Make or Break Time for the Middle Class says Obama

[we vs us]

Who are you talking to?  Or just couldn't resist posting a snarky gif?



I'll be happy to re-evaluate my opinion of the Ryan budget if the facts warrant it.

[Red Arrow]

I'll be happy to re-evaluate my opinion of the Ryan budget if the facts warrant it.

I'm sure there are areas that you still won't like.  Eliminating tax on capital gains, savings interest, and I believe investment returns (I'm having a Rick Perry moment) will probably go against your principles.  Never mind that one of the biggest capital gains tax reductions occurred when President Clinton approved the change to the capital gains tax on the sale of a home.  If interest rates on savings ever come up, having the interest on savings being tax free would help everyone not living from paycheck to paycheck.

There are some things that may address your goals but try to achieve them by different methods than you would propose.

In the tax area, the plan does not raise rates on the rich.  Instead, the plan calls for eliminating special considerations typically employed by the rich but generally unavailable to the rest of us. This would raise their taxes without raising the marginal rates.  The effect should help meet your goals of making the rich pay more.

Social Security would offer options, still within government regulation and protection.  The lowest economic groups would have benefits at some multiple above the established poverty level.

Job training is addressed.

People over 55 will keep the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits as presently promised.  The retirement age will gradually be raised to 70.  Early retirement will still be allowed.  The plan presentation I linked to states the the average male life expectancy when Social Security was started was 60.  Clearly, the average person was not actually expected to receive any benefits.  Life expectancy is now in the 70s.  There were always curve breakers like my dad's parents that lived into their 90s.  There were also folks like my mom's dad who died young and mom's mother that only made it to her late 60s.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I think you are a bit too generous in your application of "typical you-know-what".  There are times when it does apply but no where near as often as you proclaim it.

Au contraire'...

There are times to apply it far in excess of when I use it.  As there are with the LWRE.  But I like to mix it up a little bit...use some imagination...use other terms for the same thing...

[Red Arrow]

There are times to apply it far in excess of when I use it. 

Only if you count issues that you are not commenting on.  Of the issues you post about, I stand by my statement that you use "it" too often.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Only if you count issues that you are not commenting on.  Of the issues you post about, I stand by my statement that you use "it" too often.

Too much is NEVER enough!

And,
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!


(Remember Brewster McCloud?)

[Townsend]

By their definition doesn't his mean that the Republican house voted to raise taxes?

House Republicans voted today to reject a bipartisan Senate-passed bill for a two-month extension of a popular payroll tax cut, demanding a formal conference to work out their differences instead. ..

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/payroll-tax-credit-headed-for-stalemate/?abcnews

[Conan71]

By their definition doesn't his mean that the Republican house voted to raise taxes?

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/payroll-tax-credit-headed-for-stalemate/?abcnews

Yep, Grover Norquist is going to be rapping some knuckles over that one.

[Teatownclown]

Even the WSJ takes on lousy political leadership from the Teabagger/GOP Party....


THE GOP'S PAYROLL TAX FIASCO

How did Republicans manage to lose the tax issue to Obama?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110573867064702.html


GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

House Republicans yesterday voted down the Senate's two-month extension of the two-percentage-point payroll tax holiday to 4.2% from 6.2%. They say the short extension makes no economic sense, but then neither does a one-year extension. No employer is going to hire a worker based on such a small and temporary decrease in employment costs, as this year's tax holiday has demonstrated. The entire exercise is political, but Republicans have thoroughly botched the politics.

Their first mistake was adopting the President's language that he is proposing a tax cut rather than calling it a temporary tax holiday. People will understand the difference—and discount the benefit.

Republicans also failed to put together a unified House and Senate strategy. The House passed a one-year extension last week that included spending cuts to offset the $120 billion or so in lost revenue, such as a one-year freeze on raises for federal employees. Then Mr. McConnell agreed with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the two-month extension financed by higher fees on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (meaning on mortgage borrowers), among other things. It passed with 89 votes and all but seven Republicans.

Senate Republicans say Mr. Boehner had signed off on the two-month extension, but House Members revolted over the weekend and so the Speaker flipped within 24 hours. Mr. Boehner is now demanding that Mr. Reid name conferees for a House-Senate conference on the payroll tax bills. But Mr. Reid and the White House are having too much fun blaming Republicans for "raising taxes on the middle class" as of January 1. Don't be surprised if they stretch this out to the State of the Union, when Mr. Obama will have a national audience to capture the tax issue.

