Obamas opening bid

[Th'Pusher]

$1.6T in new revenue
Permanently eliminating the debt ceiling
$50B in infrastructure

for
$400B in entitlement cuts

look at the balls on this motherfucker.

[CosmicCowboy]

That is not a legitimate offer. That is posturing to his base.

[CosmicCowboy]

Even blue teamers can't think that is a legitimate offer.

[Th'Pusher]

That is not a legitimate offer. That is posturing to his base.

I know. Hence, the opening bid comment in the subject line. With republicans capitulating on revenues and running away from grover before he even made an opening bid, I'd feel emboldened to make an opening bid as one sided as that too.

[coyotes_geek]

$1.6T in new revenue

Fine.


Permanently eliminating the debt ceiling

No fucking way. Horrible idea.


$50B in infrastructure

More.



for
$400B in entitlement cuts

Multiply by 10.

[CosmicCowboy]

I know. Hence, the opening bid comment in the subject line. With republicans capitulating on revenues and running away from grover before he even made an opening bid, I'd feel emboldened to make an opening bid as one sided as that too.

Agree

That is another reason I despise Obama. He would rather posture for his base than actually govern. Fucker acts like he is still running for re-election and still playing the class warfare game. $1 spending cuts for every $4 in tax increases? Really?

[boutons_deux]

yes, a bad joke

"$50B in infrastructure"

?? should be about $2T.

"$400B in entitlement cuts"

This ain't gonna happen. ACA already has plenty $720B in savings, and probably more.

[Th'Pusher]

Agree

That is another reason I despise Obama. He would rather posture for his base than actually govern. Fucker acts like he is still running for re-election and still playing the class warfare game. $1 spending cuts for every $4 in tax increases? Really?

It's not like there has been no posturing from the red team. Up until November 6 revenue was not even on the table.

[Th'Pusher]

Fine.



No fucking way. Horrible idea.



More.



Multiply by 10.

Seems about right, although I disagree with you on abolishing the debt ceiling now that Boehmer thinks the US credit standing is a bargaining chip. If you don't want to spend money, Dont appropriate it.

[CosmicCowboy]

It's not like there has been no posturing from the red team. Up until November 6 revenue was not even on the table.

Agree that red team need to give up on the tax cuts expiring on those over 250K. It's not the small business destroyer that red team claims it is and everyone knows it.

[CosmicCowboy]

BTW, 1.4 trillion of new revenue is a hell of a lot more than just letting tax cuts for those over 250K expire. Sounds like he is going for cap gains and death taxes too.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs have proposed nothing other that "increased revenue" while keeping tax rates the same, and fucking over the 99%.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

This is fuckin stupid on his part. The $400B in entitlement cuts must be some kind of joke.

Whoever said it a few posts above is right. The 1.4T in new revenue is fine if he's also cutting entitlements by several trillion.

It's also remarkable that through all of this, neither party is entertaining the idea of cutting our out of control defense budget. It's painfully obvious the military industrial complex has all of Washington in its back pocket.

[CosmicCowboy]

There are also rumblings of discontinuing new 401K's and converting the existing 401k's with the government snatching the cash and issuing "3% guaranteed return" US gov bonds that will pay out monthly when the people whose 401K's they confiscated retire.

[Th'Pusher]

There are also rumblings of discontinuing new 401K's and converting the existing 401k's with the government snatching the cash and issuing "3% guaranteed return" US gov bonds that will pay out monthly when the people whose 401K's they confiscated retire.

Yeah, I don't think there is any chance of 401ks being nationalized.

[CosmicCowboy]

Yeah, I don't think there is any chance of 401ks being nationalized.

It certainly goes along with the "war on rich people" rhetoric. Obama's base doesn't have 401K's.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Obama's war on rich people has been nothing other than rhetoric through 4 years though :lol.

For all the tax hikes on rich people he's proposed, taxes are just as favorable for rich people now as they've ever been. I'm not sure why other liberals act like he's such a champion for the non-rich given his policies.

[Th'Pusher]

It certainly goes along with the "war on rich people" rhetoric. Obama's base doesn't have 401K's.
Hey. I'm his base and I have a 401k :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

Obama's war on rich people has been nothing other than rhetoric through 4 years though :lol.

For all the tax hikes on rich people he's proposed, taxes are just as favorable for rich people now as they've ever been. I'm not sure why other liberals act like he's such a champion for the non-rich given his policies.

Looks pretty clear to me that one way or the other he is gonna get his tax hikes on the "rich".

