObamaCare taxes too.
Doing nothing is the biggest tax hike in a very very long time.
So... no... the Republicans don’t have agree to anything
The “smart” GOP put themselves in the position of heads I lose, tails you win. His Excellency wins no matter what happens. The low information voter will be fed a line about how the GOP did the wrong thing and refused to go along with the great leader.
In a rational non political enviornment, faced with a huge deficit, the answer would be across the board tax increases and benefit cuts. No, what will happen when the dust clears will be a tax on the high earners, reinstatement of the death tax at insanely low levels and no cuts, not even cuts in the growth rate. So, the fiscal cliff comes a bit later as the can gets kicked down the road and everyone goes home for Christmas and at least two more years in office for some.
Legal secession is the only way out of this mess for those states willing to do their own thing sans DC.
This is what obamski wants...two years with a dem Senate and House who will agree to anything he wants. Add the fact that he will not have to worry about re-election and you will see more destruction in those twp years than in the six preceeding them.
But, we all know that adding additional taxes on the "rich" (I know) will do nothing to help jobs or the economy --- iow, his one steady mantra will be proved wrong. Let it happen. Save the House in 2014.
Obama wins on every issue as long as the media continues to actively propagandize for him.
There is no scenario where the Republicans aren’t blamed for whatever fiscal woes happen to us. If they go along with Obama, when the SHTF they will be blamed for not going along soon enough to avert the crisis. If they oppose Obama, they will be blamed for blocking measures that would have prevented the disaster.
Sorry if I sound like a downer here. I’ve been reading and thinking about things constantly since the “election”, and I keep arriving at the same conclusions. I just don’t see a path to victory for us working within the current system.
The first reason for that is Barry’s friends completely control the mainstream media outlets from which the Honey-Boo-Boo voters get the propaganda on which they form their political decisions. They also control the prevailing message in our education system - right from kindergarten to graduate school.
The second reason is that a number of Democrat politicians in Washington, probably the majority of them now, have absolutely no concern what happens as long as they can leverage it to advance their own personal power. An enemy like that has no constraints - no compunction to using any dirty trick no matter how sleazy. A great example of this was documented in the David Horowitz article about his brother and fellow residents at an institution for the mentally handicapped being carefully coached to vote for Obama, and then driven to the polls to cast those votes. Someone who will use the mentally handicapped to get “votes” for his candidate will do just about anything.
The third reason is Demographics. Right now the Democrats have effectively locked the non-white demographic. I just returned from a vacation to visit my extended family in another city. While there, we spent a fair amount of time in public places (restaurants, movie theaters, public attractions, etc.). One thing that struck me was the demographic of people with kids that I observed while there. For every white woman pushing a stroller with a single baby, there was some non-white family with 4+ kids. You can look up the stats online, but the bottom line is that white voters are headed for minority status by 2042. Each election, that’s going to create a deeper hole that we’re going to have to try and climb out of in order to win. We might try and make some inroads with these non-white voters - Mexican immigrants do have strong family values, so there’s a clear opening there - but due to #1 above, that’s going to be an uphill battle.
And the last reason is the tax code. The Democrats have been trying for years to cobble together enough special interest groups to reach 50+% of the population. In addition to targeted appeals to these groups via their media propaganda outlets, this was achieved by making people dependent on some government handout. Well, they’ve finally achieved that - or at least close enough to bring it within the margin where voter fraud can give them a “win”.
The founding fathers knew that no political system could survive an immoral society, no matter how many safeguards they put in place. Well, that’s where we are at. People who willfully vote to take money from one group of people to fund goodies for themselves are immoral - they’re thieves. I don’t see any options to peacefully coexist with these d-bags that doesn’t involve giving up and going along with their socialist goals.
All written off as “mechanical problems” and mere coincidence
If eventually the authorities who count the votes cannot be investigated or even criticized for fear of being called “rasist” then figure it out- we haven't had an election, we've had a coup and it really doesn't matter what the GOP does. It seems most of them are worried about themselves getting reelected, nothing more.
No win situation for republicans.
If they fight, they get blamed for the ensuing crappy economy.
If they go along, they lose their base.
If they try something in between, they get blamed for the ensuing crappy economy.
Best option: “We’re going along with everything Obama wants”.
Keep repeating that until the economy crashes.
We now have a free-loading electoral majority. The majority essentially pay no taxes or receive more than they pay in taxes in government bennies. It doesn’t matter if there is a fiscal cliff to these people; they are firmly attached to the government teat. The American Republic is no more, our greatness is in our history, not our future.
The republicans (Boehner, McCain, McConnell, et al) are all losers. Makes no difference what they do. They are absolutely delusional and have no moral compass to fight the evil that is attacking us daily. When they could not beat Obama, or even McCaskill and then loose to Warren - well that pretty much is how you spell looser.
