Posted on 12/18/2012 8:20:54 AM PST by Qbert
When Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, began negotiations with President Obama over how to resolve the fiscal cliff, he promised conservatives that he would make a principled stand on tax rates. Last Friday, he surrendered those principles by offering Obama a tax rate hike on incomes over $1 million. That concession, along with other measures capping loopholes and deductions, would raise approximately $1 trillion over ten years. In exchange, Obama has now offered to change how the federal government calculates inflation when determining Social Security benefits. How much would this ‘reform’ cut entitlement spending by? $122 billion. Over ten years. That is about ten days worth of federal government spending. That is the big spending concession Boehner will attempt to sell his Repblican colleagues today.
[Snip]
According to The New York Times, Obama is willing to cut the before mentioned $122 billion in Social Security spending, plus another $400 billion in unspecified cuts from federal health care programs, plus $200 billion in cuts to other mandatory programs like farm subsidies, plus $100 billion in Defense spending, plus $100 billion from other discretionary spending. That is $930 billion in spending cuts, only $122 billion of which has been specifically identified.
So the only thing Obama and Boehner have really agreed to so far are tax rate hikes for incomes over $1 million in exchange for $122 billion in cuts to Social Security. They are basically trying to punt everything else into next year. The real question is what the default penalties will be if/when Congress fails to agree on details for the unspecified tax hikes and spending cuts.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
slimy bastards - ROP GOP
ROP = RIP
That's what compromise with the Left will get you every single time. They get big tax hikes, and you get 12.2% of that amount in cuts.
Boehner is the kind of guy that when he would negotiate for gun control, he'd make sure we got to keep our guns, and would then surrender every type of ammunition.
So, Social Security is where the cuts are coming from?
$122 Billion?
Per SSA.gov, the average monthly Social Security benefit in 2012 was about $1,230.
Most annual increases range between $15 and $25, with part of that going to increased Medicare Part B premiums.
Gray Panthers aren’t going to like that.
"That's what compromise with the Left will get you every single time. They get big tax hikes, and you get 12.2% of that amount in cuts."
Yep. And you can just see where this is going: Obama will be up there next month at the SOTU calling for more spending and stimulus, wiping out any presumed savings from these "cuts"...
...And the additional hundreds of billions in proposed unspecified cuts will never materialize as Harry Reid will call the talks next year DOA. The only purpose then will be to get some unwary Republican in a swing state to make a remark about how we need to make some cuts to Medicare, etc., so the Dems can use those comments run nasty ads against the person in 2014...
We all know that there will be no actual cuts. These 10-year projections are pure fraud on the American people. First, they are talking about a decrease in the projected increase. So what they term a “cut” is only a very minor decrease i the rate that spending is projected to grow. Second, most of the supposedly “cut” spending will be added back as tag-ons to future spending bills. Third, this doesn’t even account for the grossly underestimated cost of Obamacare, the increased demand for Medicare and Social Security caused by the retiring baby boomers, the increase in interest payments on the ever increasing debt, or new spending projects.
Just think how much it will cost to set up a national gun registry, enforcement, etc.? In Canada the start-up costs were billions and it cost about a billion a year to run it. The costs in the US will be ten times that just based on population size, but given America’s propensity to bloat any bureaucracy with friends of the governing party, i expect that your costs will be 3 to 5 times greater per capita than what we experience up north.
The lying Democrats promised Reagan $3 in cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The tax hikes happened, but the cuts never did.
The lying Democrats promised Bush #41 $2 in cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The tax hikes happened, but the cuts never did.
Simpson-Bohls planned $3 in cuts for every $1 in tax hikes, but Obama had trimmed that to $1 for $1. We can already see that even that paltry amount is a bald-faced lie. The GOP should point this out at the top of their lungs and let Obama take the blame for his horrible handling of the economy the past 4 years. We are broke, so let’s act like it.
Yep, you’ve got it nailed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.