[Th'Pusher]

Obama's war on rich people has been nothing other than rhetoric through 4 years though :lol.

For all the tax hikes on rich people he's proposed, taxes are just as favorable for rich people now as they've ever been. I'm not sure why other liberals act like he's such a champion for the non-rich given his policies.
Now that he doesn't have to worry about reelection... In all seriousness, the guy is a pragmatic centrist, which is why I like him.

[CosmicCowboy]

Hey. I'm his base and I have a 401k :lol

You don't want to trade your 401K for an IOU from the Federal government? Why don't you want to pay your fair share?

[coyotes_geek]

Seems about right, although I disagree with you on abolishing the debt ceiling now that Boehmer thinks the US credit standing is a bargaining chip. If you don't want to spend money, Dont appropriate it.

Not having a debt ceiling just makes it too easy to keep kicking the can down the road. As big a pain in the arse as the debt ceiling is, I definitely think we're better off having it than we would be without it.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Looks pretty clear to me that one way or the other he is gonna get his tax hikes on the "rich".

Only took him 4 years when he had a majority in both houses for 2 of them :lol. This proposal is nothing more than posturing and almost arrogance. He's basically sticking his tongue out and taunting the tea baggers that he won a 2nd term.

[DMX7]

He's throwing the repugs a bone. His offer should be "Fuck You, I won, we do this shit my way".

[Drachen]

Even blue teamers can't think that is a legitimate offer.

I was listening to this on NPR and I thought it was backwards. 4 to 1 revenues to cuts? That's the opposite.

[CosmicCowboy]

I was listening to this on NPR and I thought it was backwards. 4 to 1 revenues to cuts? That's the opposite.

It is

and it's a ridiculous offer.

As I've said previously I'd be fine with a 5/1 ratio of cuts/tax increases.

Obama is offering the opposite.

[coyotes_geek]

He's throwing the repugs a bone. His offer should be "Fuck You, I won, we do this shit my way".

Wonderful idea. I'm sure the republicans who still hold the House and can filibuster in the Senate would be so intimidated by Obama's bravado that they would just roll over.

[Drachen]

It is

and it's a ridiculous offer.

As I've said previously I'd be fine with a 5/1 ratio of cuts/tax increases.

Obama is offering the opposite.

I would say go back to 4 to 1 but yeah, I am generally right next to ya here.

the stimulus is new, I like it, but for how long and give me specific fucking spending goals on that (I want new bridges, or an upgraded grid, not short term load shooting or tax breaks)

However I agree with the above that 50 b is a little low to achieve those goals, but I understand that we are trying to cut the deficit, so I guess take what you can get.

Do not do away with the debt ceiling.

[boutons_deux]

The deficit isn't a problem.

(good) jobs, housing, student debt bubble/costs, economic stimulus are the 99% priorities.

It's the 1%/VRWC talking point (Ryan's twice-approved budget INCREASED the deficit by $5T) to "broaden the tax base", ie, reduce taxes on the 1% and increase taxes on the 99%.

The 1%/VRWC and their Repug shills don't a give a flying fuck about about the deficit.

[Drachen]

The deficit isn't a problem.

(good) jobs, housing, student debt bubble/costs, economic stimulus are the 99% priorities.

It's the 1%/VRWC talking point (Ryan's twice-approved budget INCREASED the deficit by $5T) to "broaden the tax base", ie, reduce taxes on the 1% and increase taxes on the 99%.

The 1%/VRWC and their Repug shills don't a give a flying fuck about about the deficit.

Thanks Dick Cheney, we appreciate your input, but you are no longer in power.

[LnGrrrR]

Agree

That is another reason I despise Obama. He would rather posture for his base than actually govern. Fucker acts like he is still running for re-election and still playing the class warfare game. $1 spending cuts for every $4 in tax increases? Really?

Cmon CC, when you try to talk down the price of the car, do you try the price you want, or a few thousand under the price you want so both parties "win" when you get to an agreed upon price?

I'm pretty sure that by the time this is finished, spending cuts will be at least equal to new revenue, probably more.

[CosmicCowboy]

Cmon CC, when you try to talk down the price of the car, do you try the price you want, or a few thousand under the price you want so both parties "win" when you get to an agreed upon price?

I'm pretty sure that by the time this is finished, spending cuts will be at least equal to new revenue, probably more.

Well, I don't walk in and offer them 5K for a new crew cab Z71...I start at something I think is reasonable and work from there.