They are also insane. They keep doing the same thing over and over expecting things to have a different result. Sad to say, true conservatives have no real party to represent them.
Republicans in congress got themselves into this mess by turning down a budget deal with Obama that was far better than anything they could of dreamed of achieving a decade before, and instead opting for a go-for-broke strategy that required they take the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2012.
And it was the most conservative wing of the party that imposed this policy.
This is an Monday morning quarterbacking. I wrote about this possibility extensively on free Republic and other conservative venues at the time.
Back them I didn't say the strategy couldn't work, as no one could know how the election would play out (including the people certain of victory).
What I did point out what I believed to be the obvious at the time: that it was a high risk strategy with enormous opportunity costs, because if it didn't work the "best had become the enemy of the good", and the conservative movement had thrown away both the chance for real deficit reduction on terms very favorable to conservative principles and the ability to influence the shape of "Health Care Reform" in negotiations with a president who was desperate to achieve some level of bipartisan support.
For example, IMO conservatives could have forced the inclusion of strong tort reform measures and far greater flexibility on state regulations of the exchanges. (And remember, the exchanges and mandated coverage were both originally conservative prescriptions to encourage personal responsibility and prevent "free riding" on the backs of taxpayers and payers of health insurance premiums were are providing free care to the uninsured. For example states would've had the ability to set up something more like the Utah plan).
Instead, conservatives in Congress elected a program of pure opposition, and the terms for establishing the exchanges are now going to be largely dictated by the federal government, and states will be forced to set up at least one not-for-profit, noncommercial plan.
And while I thoroughly understand the desire of some conservatives not to appear to support any plan of which they don't approve, in this case doing nothing in fact amounts to doing something, and that something has been to give liberals and the Democratic Party's an enormous policy win.
Because conservatives should not kid themselves: the exchanges are eventually going to prove extremely popular, and once voters - including a lot of "conservative" voters - discover that for example they can now start a small business without subjecting their families to the risks of remaining uninsured or covered only by extremely limited catastrophic risk policies, they are going to become strong supporters of these policies, and they are going to steamroller over politicians and political parties who oppose their improvement and eventual expansion.
Conservatives may not like this, but a look at the history of such programs in the rest of the industrialized world shows you that once they are in place, there is no going back, and the best conservatives can do is to try to limit the extent to which they subvert individual initiative and the extent to which they are redistribute program.
So now, I'm going to give another piece of extremely unwelcome advice to conservatives in general and the Republican Party in particular.
(If you don't think there's any difference between the Republican and Democratic parties, and that the Republican party does a far better job of advancing conservative principles, you need read no further, and instead can comfortably sit back and whine as Republicans in Congress again lose their policy shirts to Obama).
Don't - again - let beliefs in Simon-pure ideology get in the way of practical politics.
Protecting historically low tax rates and tax "breaks" such a carried interest for a small sliver of ultra high income tax payers is not a smart hill to die on.
These taxpayers as a group always do fine, and always will.
I instead, expend political capital protecting higher income taxpayers who really need it: people in the 150K-500K range.
Quit trying to kill the estate tax, and instead work to raise the limits - elimination is too easy a target for Democrats.
Quit talking about unattainable "replace and repeal" - for example pulling the health insurance rung out form under the un/under-employed children covered under their parent's plans.
In short, stop looking like the party of Romney & Co. and start looking like a party that actually cares about the real problems and prospects of the vast majority of upwardly mobile Americans who are trying to start a small business without health care, or send their children to college, or save for retirement at currend interest rates.
And in return, bargain hard on entitlements: accept the fact that you will not get as good terms as were possible before the strategy of obstruction failed to take both houses and the presidency filed, you can still a agreement far better than is likely if public opinion turns further against conservative programs (which it very clearly could).
And above all else, do not put yourselves in a position of taking positions you will get backed out of by events, and looking like losers who had to concede fundamental principles in the face of political and economic reality, rather than a party willing to bargain hard but realistically of the basis of those principles.
Because however good in makes one feel short term, mid and long term the conviction that the appearance of virtue is more important than the actuality of results is a sure-fire prescription for political disaster.
Republicans lose when they refuse to stand for anything and become “Dem-lite”!
Any new tax will be spent 3 times and never reduce the debt.
Fight the libs every step of the way.
The MSM will never give you credit for “helping”, no matter what you do.
If republicans refuse to approve tax increases, does Obama win?
No, he doesn’t. 2014 is a long ways away and attention spans are short. The entire debate will be different by 2014. Republicans should do the right thing and make the Gummit go on a diet. Take the medicine early or the problems just get worse.
He just won a second term with the worst record on everything measurable about a presidential administration. He is a complete failure, therefore he can’t lose. Right is Wrong, Good is Evil, Up is Down, Truth is Hate, the list goes on...