Obama to open ‘fiscal cliff’ talks with call for $1.6 Trillion in new revenues

The Hill ^ | 11/14/2012 | Daniel Strauss

[Personal Responsibility]

I’m sure there are insane asylums in which it makes sense too.

[stephenjohnbanker]

The only tax increase I am for is 100% tax on incomes exceeding $250,000 for Hollywood actors, and a 100% tax on ANY income earned by Warren Buffett.

[Wyatt's Torch]

I don’t have an issue with debt in and of itself. And the Fed did nice work with Operation Twist and refinanced a large portion of the debt to long term at exceptionally low rates. the problem is that with it going up significantly faster than the economy is growing we are going to reach a point where we might not be able to meet our obligations. That is a national security issue.

I just don’t want to hear any of them talk about raising taxes and that helping. $1.6 Trillion over 10 years is a rounding error.

[DoughtyOne]

LOL, I actually think I could make an exception to get behind those kinds of a tax increase.

[andy58-in-nh]

Public debt, issued in amounts commensurate with a sound, value-backed currency, a rational fiscal policy and stable GDP growth is not normally a problem. Excessive public debt that seeks to act as a substitute for GDP growth is a recipe for systemic collapse. And that is where we are.

Refinancing debt by means of digitizing dollars into existence and buying our own securities (even long-duration products, priced absurdly by fiat) is how our government now transfers its obligations from one hand to the other, while gleefully spending itself into oblivion while also banking on wealth creation that cannot reasonably occur in such an environment as ours, which is positively toxic toward economic freedom.

[Tzimisce]

Between expiring tax cuts and new taxes going into effect: The US will have the biggest tax hike in history starting Jan 1.

The new taxes haven't even kicked in yet: AND WE'RE ALREADY BEING TOLD IT'S NOT ENOUGH

Think about that while you're job hunting. :)

[hinckley buzzard]

Geez. Reagan had a deal to raise taxes if Congress would cut nondefense spending. He got his tax cut but ONeill stabbed him in the back and never cut spending. If you don't understand that the 'rats controlled the House and therefore the budget, you don't understand the Reagan years.

[hinckley buzzard]

Ike was a gifted leader and very good president, but he lived in a different world economically speaking. Mostly what he did right was knowing when to do nothing.

Eisenhower had very little nondefense spending to contend with, although he did expand social security and start the interstate system. As of 1960, defense accounted for more than half the whole federal budget, which was less than 100 billion dollars.

He never had to pay for Medicare or the rest of LBJ's Great Society.

As far as "demobilizing" after WWII, he of course reduced the size of the military but had hundreds of thousands of troops remaining in the former axis powers, segueing directly into the Cold War. Then there was the little matter of the Korean War, before Ike even took office and needed to be "paid for" as well.

The economy under Ike was good but not great, with a serious recession in the mid fifties. When JFK ran in 1960, one of his effective campaign phrases was a promise to "get the country moving again," which he did by passing a major tax cut, which is usually acknowledged to have set off the boom of the "Soaring Sixties."

Circumstances make a difference, like the fact that in 1960, when OPEC was formed, the world price of oil at the well head was still under $2 a barrel. Not a bad thing for revving up an economy based on basic heavy industry and a burgeoning auto industry, but had nothing to do with Ike or his policies.