Posted on 01/04/2013 3:46:45 PM PST by Kaslin
Republicans in Congress screwed up big time in voting for President Barack Obama’s tax hike on Americans. All in the name of letting Obama “have his way” in sticking it to the rich, the deal to avert the country’s cliff dive doesn’t do anything but stall the country’s fall for another two months. Republicans, yes, REPUBLICANS, voted for the first time since 1991 to raise taxes on Americans, a lot of taxes and postponed dealing with the $1.2 trillion sequester, cuts to government spending, until February 2013.
There are no government cuts in this bill, making it nothing more than a license for Obama to keep spending on programs we can’t afford. That’s why our debt is $16.4 trillion and counting. Our yearly deficits are running $1 trillion. Entitlement spending for the big three -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- accounts for 50 percent of government spending. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office concluded entitlement spending in the next 75 years and other mandatory spending will be responsible for virtually 100 percent of our deficits. In other words, spending on government programs is bankrupting the country yet the president won’t stop, shamming Republicans into feeding his addiction.
The clifftastrophe bill, as I call it, brokered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with Vice President Joe Biden, didn’t just kick the can down the road but into oblivion. It passed first in the Senate then House Speaker John Boehner, who said all year he refused to raise taxes on the American people, couldn’t wait along with 84 other Republicans in the House to join 172 Democrats and do just that.
The tax increases targeted at higher earners is estimated to raise a paltry $600 billion over ten years, which amounts to $60 billion a year. This pays about 5 percent toward the yearly $1 trillion deficit’s Obama’s has been running since he became president. Obama’s tax assault on the “rich” amounts to little more than spitting in the deficit wind.
Here’s a menu of some of the tax hikes born solely by one group of Americans. Individuals earning $400,000 and couples earning $450,000, their tax rate will increase from 35% percent to 39.6 percent and these same people will have the good fortune of paying a higher capital gains and dividend tax up from 15 percent to 20 percent. The personal exemption tax of $3,800 in 2012 will be ELIMINATED for those making $300,000 or more.
The pile on continues with the death tax rising from 35 percent to 40 percent on estates above $5 million. Obama and Democrats think Americans really shouldn’t be able to keep a fortune they amassed through a lifetime of HARD WORK in their family but rather should leave it to federal government to waste and redistribute to its heart’s content.
There’s more! Higher earners will be hit with a 3.8 percent Obamacare tax on investment income and a 0.9 percent additional Medicare tax (added to current 1.45 percent Medicare tax for employees) to pay for the $2 trillion Obamacare entitlement travesty. As a friend told me, “Why bother to even work hard anymore. I’m thinking about dumping some clients so I can make less money and pay less in taxes.” That’s just it. As the Wall Street Journal noted when tax rates increase government revenue goes down because “the rich change their behavior to avoid the higher rates.” Like Mitt Romney told Obama during one presidential debate, “you can’t tax your way out of this mess” but the president SURE can spend us into a bigger one.
But the real joke in this “cliff aversion” monstrosity is it’s larded with spending increases for Obama’s favorite things: $248 million to Hollywood producers, $12.1 billion to wind energy; and $30 billion in extending the jobless benefits for a year. Obama can’t preach enough about “shared sacrifice” in this country but where is the president’s sacrifice? We see from this taxation picture, who’s sacrificing and who's spending!
Republicans should expect Democrats to run against this GOP stupidity in the 2014 mid-term elections with slogans like: “You can’t trust a thing Republicans say!” Obama is already laughing out loud, saying Republicans have reversed course on their Holy Grail pledge not to raise taxes. See what happened to George H. W. Bush when he flouted the pledge. He lost his re-election. Prior to this “deal,” Boehner proposed a Plan B of raising taxes on workers making $1 million or more, which failed to get enough Republican votes in the House but then Republicans in the House and Senate turned around and voted for a tax hike hitting more Americans.
Congressional Republicans in Congress look even dumber and particularly “emasculated” in their collective belief that they have Obama over a barrel when it comes to the debt ceiling. Republicans believe Obama will be forced to accept spending cuts in two months in exchange for Congress increasing our borrowing limit so he can spend more. When pigs fly!
Obama has no intention of reforming the tax code or cutting government spending. In two months, Obama will shame Republicans once again into raising the debt ceiling so he can spend more because Congressional Republicans seem to have lost the ability to defend freedom and preserve American exceptionalism.
