Sudentenland, peace in our time...well you are sure living up to your screen name, surrender before the first shot is fired.
This election is lost!!!
Posted on 12/21/2011 8:19:29 AM PST by Qbert
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is slamming House Republicans today for their hard-line position on the payroll tax cut, writing that GOP lawmakers are throwing the 2012 election to President Barack Obama before it even begins.
House Republicans are refusing to pass the bipartisan two-month extension of the tax cut that passed the Senate on Saturday, demanding a year-long increase. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he'll only reopen negotiations on a longer deal once the House passes the Senate bill — and removes the immediate threat of a tax increase for most Americans.
[Snip]
The Journal's advice: Pass the tax cut — and fast:
At this stage, Republicans would do best to cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly. Then go home and return in January with a united House-Senate strategy that forces Democrats to make specific policy choices that highlight the differences between the parties on spending, taxes and regulation. Wisconsin freshman Senator Ron Johnson has been floating a useful agenda for such a strategy. The alternative is more chaotic retreat and the return of all-Democratic rule.The Journal's criticism of Boehner will only strengthen the Democratic position, and is sure to be trotted out by Democrats and even some Republicans to pressure the Speaker to pass the bill — and put an end to the legislative nightmare. That said, Boehner hasn't caved to Democrats yet, and is likely to take these negotiations up to the brink.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The WSJ is junk. It has been for years since Murdoch/Prince Al Waleed/Saudi Arabia bought it. The Saudis have a big investment in you know who.
The WSJ is NOT a conservative paper at all. Investors Business Daily is. I cancelled WSJ a few years ago after having it for years.
Their Barrons publication is trash too. They pimp GM stock plus GE. If you have a subscription to either one - cancel it. It is total garbage now.
The problem isn't that the House Republicans are wrong, it's that leadership made what appears to be a fatal error on this issue and the House and Senate Republicans are not on the same page.
What appears to have happened is Boehner/McConnell and Reid struck some kind of deal which was a temporary payroll tax cut extension with no tax increase offsets and the Keystone language. McConnell took it back to his caucus and got the vast majority of Republicans to vote for it. Boehner did the same and found opposition and lacked the votes to pass it. Now Boehner is stuck. McConnell and Reid are done and their caucuses are either out of town or want to be, very few want to come back and deal with it again. The agreement was already spun as a win for Republicans because there were no tax increase offsets and the Keystone language was included. The House is reopening an issue that was perceived as done, and they just end up looking obstinate and politically clumsy. They aren't going to win now. The politics of it is working against them so badly that they will end up caving. And if they actually don't, then the resulting tax increase will be blamed on House Republicans. You gotta pick your battles and once this was mishandled it was lost. Either Boehner is making deals he doesn't have the votes for, or House Republicans backed away from the deal under pressure from constituents. Either way, it's a mess now and most likely a no win situation that will end up resulting in the House caving in.
"There are many sides to this particular issue...So, help me out here - who’s right?
I believe the GOP (the House at least) wants the long-term extension so that it takes the issue out of Obama's hands. Despite what the WSJ editors (and even some gullible people on this thread) believe, if it is extended for only two-months, the Dems will go right back to their playbook and call for massive tax increases on the "rich" to pay for it. And they'll keep dragging it out before the election as long as possible.
My two cents on the issue: There are two big aspects of it:
1). The "tax" issue. Obama wants to look like the great "tax cutter" here... and the hapless GOP has let him do it. I've been saying for months now that a big issue is the massive tax increase on everybody going into effect in January, 2013. Instead of just accepting that this will happen, the House should tie the payroll tax and this together, and put Obama on the spot now for wanting to raise you taxes. (The tax hike he is proposing by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will far outweigh the piddly $3 a day people will be "getting" from the payroll tax cut.). Make him admit NOW that he wants a massive tax increase.
2). Unemployment insurance. I'm not in favor of perpetually dragging this on... but the GOP has bungled this issue, so there's little choice at this point, I'm afraid. I would just say "we have to extend this past the election because Obama's economic policies have massively failed- as much as we disapprove of more unpaid for spending, we're not going to leave people high and dry because of a disastrous president. Soon he will be out of office...", and leave it at that. On this issue, I would fight that battle for another day.
The reason they’re not screaming about taking funds from SS is because no funds are being taken from SS — this “tax holiday” is being paid for by other means into SS. That’s why it’s only two months — the clowns in the Senate could only agree on an alternative payment method for 2 months, not a year. And the way to pay for it for a year would be to cut the size of govt, not create an alternative fee on home buyers like they did.
A “debt swap” is as meaningless as myself owing myself ten thousand dollars.
That is the point!
The dollars all go into the general fund and are spent out of the general fund.
That is false but irrelevant. Not sure why that matters to you.
There is no “trust fund” as you would have it, or a “lockbox” as Gore would describe it.
That is the freakin' point! Accounting wise, there is. But functionally it is irrelevant as stated above eleventy-hundred times.
OMG! I might be short on Social Security payments that I never thought would ever come through for me in the first place! Stop the presses! THAT is certainly an inducement to continue paying payroll taxes at a high rate - because otherwise they might stop paying out Social Security that I never wanted, and will almost certainly never receive!
You are so myopically intent on something [although I'm not sure anyone knows what] that you fail to see the point that I and many others are making. See, we all already know that SS payments are not sacred or secure anywhere. We all already know that the fund would never be there for us in the first place.
