Now that we are just few days from the New Year... Why would any Republican politician vote for a TAX INCREASE? When they can wait until Wednesday and vote for a huge TAX CUT !!!
So I can understand why they are waiting, however I am not sure what is going to change for the Democrats after the first of the year. I don't think their desire to keep spending is going to be any more acceptable to the GOP on Wednesday.
I can see the tax/revenue side being addressed quickly next week, but the spending side solution seems more elusive.
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31 comments:
Republicans made a bet in 2011, that Obama would lose. They lost, and that's why they have to cave in now.
Hiram
"have to" seems a bit strong given the resistance they have shown so far.
Spending really isn't the problem for the GOP. They just don't want to see taxes cut.
--Hiram
Please explain. I thought the GOP was the group insisting that all the taxes stay at the lower rates.
They can't vote for a tax cut because those have to be "paid for" with spending cuts, right? And since the Dems don't want to cut any spending now, why would they cut it later?
J. Ewing
That's what I am concerned about.
Democrats can't cut spending without annoying their base. Look at the mess that occurred in Wisconsin when they just reduced collective bargaining rights.
The folks that feed aggressively at the Government trough will try to force the Democrats to keep increasing spending at higher than sustainable rates. Which may drag this out...
I misspoke. Republicans don't want to see taxes raised particularly for high income earners. They are strangely somewhat more comfortable with tax increases for the poor and the middle class. They have no real interest in cutting spending, or at least in taking the heat for spending cuts. Indeed, during the campaign, they opportunistically, attacked budget cuts proposed by the president.
What the GOP does do is disguise the cuts they do propose, by for example, proposing a different inflation standard, or by proposing policies which will indirectly cut spending in ways that it will be hard to hold politicians accountable for.
--Hiram
I guess I see it as Republicans are against Government mandated and operated wealth transfer. That is why many would support a less progressive income tax system.
Atlantic Rich Pay Less Chart?
You think Republicans defend the rich? Fine. Let's just let the Bush tax cuts expire for everybody. The rich will go back to paying a SMALLER share of total taxes (but still higher than is fair), the middle class a HIGHER share, and the folks at the bottom will see their taxes increase by 100%.
J. Ewing
Actually, Republicans don't want to cut taxes at all. They simply want to keep rates where they have been for the last ten years. It's Obama and the Democrats that want a big tax INCREASE.
J. Ewing
I guess I see it as Republicans are against Government mandated and operated wealth transfer.
But that's what you do when you are in government. If the Republican elected didn't want to make wealth transfer decisions they really should have gone into another line of work. And one of the reasons we are in the fix we are in is that Republicans can't bring themselves to make the wealth transfer decisions they were elected to make.
--Hiram
A lot of what's happening in Washington isn't about making decisions, it's about avoidance of responsibility for decisions. Take Social Security and the chained cost of living index. This is nothing more than a cut. That's fine, if cutting SS is the policy decision you want to make, but note how the implementation of that policy decision is disguised. We didn't cut benefits, legislators will tell their constituents, it happened mechanically, through the operation of the index. But that's just a pretense really, what happened is that the policy decision was turned over to the bureaucrats who define the index, who nobody elected, and who will certainly be blamed when whatever decision Congress has ordered them to make, works to the disadvantage of one set of constituents or another as they inevitably will.
--Hiram
You think a key role of gov't should be wealth distribution. Yes you are a Liberal and I understand that after all these years.
I and most Conservatives think that the role of Gov't should be more focused on pooling our collective funds to better provide key deliverables for the benefit of us all. (ie defense, transportation, infrastructure, education, legal system, etc.)
Not sure how much the index would change. It is already indexed to COLA.
Current SS Index Method
You think a key role of gov't should be wealth distribution.
I think that's something it's impossible for government to avoid. Take the Bush era tax cuts. What it turned out that we did was borrow a vast amount of money to turn it over to the wealthy, surely a form of income redistribution, an effect that would be magnified if the rest of us are asked to pay off the debt through higher rates, and lower Medicare and Social Security benefits. Whether this was sound policy is perhaps disputable. The intent was to create prosperity by turning over money to people we theorized were job creators. But in any event, it was certainly a form of wealth redistribution.
==Hiram
Can I have some of whatever you are drinking?
Letting people keep more of what is theirs is not govt redistribution...
Spending more than what they collected was just bad gov't.
Letting people keep more of what is theirs is not govt redistribution..
It certainly is when others have to pay for it. Romney's plan to raise taxes on the poor and the middle class in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy was redistributive. Just about any change in the tax code is redistributive. And it's exactly this kind of thinking that provides Republicans a rationalization for running up the debt.
--Hiram
Look at this way. Any change in tax rates that's revenue neutral means that some people keep less of their money and other people keep more. If we argue that such a policy change is redistributive, and that redistributive policies are somehow forbidden, we can never change tax policy, even those policies which under that logic were redistributive in the past.