[boutons_deux]

How is the Repug position of NO RISE INCOME TAX RATES (esp for the 1%) while bitching about the deficit nothing but posturing?

[DarrinS]

A modest proposal:

Go back to the Clinton-era tax rates AND SPENDING RATES.


I know --- too extremist

EDIT> And probably somehow racist, too

[DarrinS]

There are also rumblings of discontinuing new 401K's and converting the existing 401k's with the government snatching the cash and issuing "3% guaranteed return" US gov bonds that will pay out monthly when the people whose 401K's they confiscated retire.


http://business.time.com/2012/11/28/fiscal-cliff-why-congress-might-have-to-mess-with-the-401k/

They'd better keep their greedy mits off my retirement plan.

[LnGrrrR]

Well, I don't walk in and offer them 5K for a new crew cab Z71...I start at something I think is reasonable and work from there.

Well, you do have a good point there. :lol Still, the President has a bit more pull than a normal car buyer :)

[Winehole23]

what's red team's opening bid?

[Th'Pusher]

what's red team's opening bid?
Good question. Revenue!!!

[Winehole23]

First, the bad news: There’s roughly a trillion in new revenue in Corker’s plan. About $250 billion comes from reforming the way Social Security benefits are calculated. The other $750 billion comes from a $50,000 cap on itemized deductions, which would increase the tax bills of some Americans — most of them higher earners. There’s some bad news on the spending side, too: It counts scheduled cuts from the debt-limit deal and war spending that wasn’t going to happen anyway in its $3.528 trillion in cuts.


But it also contains real meat, including $400 billion in belt-tightening in the federal work force (expanding the current hiring freeze and reining in federal-employee benefits) and, most significantly, more than $700 billion in savings obtained from full-spectrum entitlement reform: enrollment-age increases, tighter growth formulae, means-testing, and a strong, market-driven alternative to fee-for-service Medicare that alone is expected to save $290 billion over ten years.


Any of this sound familiar? As I put it in the Corner, it looks like Romney’s tax plan made flesh and dwelling among us. But, as Ross Douthat pointed out (http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/bob-corker-and-the-romney-road-not-taken/), that’s not exactly right, since Romney’s tax plan also came with across-the-board 20 percent rate cuts. So it’s probably more accurate to say Corker’s plan is Romney’s plan made flesh with more plausible math and greater respect for political constraints.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/334456/corker-s-carrots-and-sticks-daniel-foster?pg=1

[boutons_deux]

Five Overreactions To Obama’s Fiscal Cliff Proposal (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/11/30/1264031/fiscal-cliff-overreaction/)


Worse than surrender in the Civil War: Leading conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer likened (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/charles-krauthammer-fiscal-cliff_n_2215815.html) Obama’s proposal to the terms of surrender offered to Confederates in the Civil War, only the president’s deal was worse. “It’s not just a bad deal, this is really an insulting deal… Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox and he lost the Civil War,” said Krauthammer.


Out of a fairytale: Writing in her Wall Street Journal column, Kimberley Strassel lambasted (http://online.wsj.com/article/potomac_watch.html) the plan as “something out of Wonderland and Oz combined.” She went on to argue that Obama wasn’t negotiating in good faith. “The most frightening aspect of the White House proposal is that it wasn’t an error.”


“Nothing good can come of negotiating further”: RedState editor Erick Erickson, whose counsel (http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/07/25/278371/erick-erickson-will-look-down-and-whisper-no/) congressional Republicans regularly seek, advised (http://www.redstate.com/2012/11/30/cliff-diving/) the GOP to pack up, go home, and take the country over the cliff. “Nothing good can come of negotiating further,” Erickson wrote. “The GOP should pass what they want and promptly go home. Let the Democrats stay and sort things out. Dive.”


“I’d walk out”: MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman, said that his Party ought to walk out (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/30/scarborough-to-republicans-quit-budget-talks-if-obama-cant-get-along-like-clinton-and-gingrich-did/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29) of negotiations, saying Obama’s proposal was solely meant to “provoke” House Republicans. Speaking on his morning show, Scarborough detailed what his reaction would have been had he been in negotiations: “I would have said, ‘We’re all busy people, this is a critical time, if you’re going to come over here and insult us and intentionally try to provoke us, you can do that but I’m going back to work now.’ And I’d walk out.”


