Posted on 12/07/2010 5:56:31 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama struggled Tuesday to prevent wholesale defections by fellow Democrats that could sink the tax deal he worked out with Republicans — angry opposition that could subject millions of Americans to a big holiday-season tax increase.
Many GOP lawmakers seemed ready to embrace the Obama-GOP compromise and declare victory. The question was whether enough Democrats would join them in support, especially in the House, where liberal resentment of the president's concessions on tax breaks for the wealthiest runs strong.
Obama went on national TV to give a ringing defense of his compromise, declaring it the necessary price for heading off a tax increase that neither taxpayers nor the weak economy could stand and for gaining more months of unemployment payments for millions of jobless workers.
The compromise plan would extend unemployment benefits for millions of people, and reduce Social Security payroll taxes for a year. Workers would pay a 4.2 percent tax rate instead of 6.2 percent.
Democratic leaders in the House criticized the tax plan, sometimes harshly, but stopped short of saying they would try to block it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He's doing a Clinton and he's doing it 6 months before Morris told Billy to do it.
Triangulation all the way.
The Dim caucus in the Senate and House knew he would do this for at least a month and they've all been getting their stories straight ever since.
Worthy of note: The dims successfully won the S T R A T E G I C battle here. They got the GOP to sign up for "unfunded expenditures". This is the key issue in the long term and the GOP sucked.
Enslaving or robbing are just words to demonize the process of taxing people. I am no fan of taxes but I understand that taxes are a price we pay to live in a civilized society. This particular society is in the last phase of destroying itself due to entitlements and politicians of both parties who are slaves to the process of giving our money away for votes, and the only we are going to save ourselves is to starve the government back to sustainable levels. We truly only have ourselves to blame. When was the last time we elected politicians who promised to give us less, and then re-elected them when we got less? Never. The death of democracy starts when we discover that we can give ourselves money from the common treasury, and then it is a race to see who can give more in order to get elected. But none of this is about the death tax. Do you believe there should be any kind of death tax, and do you believe that without one that the wealth of a nation would slowly move into the hands of those who knew how to manage and grow it? IE the wealthy? I suppose it is necessary to take from the richest among us and for lack of a better word, recycle (some would say re-distribute)it via social programs, to the poor. I hate to say it as i would never have thought that i would think this way, but I can draw parallels to the long term (hundreds of years) flow of money in a society to the water cycle of the planet. The evaporation part is when money moves from the masses to the producers, and without rain ie death taxes and redistribution via social programs, all the money would eventually end up in the hands of just a few. That is very nice from a purest point of view, but unworkable from an economic point of view. No estate taxes is a viable political viewpoint, but not a viable long term economic viewpoint. Like i said before, i do not know what they should be or when they should kick in, but as a long term stabilizing force in an economic system the are a necessary evil.
At least a few people get it. What a joke this is becoming. Worse than Wrestling.
I thought all the Bush Tax Cuts were only for the evil Rich?
If the republicans cave on this....If they let Harry Reid and sons.... force them for a compromise....
So help me....I’m so mad at the thought of them doing that.... all I can say is.... so help me...
This is just a huge distraction. obama come out and made the announcement that he made a deal with the repubs, but pelosi and reid are still in power until after the tax rates are due to increase. Given the current dims are hell bent on destroying our country, they will not ammend the law to extend the current tax rates. This keeps the media busy while the FTC takes over the communications industry.
Interesting post. I noticed how you call Barry stupid in your tag but state in your opinion that: No matter how much you want to believe everyone on the left is stupid, they’re not.
Is it only the King Dem that is stupid?
They were counting on Obama to destroy rich whitey but he didn’t fully live up to the malicious dictator of their dreams.
The whole point of being a leftist is to be a spoiled, nasty, vindictive, ignorant, miserable sack of crap. They are just doing their job.
If the deal doesn’t pass, the media will spin it as the GOP caused the tax rates to go up on the middle class since they preferred protecting the “rich” rather than compromise. The GOP’s failure to copromise also takes away the payroll tax cut, estate agreement, UI extension, etc, as will be spun by the media.
The GOP thinks they outsmarted Obama, but the Dems have outsmarted the GOP again. They get a big tax increase and the GOP will get the blame for tax increases and no UI extensio.
Its now routine for a professional couple to earn a million in 4 years.
Now take a man who has 6 kids and 6 million dollars. He dies, after saving every penny for his loved ones. Busted his a$$ for 40 years, and lived with less to save the money. Now you tell him he has to give half to Obama and his welfare scabs. That is slavery. That is grave robbing. That is theft.
Any policy that the government enforces is done with the inherent gun to the head of the citizenry.
This is something you can’t ever get libs to own up to, though, because the driving motive behind their “liberalism” is to feel good about themselves as “a good person”. Pointing guns at people’s heads is not something “good people” do.
with 6 million dollars i think he would pay 35% on the last million and nothing on the first 5. he would not pay 3 million he would pay $350,000. I am trying to have a real economic based discussion here. What about a man who has 350 million?
You missed a huge one:
4) The “rich” decide that tax rates are better in 2010 than 2011, and cash out of everything they can in the next 2 weeks to pay the lower rate. Result will make the previous economic meltdown look downright cushy.
Some would, that's for sure. But I don't think it would cause a crash the way some are predicting.
And if the market goes way down, then they will buy at the lows and things will pick up again in the first quarter of 2011.
The market is like that, I think.
I think just the opposite. We should lower the standard deduction and the tax rates. There are too many people as it is paying zero or negative income tax rates. Raising the standard deceuction would further progressive-ize the already too progressive income tax. People who don't pay income tax don't care about income tax rates.
Like the polarized fighting in the very long comments section there.
To pick on one line in particular:
“Do you politicians understand that it is a smack in our faces to say we are lazy and that we could actually live on $400.00 a week and live well.”
Yes, you can live on $400/wk. That’s $10/hr, which is way more than most people on the planet make. Downsize your lifestyle already.
No, you’re not supposed to “live well” on it. You’re supposed to not starve or freeze to death, and otherwise get by on a socially acceptable minimum; beyond that, we want to make sure you have a motivation to not stay on welfare for the full 99 weeks (or whatever your state’s max is). I’ve been on unemployment, and know how comfortable you can get on it.
Nonetheless, the decedant’s effects belong to their offspring, not the public at large. Taking it is theft, regardless of rationalization.
Sometimes the line between stupid and Machavellian is fractal.
I'm not trying to be cute or funny, but in 1850, when a man gave his slave dinner and took the fruit of his labor, that was considered justice.
If I am free, Do I own my labor, or does the state? If the state can take half the fruit of my labor, and leave me with a nice dinner and tell me that's good enough for me, am I not a slave? Am I free? After working for 40 years, the state can change the rules and confiscate my estate I am giving to my children?
If I am a Pro football player, a gladiator in the modern era, I make choices. My bones are broken on the field of play, cartilage torn. I sacrifice my body, but I intend to give the rewards to my child. If the state takes half of that money, have they not in fact inflicted half the wounds that crippled my body, much like the whip of a slave owner? Who has sacrificed his body for the love of his child? Me or the state? If the state takes the reward, then they take ownership of sacrifice I have made. They own it. They own Me and the damage done to my body that was traded for cash, just as the slave owner in 1850 owns the scars on his slave. I am then not free. Apply this to the boxer who enters the ring, and takes punch after punch. Apply this to the man who has busted his butt for 40 years. When does the state have the right to own my life? After one good meal? After 10 touchdowns? After 20?
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