As Virginia lawyer Bernard McNamee wrote, Ronald Regan’s “tax cuts spurred economic growth, which actually increased tax revenue to the government” but “instead of cutting government (or limiting its growth), the new tax revenue was used to fund more government.” Republicans lost control of the fiscal cliff debate because they refuse to sell the merits of conservatism to the American people. “Voters need to understand that the battle is not about tax rates, it is about a government so big that it threatens their freedom,” McNamee wrote and I would add our national security and economic fortitude.
The Republican Party needs to start defending conservatism and stop apologizing for it. America has a spending problem and until we face this reality, the country will continue "slip sliding away" into economic weakness while the GOP fades into oblivion.
Republicans don’t own this. It was first passed by a Democrat controlled Senate. Then, in the House, most Republicans voted against it. Just enough crossed over to join the Democrats to pass this.
The Democrats own the tax hike.
We need to unseat Speaker Pelosi.
The democrats don’t own the tax hike - republicans do. The republicans will fold in the debt ceiling “crisis” as well. Just watch.
Good luck convincing anyone but FReepers that the democrats pnwed the republicans over taxes and deficits. The republicans couldn’t find their asses if they were using them as hats- which they are.
I disagree. The Republicans own the tax hike. How many Democrats voted against it. Many Republicans voted for it and thus gave in to the Dims.
You are correct, the rats sure own the tax hike
There is only one party in Washington: The Re-Election Party.
We need a new party of patriots who will voluntarily impose term limits on themselves. With a real party of citizens, we could at least advocate for the Constitution and limted government.
And that’s why I became a registered Independent today.
Boehner and the Republicans are playing a good game. They just gave Zer0 and his Syndicate a little toke of crack to feed their habit. While they are blurry from the high, the debt ceiling is coming up. Watch the tables being turned as spending gets cut to the bone. We will have a new appreciation for the “Boner” who will trim the Democrat’s spending spree which was implemented when the DemonRATs had both houses of Congress. This information comes from Grover Norquist who knows the game plan.
Republicans will not say “No” to Obama’s demands for money. The people are being robbed. The country is being bankrupted deliberately. The robbers do not wear guns....yet. Once the people’s weapons are confiscated, the robbers and new masters will wear the guns as the people are made to submit. Guaranteed life will not be the same in the future.
I have requested and the Republican Party of New Mexico is mailing the forms to change our registration to Independent also.
Bla-bla-bla,
the Bush tax cuts were extended in Dec 2010 exactly two years till 2012. Then they went up automatically. So those taxes were raised back then, not a few days ago.
Last year Rush and Morris and Rove assured us that Rs would win big and Romney would win, so why worry, Romney and the R Senate would fix it.
After that pipe dream faded the myth was created that if no bill was passed taxes would stay the same, it was the big lie/.
What is the point of Republicans continually denying the truth on this?
Bohner passed no tax increase that I know of. Unless this bill raised some rates higher than the Clinton default rates.
No, they don't. They can put it back on the Republicans and laugh at them and us. That's what Barky is laughing about.
The Democrats, with the Media in their pockets, have an infinite license to laugh, lie, and scoff past any responsibility they don't feel like shouldering. They've completely gotten away from any ability of the opposition to constrain their actions.
We have a one-party government and an Official Media.
I call bullshit. Right here, right now, mark the post.
The only two people in the Western Hemisphere who have any ability to reestablish any semblance of credibility in the GOP are Sarah Palin and Allen West. And they're all beaten up with libel campaigns and hate-propaganda and out of office.
Sorry. Incorrecto. See my post No. 14.
The Democrats are completely free of any responsibility for any outcome. Google "Benghazi".
So you are exiting the NM Republican primary in 2014, which will have even fewer participants if others so respond as you.
If you lived in NM you would realize why. Most of the local elections in my county, Torrance, are unapposed, both Dims and Repugs. Where the problems are is at the state level. The PTB are of the same mind set as the DC do nothings. So why should I support that activity on the state level but disallow it on the national? So I drop from the party. If enough do drop maybe (and that is a big maybe) those that are left they will realize something has to be done.
Ten years ago four of our three reps and two senators were Republican. Now only one is and he was absent from the Congree last term because he tried to move to the Senate and lost big time. In doing so he (Steve Pearce) and Heather Wilson fought each other to a standstill and both Congressional offices were lost to Dims. I think they were more interested in their own aggrandisement then looking out for the people. So I have no use for the party the way it stands now, just a bunch of gimme's and look how wonderful I am people. It is even worse than the "good ol boy" society.
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