“Congress should dive headlong off fiscal cliff”: After a lengthy column (http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/30/tucker-carlson-and-neil-patel-congress-should-dive-headlong-off-fiscal-cliff/) detailing how going over the fiscal cliff “would shock the economy,” Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson advised GOPers to “dive headlong off fiscal cliff” following Obama’s proposal. “Republicans don’t have a lot of good choices right now,” Tucker wrote. “They might as well try it.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/11/30/1264031/fiscal-cliff-overreaction/

The 99% wasn't screwed enough for these assholes.

[Winehole23]

Jonathan Cohn with a counterintuitive gloss of Obama's unbalanced proposal:


But let’s focus on this claim, from Republicans, that Obama only wants to raise taxes and isn’t serious about spending cuts. Here’s an analysis from one senior Republican aide, as relayed to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/major-setbacks-in-fiscal-cliff-negotiations/):


The White House keeps saying it wants a ‘balanced approach’ but this offer is completely unbalanced and unrealistic. It calls for $1.6 trillion in tax hikes – all of that upfront – in exchange for only $400 billion in spending cuts that come later. Plus, the only entitlement changes they proposed come from the exact proposals in the President’s budget.


The trouble with this analysis is that it ignores history: As part of the 2011 Budget Control Act, Obama agreed to spending reductions of about $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. If you count the interest, the savings is actually $1.7 trillion. Boehner should have no problem remembering the details of that deal: As Greg Sargent (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/forever-moving-the-goal-posts-on-spending-cuts/2012/11/29/e9485c74-3a4d-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_blog.html) points out, Boehner at the time actually gloated about the fact that the deal was "all spending cuts."

And now, with this latest offer, Obama is proposing yet more spending reductions, to the tune of several hundred billion dollars. Add it up and it’s more than $2 trillion in spending cuts Obama has either signed into law or is endorsing now. That’s obviously greater than the $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue (http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2012/11/16/understanding-president-obamas-revenue-targets/) he’s seeking. (And that doesn't even take into account automatic cuts from the 2011 budget sequester, which Obama has proposed to defer, or savings from ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.) So, yes, Obama’s proposal is unbalanced—but not in the way Republicans seem to think. If Obama were proposing a truly balanced plan, he’d be calling for even more tax revenue or even less spending reduction.http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/110606/obama-deficit-reduction-offer-spending-cut-tax-increase-boehner

[CosmicCowboy]

LOL sounds like Boutons thinks Obama's proposal was fair.

[Winehole23]

allowing the Bush/Obama tax cuts to expire (and the prospect of a recession in 2013 if no deal is done) is a gun pointed at everyone's head. poking the GOP in the eye might not have been the most astute opening move, but negotiations have to start somewhere. whining about the unfairness of it all hardly inspires confidence in GOP leadership.

[TeyshaBlue]

LOL sounds like Boutons thinks Obama's proposal was fair.

boutons thinks whatever he's told to think.

[TeyshaBlue]

allowing the Bush/Obama tax cuts to expire (and the prospect of a recession in 2013 if no deal is done) is a gun pointed at everyone's head. poking the GOP in the eye might not have been the most astute opening move, but negotiations have to start somewhere. whining about the unfairness of it all hardly inspires confidence in GOP leadership.

True...but calling that an opening offer is a bit of a stretch.

[TeyshaBlue]

It's a positioning statement, not an offer.

[Winehole23]

on the PR front, GOP is playing catch up. the tactic of letting the President "own" both major elements of the deal -- revenue and spending changes, with the attendant political liabilities -- has the strategic disadvantage of allowing Obama to set the terms, which Obama has done in a way probably calculated to provoke hurt feelings and intransigence. Obama, the GOP and the country are all on perilous ground here.

[Winehole23]

True...but calling that an opening offer is a bit of a stretch.how is it not one?

[Winehole23]

at this point in the talks, everything is a positioning statement, so I guess I can see that.

[boutons_deux]

boutons thinks whatever he's told to think.

TB! :lol Original thinker! :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

on the PR front, GOP is playing catch up. the tactic of letting the President "own" both major elements of the deal -- revenue and spending changes, with the attendant political liabilities -- has the strategic disadvantage of allowing Obama to set the terms, which Obama has done in a way probably calculated to provoke hurt feelings and intransigence. Obama, the GOP and the country are all on perilous ground here.

Nothing new...GOP strategists, such as they are, are as feckless usual. Seizing momentum won't be easy...probably impossible at this point.

[CosmicCowboy]

Republicans need to come back with "We will let you raise taxes as much as you want as long as you couple that to 4X in immediate spending cuts...just tell us how much you want to raise taxes and how you want to make the cuts"

[TeyshaBlue]

Make TB stop bitch slapping me! :cry

[TeyshaBlue]

at this point in the talks, everything is a positioning statement, so I guess I can see that.