What you SHOULD see [but don't, yet] is that the SS component of this issue is irrelevant. What is relevant is that there will be even MORE redistribution now from income tax payers. Good luck. I've tried all I can.
My family needs this money every month.
I and millions of Americans will be peeved if Congress fails to pass the extension. Do I blame Dems? Heck yeah. But, to me it appears the GOP isn’t really trying either.
That will NOT sit well with middle America.
We are throwing the election to Obama if we don’t pass a one-year extension in some form, granted it SHOULD NOT have any of the Dem tax increases.
Freepers live in a delusional fantasy land if we all think everyone agrees with us and thinks like us. Main street is blaming both parties and will especially look down on the GOP since the Senate has passed a bill and guess which party is holding it up, the GOP.
They won’t understand the principles of why they are holding it up.
And Boehner and the GOP right now don’t appear too interested in fighting to get an extension at all. I’m furious.
"The problem isn't that the House Republicans are wrong, it's that leadership made what appears to be a fatal error..."
I vividly remember you talking about all those "fatal" errors that the GOP was making in 2010, and how those mistakes were going to cost them the midterms...
The headline is from Business Insider a liberal outlet founded and run by a crook, Henry Blodget. Besides the WSJ always has had liberal/progressive reporters and editors. Remember Al Hunt, aka as the husband of Judy Woodruff.*
“Henry Blodget (born 1966) is an American former equity research analyst, currently banned from the securities industry, who was senior Internet analyst for CIBC Oppenheimer during the dot-com bubble and the head of the global Internet research team at Merrill Lynch. Blodget is now the editor and CEO of The Business Insider, a business news and analysis site, and a host of Yahoo Daily Ticker, a finance show on Yahoo.”
* “Filling in as anchor of CNN’s NewsNight, Judy Woodruff told viewers on May 15, 2002: “President Bush knew that al-Qaeda was planning to hijack a U.S. airliner, and he knew it before September the 11th.”
http://www.mrc.org/realitycheck/2005/fax20050816.asp
Yet you still speak of “the fund”. I find that amusing. I have tried to convince you that there is no “the fund” but you still make reference to something that doesn’t exist.
Lower taxes is a good thing.
The argument that a tax cut makes paying outrageous and unsustainable benefits more troubling is one that can be made for any tax cut in regards to any benefit.
I am for tax cuts.
I am for eliminating and reducing unsustainable financial obligations.
That is known as fiscal conservatism congruent with a smaller and more limited government.
The WSJ has become the enemy.
Sudentenland, peace in our time...well you are sure living up to your screen name, surrender before the first shot is fired.
This election is lost!!!
1. Republicans should never have agreed to a SS withholding reduction in the first place.
2. But it’s a mistake politically to shoot down the two month extension at this point. As usual, some Republicans are terrible at knowing which battles to fight.
3. And they should keep in mind that the Dims have wanted to end SS for ‘their people’ for years, to reduce their federal tax payments to zero. It’s the only direct payment many of them still make to the federal government.
"My family needs this money every month."
I hate to break this to you... but your family is going to be paying more per month in higher gas and food prices that results from the interest expense of blowing another massive hole in the national debt than the $83 per month Obama is promising.
Your brain- use it.
You seem to think it's all been one big exercise in futility it seems. C'mon, man, git a grip and stop rippin the very 2010 Tea Party profered Representatives just because the WSJ has drunk the MSM Koolaid!!!
You may be, but you're missing that this "payroll tax cut" isn't a cut for anyone who pays income tax. just damn.
A tax cut is a tax cut.
How is reducing my payroll tax not a tax cut for me?
I also pay income tax.
Did I miss where this “middle class payroll tax cut” is just for members of the middle class who don’t pay income tax?
Can you point to that provision of the bill for me?
But don’t you agree that in January there’ll be the same RINO-Tea Party schism to ruin our PR front?
I just see the same thing happening again. Only all the broadly supported measures to pay for it will have been used up on the two-month extension- leaving tax hikes as the favored Dem-RINO solution.
Yes, it would be disastrous for the Rs to fold. Their fight has to be FOR a full extension of the payroll tax cut.
The worst likely result I see is Dems will drag this out past the expiration and then negotiate an extension without tax hikes- though some of the ‘spending cuts’ will be illusionary.
The Dems will be praised by the media for -well, for whatever the media can think of- but that’ll happen anyway.
These (R)s can't be this dumb time after time. It's got to be a conspiracy. How can they not have any stoop run against them & not win. Then again, the sheeple aren't the most political saivy
IMHO, the House should just pass the bill the Senate gave them ASAP and then every GOP Congressman and Senator should say — every chance he gets —
(1) first, that the GOP tried to provide RELIEF to workers for 12 months in the House’s Bill and
(2) second, that the Democrats, by chosing to SHORTEN the period of the relief to just 2 months, have shown they have no interest in helping the middle class — but instead have a lot of interest in playing “dirty tricks” on the middle class.
The Tea Party can help by confronting Democrat Senators at town hall meetings to ask:
“Why did YOU vote to cut the benefits from 12 months to 2 months?”
The political fight was lost when the payroll tax cut was passed in the first place. My two year old could have seen what was coming when it came time for the tax cut to expire.
It should have been attacked at the start as gutting the social security trust fund. The dumb party lives up to their name yet again.
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