Tax-Cut Deal: Sympathy for the President

I viewed the whitehouse.gov white board presentation on the components of the deal. Goolsbee tried to claim that the President got more than twice as much as the Republicans. It's hard to see how. For one, it's rather odd that tax breaks for businesses (writing down 100% of new capital purchases, subsidies for green energy businesses, evidently to include 'clean coal') have to be fought for against Republicans. Moreover, in what sense is extending the middle class part of the Bush tax cuts a win for Obama? The Republicans never said they were against them, just that they wanted the whole enchilada. Boehner even let slip that if he had to, he'd vote for the middle class tax cuts alone. Of course, Obama successfully negotiated against himself so Boehner would not have to make such a bitter decision. The tax credits for kids and education, and the expanded EITC add up to $60 billion, not inconsiderable, but again hardly the kind of thing you have to jam down a Republican throat. The biggest chunk is the Social Security tax cut, an idea that no doubt warms the heart of George W. Bush. Now, when the time comes, just slide that share over to a personal account, and voila, the Bush plan is in place. The unemployment extension for some 2 million workers is about it, folks. In no previous recession has Congress refused to extend unemployment benefits. Nor does this do anything about the 2 million long term unemployed who have exhausted their benefits. So to provide temporary, bare-subsistence relief to a small share of the vast number of unemployed, it is necessary to lavish $140,000 per millionaire. And how much stimulus is in this? Most of it continues the dismal status quo. The Social Security tax cut, a mixed blessing at best, appears to be the only really new stimulus. For the most part, the best that can be said is that the bill won't make things worse. Hard to see how that boosts Obama's re-election chances. With the lost enthusiasm in his own party, the politics seems to run the other way. Maybe he did not expect that. More likely, his team expects that this will blow over, and they can crank up the populist economic rhetoric in September 2012, just in time to squeak back in to give us yet more 'compromise'.

The filibuster rules in the Senate cripple the majority party's hands. The president's position was greatly weakened because Congressional Democrats didn't bring a tax package of their own liking well before the election. Obama was stuck in a very bad position for those two reasons. The Republicans really only care about tax cuts for the top. Their domestic agenda doesn't consist of much more than that. With the clock running til the House changes hands Obama had to cut a deal. The Estate tax provision is obnoxious but besides that the package is about as good as you could expect. If everybody's taxes went up in January Obama and the Democrats would be taking the blame. Our best chance to advance progressive policies is to win the next election. We need a faster growing economy with more jobs to get that done . This package with the addition of the payroll tax cut I think will do that. This deal also takes the tax issue off the table for now. If by chance the economy doesn't perform as well as we would like The Repubs can't say that a raise in taxes on the top was the cause. The top end tax cuts will be an issue in 2012 but with the taxes in place it will be easier to deal with politically . This also makes a mockery of Republican arguements about the deficit. If they can get rid of the Estate Tax portion great , if not the deal is still worth passing. We can't wait til the Republicans control the House. We will really get screwed then.

I cannot see how Obama is always on the defensive when his proposals routinely gain over 50 percent of the vote in the Senate and he is considered the loser because of arcane Senate rules. Isn;t it about time for senators to fix their own workplace and make this country a democracy again where the majority rules.

This Obama catalyst (tax agreement) has initiated a much needed debate in our country so that the American people can see how a small group of people (the Rich) control this country, do not pay taxes or their fair share due to tax loopholes and tax shelters, leaving the tax burden on the middle class and working poor, and that the GOP talking points that tax cuts create jobs is false, because for the last 10 years that we have had these tax cuts, we have lost jobs. And the debate also highlights one party, the Republican, refusing to vote on any legislation to help the little people, the people they are supposed to represent -- 911 responders, unemployment benefits, etc.,(like spoiled children) until they get their way -- tax cuts for the rich! And this ability to not vote on legislation, to hold up the people's business (or hold them hostage) is this legal? We know it is not fair. This debate will give the American people a chance to decide if they want to extend the tax cuts to the rich so that their taxes can go down or if they want the tax cuts for the rich to expire knowing that their taxes will go up and they will be paying more come January than they do now. Do they want to make that sacrifice? Let's not forget that in order for us to forge new healthy pathways for the country, the dark, the outworn, the negative and false must be exposed. And by the way, Sen Mary Landrieux you were for the Bush tax cuts and voted for them, before you were against them! http://patrickhenrypress.info/node/315136