First your positioning statement. Then your offer.

Obama either made a combo deal out of it, or his "offer" is mischaracterized.

[Winehole23]

Republicans need to come back with "We will let you raise taxes as much as you want as long as you couple that to 4X in immediate spending cuts...just tell us how much you want to raise taxes and how you want to make the cuts" red team for the moment clearly prefers to bellyache about how unfair and unreasonable the President is. is that good PR, or just self-indulgent and whiny?

[Winehole23]

First your positioning statement. Then your offer.

Obama either made a combo deal out of it, or his "offer" is mischaracterized.perhaps. isn't offer/counteroffer the regular order of business until enough people on both sides agree to sign on?

[Th'Pusher]

I think we'll end up with a 3 or 4:1 spending to revenue ratio, which is about right

[TeyshaBlue]

perhaps. isn't offer/counteroffer the regular order of business until enough people on both sides agree to sign on?

yup....that's why I don't think the opener was an offer.

[Winehole23]

b/c there's no probability of any counteroffer?

[TeyshaBlue]

b/c there's no probability of any counteroffer?

Because it was really a positioning statement. The whiny GOP response is theirs, most likely.

[boutons_deux]

"how much you want to raise taxes and how you want to make the cuts"

why don't the dickless Repugs say:

1) how they intend to raise revenue without any income tax raises

2) where THEY want to cut

[baseline bum]

Should tax capital gains as income and raise tax rates on everyone to the Clinton levels. Not sure what age makes sense, but SS should get bumped up for longer life expectancies. Don't agree with raising the medicare eligility age since all the cost comes from end of life coverage anyways, not from the first couple of years one is on it. Also, enough with the field trips into the middle east. Military spending does great things for the economy when it goes into R&D and actual defensive projects, but burning cash in constant offensive guerrila wars is stupid.

[RandomGuy]

Even blue teamers can't think that is a legitimate offer.

About as legitimate as any opening bid, i.e. not much.

Last go 'round or two he offered to meet them in the middle a bit more and got shit on.

This time around, I think he and his administration has realized the GOP in congress won't go along for anything at all, and are getting ready to play some hardball, which is what most on the left have been screaming for, including yours truly.

The GOP's proposals are unpopular, the Democrats' are more popular.

This will not end well for the Republicans in the House. They will cave in the end, with the president giving a bit in return, but the fight will lose them more in the long run than they will realize. My take, and not overly confident in that, to be 100% honest.

We'll see.

Bit of background on Obama's positions in the past relative to the current one:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/11/barack-obama-and-fiscal-cliff

[LnGrrrR]

Republicans need to come back with "We will let you raise taxes as much as you want as long as you couple that to 4X in immediate spending cuts...just tell us how much you want to raise taxes and how you want to make the cuts"

Then they say "military spending" and Republicans say HEY HEY HEY WAIT A SECOND....

[baseline bum]

Then they say "military spending" and Republicans say HEY HEY HEY WAIT A SECOND....

Damn, you really want out of that Clovis assignment, huh?

[TeyshaBlue]

Damn, you really want out of that Clovis assignment, huh?

:lol:lol:lol

[LnGrrrR]

You know, that base was SUPPOSED to be shut down... :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

Yeah. Lets agree that they all suck.

I'm buying more ammo.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Then they say "military spending" and Republicans say HEY HEY HEY WAIT A SECOND....

:lmao

Republicans want a small government that doesn't give any help to poor people but blows through money when it comes to defense spending.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs don't even consider their beloved, corrupt, wasteful MIC to part of the hated government.

[Winehole23]

Elephant in the room is SS/Medicare. Neither side wants to put popular government programs on the chopping block.

Revenue is one side of the ledger, spending the other. Neither side appears ready to get serious about balancing the books.

[Winehole23]

so, we get more posturing and competitive finger pointing

[CosmicCowboy]

Elephant in the room is SS/Medicare. Neither side wants to put popular government programs on the chopping block.

Revenue is one side of the ledger, spending the other. Neither side appears ready to get serious about balancing the books.

In this game of fiscal chicken O is trying to force the Republicans to put SS and Medicare cuts on the table so he can veto it and be a champion of the people.

[Winehole23]

Red team is aggrieved that the President hasn't offered them political cover by making himself the goat who proposes entitlement cuts. boo hoo. Underscores for me how unserious both sides are about our long term fiscal situation.