Is this a commitment not to change tax policy one we are willing to make? Do we believe the status quo is perfect now and in the future, and never in need of change? Do we believe that changes in overall fiscal and financial conditions should not affect tax policy? Must we tailor all policy such that it fits the tax structure we created in the early 2000's? Is there any historical evidence at all, given the huge deficits and expenditure we no face, that we have anything approaching the capability of doing that?
--Hiram
"Letting people keep more of what is theirs is not govt redistribution..
It certainly is when others have to pay for it. " -- hiram
But isn't that the point? WHHHY do "others have to pay for it"? Why can't the government do with a few pennies less than the ever-escalating and outrageous spending levels they have now? If "fairness" is the issue, why not lower rates for the middle class, rather than raise them on the rich? You know, sort of like the Bush tax cuts did?
J. Ewing
"But isn't that the point? WHHHY do "others have to pay for it"? Why can't the government do with a few pennies less than the ever-escalating and outrageous spending levels they have now?"
Because allocation of burdens is what government does. Letting some people keep more of their money inevitably means that someone else will do with a few pennies less. Whether or not that's a good or bad policy choice is always a disputable issue. But what really isn't disputable is that shifting burdens, redistributing burdens is always the choice we are making.
Nothing could be clearer than this is the Bush tax cuts. In 2001 and 2002, we made a decision to borrow money and use it to reduce taxes, tax cuts which largely benefited the wealthy. That was the policy decision, and the basis of it was that the wealthy are job creators and could use the money more efficiently in the creation of wealth for everyone. Whether that happened or not is another issue for debate, but the result is, we now have that debt to pay, and we have to allocate, and that inevitably means a redistribution decision. What is the alternative to that, other than not paying the debt, dishonoring as some of our politicians are advocating? But if we say redistribution is off the table, how can we ever make decisions which are necessarily and inherently redistributive?
--Hiram
And the fact is we have reached this point, and that's why our constitutional system is failed. It is no longer capable of making the decision it must make, as much as anything because too many people have too much unrestrained power to prevent our system from doing anything at all.
--Hiram
"Nothing could be clearer than this is the Bush tax cuts. In 2001 and 2002, we made a decision to borrow money and use it to reduce taxes, tax cuts which largely benefited the wealthy. " -- hiram
Incredible! Where did you learn your math, public schools? If we cut taxes for anybody, we didn't have to borrow money to do it, we just had to cut spending accordingly! If I decide to take a job that pays less because, say, it gives me more time with my family, do I go out and borrow money to maintain my lifestyle? No, I can't do it even if I wanted to. I cut my spending back to live within my means. The only decisions I have to make is what I can afford on my current income. Government SHOULD be like that, but it isn't. They exempt themselves.
Oh, and by the way, that huge debt run up by the Bush tax cuts? Bush added $4.9T to the debt in EIGHT years, and Obama has added about $5.9T in just FOUR. And let's not forget that the Bush deficits were going DOWN, to less than $200B/year, while Obama's have been consistently above $1T EVERY year. That's at least $800B every year of just pure profligacy on Obama's watch that cannot possibly be blamed on Bush. Bush had the deficit under control. Obama and the Democrats haven't even tried.
J. Ewing
If we cut taxes for anybody, we didn't have to borrow money to do it, we just had to cut spending accordingly! If I decide to take a job that pays less because, say, it gives me more time with my family, do I go out and borrow money to maintain my lifestyle?
We could have decided to do that, but that isn't what we decided to do. We in fact made the choice to borrow money to pay for the tax cuts, which went mostly to the wealthy.
--Hiram
No one borrows money to pay for cuts... They borrow money to finance their spending habits...
No one borrows money to pay for cuts..
Nevertheless, that's exactly what happened. And the denial on this issue, is why the deficit is exploding.
--Hiram
So you are proposing that the Government took out debt and transferred this money to the "wealthy".
So you are proposing that the Government took out debt and transferred this money to the "wealthy".
That's what happened.
When did the government send out these checks to the wealthy folks. I must have missed hearing about this.
When did the government send out these checks to the wealthy folks. I must have missed hearing about this.
They generally go out in the first months of the year.
--Hiram
I believe those are called "refund" checks. And that they just give people back their money that the people overpaid through withholding too much.
In essence they are just giving back "change" for an over payment. Unless you think that the store is giving you $5, when you pay a $15 tab with a $20 bill...
Try again.
Nevertheless, that's when you get them. That's when your tax bill is settled.
What Mitt Romney wanted was for you to keep less of your money so he could keep more of his. Whether that's good policy or bad policy is a disputable issue. Many argue that Mitt was a special kind of human being, a "job creator" who would use that money more effectively in the creation of jobs. How did those policies when they were implemented in 2001 work out for us? Did they create or contribute to the creation of a prosperous economy? Did wages rise? Was a financial and real estate bubble fueled by those lower taxes on the rich not created? Did not the whole thing implode in the worst recession since the great one? What basis do we have for concluding that the "job creators" will use money they save in taxes more constructively next time? Have they learned their lessons?
--Hiram
The "Job Creators" are going to pay higher taxes. It is just us working stiffs who are getting off on the cheap. (except that Obamacare thing)
Figured that would warm your Progressive Tax heart.
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