If Republicans didn't want to extend the payroll tax cut on the merits, then they should have put together a strategy and the arguments for defeating it and explained why.

But if they knew they would eventually pass it, as most of them surely believed, then they had one of two choices. Either pass it quickly and at least take some political credit for it.

Or agree on a strategy to get something in return for passing it, which would mean focusing on a couple of popular policies that would put Mr. Obama and Democrats on the political spot. They finally did that last week by attaching a provision that requires Mr. Obama to make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline within 60 days, and the President grumbled but has agreed to sign it.

But now Republicans are drowning out that victory in the sounds of their circular firing squad. Already four GOP Senators have rejected the House position, and the political rout will only get worse.

One reason for the revolt of House backbenchers is the accumulated frustration over a year of political disappointment. Their high point was the Paul Ryan budget in the spring that set the terms of debate and forced Mr. Obama to adopt at least the rhetoric of budget reform and spending cuts.

But then Messrs. Boehner and McConnell were gulled into going behind closed doors with the President, who dragged out negotiations and later emerged to sandbag them with his blame-the-GOP and soak-the-rich re-election strategy. Any difference between the parties on taxes and spending has been blurred in the interim.

After a year of the tea party House, Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have had to make no major policy concessions beyond extending the Bush tax rates for two years. Mr. Obama is in a stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago, and the chances of Mr. McConnell becoming Majority Leader in 2013 are declining.

***
At this stage, Republicans would do best to cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly. Then go home and return in January with a united House-Senate strategy that forces Democrats to make specific policy choices that highlight the differences between the parties on spending, taxes and regulation. Wisconsin freshman Senator Ron Johnson has been floating a useful agenda for such a strategy. The alternative is more chaotic retreat and the return of all-Democratic rule.

[Townsend]

Payroll tax cut: Two GOP frosh bail, push for two-month bill


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70794.html#ixzz1hIXvIHTL

Rep. Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican, called on Speaker Boehner "to let the House vote on extending the payroll tax holiday" in a carefully worded letter Thursday that made clear some Republicans are ready to compromise. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), a high profile member of the influential Republican freshman class, also issued a statement Thursday pushing for a quick vote on a short term extension.

"These past few days I have met with my constituents in Arkansas's First District, they are angry and they don't understand why Congress cannot sit down, hammer out our differences, and have a solution that we all can support. My constituents are good, honest people who deserve a Congress that will put partisan politics aside in favor of the greater good."

Crawford's statement was careful not to bash Republican leaders, noting that the House passed a "responsible" year-long deal in December and arguing that compromise was the only way forward. But it left wiggle room to portray the lawmaker as responsible while his leadership is Washington is taking the heat over the last minute showdown.

Two freshmen bailing on the party message doesn't add up to a trend, but it's a sign that even some of the idealistic new members of the Republican class are ready to cut a deal.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70794.html#ixzz1hIYGO8eD

[Townsend]

AP breaking tweet:

BREAKING: Congressional aides: House GOP to accept short-term payroll tax cut measure.

[guido911]

AP breaking tweet:

BREAKING: Congressional aides: House GOP to accept short-term payroll tax cut measure.

Maybe I am just not getting the right words on a google search (or maybe I'm a dumb@ss), but is this an "across the board" payroll cut extension? Or, is limited to certain income ranges?

[Townsend]

Maybe I am just not getting the right words on a google search (or maybe I'm a dumb@ss), but is this an "across the board" payroll cut extension? Or, is limited to certain income ranges?

Sorry, all I got was the tweet.  I'll let you know if I see something to give you an answer.

[guido911]

Sorry, all I got was the tweet.  I'll let you know if I see something to give you an answer.

Don't kill yourself. I am going to keep looking around.

[Townsend]

Don't kill yourself. I am going to keep looking around.

All I'm finding is a bunch of political BS.  Shocker.

[guido911]

Here's something. It seems like all that pay payroll taxes are impacted.

Without action, the payroll tax paid by 160 million workers will rise by 2 percentage points to 6.2 percent on Jan. 1. That would mean $1,000 a year less in the pockets of people making $50,000, or about $19 weekly. In addition, 3 million people currently receiving long-term jobless benefits will begin to lose weekly payments that average under $300 — for many, their only support.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/understanding-congress-payroll-tax-cut-073003594.html