Mr.Corn this is just plain corny. You liberals for 2 years have been screaming that the right should be more bi partisan and now that we have bi partisan ship you reject it. Is it because the only compromise you like is one where conservatives agree with your proposals? Now as a conservative I hate this piece of legislation. The budget gets blown out of the water again. There seems to be no fiscal responsibility here. I would rather have my taxes go up than continue piling on debt. The Republicans didn't learn from the last election either. They should offset these cost with spending cuts or not do them. On a week were the deficit commission makes it's recommendations we blow a bigger hole in the budget, these politicians can't seem to give enough away at our country expense

Yesterday, MSNBC did an interview with Barney Frank. Frank, who infamously said that Freddie and Fannie were okay, said that the SS fund was in surplus. If that is true, why are seniors being denied ANY increase to their SS check, when the cost of everything is rapidly rising, including Medicare, and government workers did receive COLA, along with "step" increases. Alan Graham, recently defeated Congressman out of Florida, once said that Republicans want seniors to die quickly. Seems to me he was talking about his own Party.

'But Obama is the lonely-at-the-top fellow who is responsible for the well-being of the citizenry. It's his job description.' It's also the job description of the entire government of We The People - to 'provide for the general welfare.' Obama deserves no sympathy. He volunteered for the 'lonely at the top' job. He should have stood up to the GOParty of the Upper Class. If that meant nobody got nothing, then, well, maybe - just maybe - We The People would have finally reached a breaking point and gotten up off our lazy, passive butts and revolted.

If Democrats had half a brain when it comes to messaging they would be able to hang this noose around the Republicans' necks just like Clinton did when he took them up on their dare to shut down the government. I cannot believe the public would sit still for it when they saw their taxes going up and unemployment benefits disappearing just like they did not sit still for having their Social Security checks stop when Gingrich got his way. In fact this would have affected even more middle and low income people directly making it all the more likely that come January the Republicans would be forced to back down. The risk is that the Republicans would manage to place the blame on Democrats, which is quite likely in the fantasy land we now live in. After all supply-side Republicans have been allowed to get away with claiming that tax cuts do not raise our debt ever since Reagan started that destructive myth. Recently Republicans have been making that claim with increasing frequency but I have not seen them challenged by the media of by Dems. In fact I just heard Joe Scarborough say that supply-side economics has won because he is hearing some Democrats say that the tax cuts won't add to our debt! That Democrats and the media have not been shouting from the rooftops the fact that tax cuts NEVER pay for themselves is beyond belief. David Stockman, Reagan's economic adviser, says all the tax cuts should expire to get our debt under control. Alan Greenspan has said they should go. Heck, even Bush's own economic advisers admitted that, at best, we might recoup half of the revenue lost to some tax cuts, but that the return is usually much, much lower than that. Google the Washington Post article "Mr. Guiliani and the Tax Fairy" to get the details. It is a must read for anyone concerned about this issue. Then start repeating to yourself - and everyone else - "TAX CUTS ALWAYS ADD TO OUR DEBT". Our country will continue to flounder until the public understands this and stops demanding balanced budgets through tax cuts.

Mr. Corn feels Obama's "pain" because he erroneously assumes that Obama is a progressive at heart. Such assumptions are unwarranted because one need only recall Obama's praise of Reagan during the campaign to win the Democratic nomination. Many people only saw what they "hoped" to see during this campaign, listening to rhetoric rather thans substance. If the party and pundits had been better critical thinkers, Hillary would have been president. She harbored no illusions that the Republicans could be worked with, unlike Obama the Spineless.

What this drama demonstrates is the folly of last-minute, hurry-up legislation. I suggest that everyone read yesterday's Charles Wallace article, posted on AOL Daily Finance, entitled "Who Loses Under Obama's GOP Tax Compromise? The Working Poor." Mr. Wallace notes that the losers--the only losers, it turns out--under the proposed deal are the working poor. A couple earning under $40,000 would pay more in taxes under the compromise than they do under the current tax scheme. . . .This is but one example of the dysfunctional nature of our legislative process. Proposals need to be vetted and discussed on the merits, with gradual bipartisan give-and-take occurring over the duration of the process. But due deliberation cannot take place during the legislative equivalent of the two-minute drill and hurry-up offense at the end of the game. The result is almost always bad legislation with unintended consequences, and that makes losers of us all.