Until the GOP can gain control, there will have to be compromises with the Dems to get items such as the Bush tax cuts extended.
Can people specifically explain why this is a bad deal?
My first question is, I do hope this unemployment extension doesn’t mean 99ers can collect even longer. I can maybe see keeping the extension past 26 weeks, but most certainly oppose anything that lets people collect for over 99 weeks.
Other than that, it looks like it is mostly a tax cut deal combining Bush’s tax cuts and Obama’s tax cuts right?
The payroll tax holiday appears to replace Obama’s “making work pay” tax cut which was in the Stimulus. Is there a reason this is not a good deal. Won’t everyone under 40k single/80k married still get $400 and $800 bucks?
What's it at now?
They haven’t won anything until January. Democrats still hold the majority in both houses.
I think Reagan said it is better to have half a loaf then no loaf at all. Please correct me if this wasn’t attributed to him.
Fortunately, my Congressman (Elton Gallegly) is a conservative Republican.
I pinged you to kristinn’s LIVE thread and posted your link and a snippet.
I especially like the payroll tax holiday. This opens the door to a partial privitizaton of social security as it will be hard to re-instate this.
If the GOP ignores the conservative will of the people now, they are putting one foot in their own grave and are aligning themselves with democrats and the very issues voters turned out in November to oppose. RINOs and pubbies signing on to this are traitors and blatantly selling out constituents and independents who trusted them.
What part of we don’t take the House until 2011 don’t you get? We won’t have the Senate and have to wait and pray until 2012 to get the White House. We are dealing with lame ducks right now.
Are there any drafts of the legislation available?
At this point I don’t know which will add more to the debt, no deal which would most likely mean more people on the UI rolls or cutting a deal to extend the deadline for those already on it and didn’t get 99 weeks. Higher taxes just shrinks the tax base by killing jobs. So they might get more from the rich, but unknown numbers of people will no longer be paying taxes because they’ll be laid off.
There might just be a certain level of practicality in cutting a deal to keep the tax rates from going up which, if allowed to occur, could be its own mini-disaster with little or no benefit to the revenue side. We might have won last month, but there is still this reality of having Obummer in the WH and the rats in charge of the lame duck to deal with, and over this topic time is not on our side.
What is the latest on the estate tax?? Is it extended for 2 years or is something else pending?
We got screwed...big time!
Obama caves? Capitulation? Surrender?
LOL
“President Obama’s favored Making Work Pay tax credit,
Ah yeah that was a 400 dollar tax credit on income stated on a W2 only. If your income involved rents and royalties(self employed) then you got no tax break even though you payed the same amount in taxes for your income. Then there are seniors. The government decides who pays and who does not. In the end it all goes on the national debt and even those who got no tax break get the bill for those who did. In the end, We will be paying the ultimate price for the socialist mentality sweeping over this country. Spiritually I do not consider myself liable for any of that debt. I have taken nothing. For now though, I get stuck paying for it.
Two years was 0bama’s opening position. We should have argued for “Forever,” and settled on 6-8 years.
Who flipped already?
I am amazed that so many here do not realize the victory this is.....we will get to run in 2011 on making the taxes permanent....we will be able to run on killing the death tax.....kids...get a grip....
You must have read about a different deal and a different political climate in DC. The dems still control the Senate and the WH come Jan. On this deal - the Republicans won, Obama caved. Tax cuts extended for all Americans for 2 years. Of course the dems got unemployment benefits included. so what? We can only hope two years from now they can extend it again.
The Bush tax cuts should absolutely *not* be restored, because they offer an amazing opportunity that should *not* be missed.
To downgrade and repair the Social Security System, while harming as few people as possible! Here’s the idea, and please tell people about it!
Not too long ago, “means testing” was proposed to help the SSS remain solvent. The idea was that people who already have money shouldn’t get SS benefits. It was a HUGELY UNPOPULAR idea. Politically impossible.
So instead, make people who are getting SS benefits a deal. If they need their SS money to live, fine, they can have their SS money. But if they have other income, give them a *choice* to instead of taking their SS money, to *not* take it.
Instead, they can get a *tax deduction* that would work out to them getting even *more* money, through saving their income money.
That is, the Bush tax cuts become the Social Security tax cuts.
And just because they are not taking the money owed them by SS, it makes the SS system *solvent*, overnight! And that’s phase one.
Phase two is to get people still paying into the SSS a similar deal, so they can *choose* to put money into an IRA, *instead* of SS, *and* cash in *another* year’s worth of the money they already paid into SS as a tax deduction, as long as that money also goes to their IRA.
This means that their IRA would gain two years of payments for every year they continued to earn income. A wonderful deal for them.
Again, the Bush tax cuts become Social Security tax cuts.
Lastly, only let people who are minimum wage (zone) workers enter the SS system in the first place. In the future, it will become a retirement system just for them, because they have no other retirement.
So this means that America not only gets all the benefits of the Bush tax cuts, but used in such as way as to stop the one of the two biggest drains on the federal budget.
Everybody wins. The well to do and the poor, the economy because of the tax cuts, and even the federal government doesn’t take any more of a hit than it is taking right now.
If we just restore the Bush tax cuts, we still have the huge problem of Social Security to deal with. Why not kill two birds with one stone?