[Winehole23]

Everybody wants to be Santa Claus; no one wants to be the Grinch, but in all seriousness, we need one of those. It won't happen unless the two parties embrace their responsibility to the country, hold hands and leap together.

I'm not holding my breath . . .

[CosmicCowboy]

Red team is aggrieved that the President hasn't offered them political cover by making himself the goat who proposes entitlement cuts. boo hoo. Underscores for me how unserious both sides are about our long term fiscal situation.

Uhhhh...red team has put the cuts on the table basically modeling the 2011 Ryan proposal.

[Winehole23]

do tell. who put them on the table?

[Winehole23]

last I heard, negotiations were stalemated. there's a counteroffer?

[boutons_deux]

Uhhhh...red team has put the cuts on the table basically modeling the 2011 Ryan proposal.

Ryan's sociopathic budget, twice-passed in the House, increased deficit by $5T+ over 10 years.

Repugs don't GAF about the deficit, only about protecting/enriching the 1$ and UCA, fucking over of the (black, brown) 99%, and privatizing SS $Ts into the Wall St den of thieve and frauds.

[CosmicCowboy]

last I heard, negotiations were stalemated. there's a counteroffer?

Oh, there are still at a stalemate but red team is publicly still backing entitlement reform.


Boehner, like the Democrats, looked to past Republican proposals. He said Republican ideas are laid out in the 2011 House budget drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which would make massive changes to Medicare and deep cuts to spending programs. It is a plan that did not get past the Senate.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57556679/fiscal-cliff-clock-ticks-political-battle-rages/

[Winehole23]

@ boutons: shush, you. adults talkin . . .

[Winehole23]

Oh, there are still at a stalemate but red team is publicly still backing entitlement reform.



http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57556679/fiscal-cliff-clock-ticks-political-battle-rages/so, more GOP lip service to entitlement reform. thanks for confirming there's nothing on the table.

[Drachen]

@ boutons: shush, you. adults talkin . . .

LOL, I was like, Dude! CC only trying to answer the question YOU posed. Then I looked directly above his post and got it, refreshed the page and you had updated. LOL

[CosmicCowboy]

The proposal is apparently to limit deductions to the wealthy instead of increasing rates coupled with entitlement reform.

I'm not necessarily advocating their plan but they do have the framework of a proposal on the table.

[Winehole23]

"framework of a proposal" = political posturing, until something be proposed.

[CosmicCowboy]

pot, kettle, black

[Winehole23]

sure. it's all political posturing. as indicated above, I think neither side serious.

[Winehole23]

partisans of course will take the bloviating in earnest when it is their side doing the bloviating. both sides are talking past one another, to the voters.

as usual, electoral considerations man the conn, responsibility and service walk the plank.

[boutons_deux]

"The proposal is apparently to limit deductions to the wealthy"

no, it's to limit deductions on everybody, iow, "broadening" the tax base well below the wealthy.

Bishop's Gecko's $25K-deduction-limit would hit millions of 99% who already pay more in taxes than the tax avoiding/evading 1%.

[CosmicCowboy]

partisans of course will take the bloviating in earnest when it is their side doing the bloviating. both sides are talking past one another, to the voters.

as usual, electoral considerations man the conn, responsibility and service walk the plank.

And in comes boutox right on cue.

[RandomGuy]

Red team is aggrieved that the President hasn't offered them political cover by making himself the goat who proposes entitlement cuts. boo hoo. Underscores for me how unserious both sides are about our long term fiscal situation.

I would agree with the analysis given by some guest I saw on CNBC's morning show.

What will happen is that this long term crisis will not be solved by any grand bargain, but a series of incremental steps along the way. We have time, hand-waving aside, to fix things.

By about the time things really need to get fixed, the GOP will have marginized itself so effectively, that the moderate Democrats can hammer out an actual solution. I say "moderate", but they will be the fiscally conservative sane people driven out of the GOP by the nutbags.

It will take 10 years to be sure, but it will happen. Keep an eye on the next few congressional elections. If it unfolds as I think it will, the GOP will steadily lose seats in narrow nail-biters. By the time the next census rolls around, Congressional redisctricting will be controlled by more Democratic state legislatures.

[Winehole23]

What will happen is that this long term crisis will not be solved by any grand bargain, but a series of incremental steps along the way. We have time, hand-waving aside, to fix things."We have time to fix this" generally precedes a foray of the boot to the can. I have a hard time seeing why an emerging Democratic majority, if it is that, would risk its electoral prospects by cutting SS/Medicare, even incrementally.

It could happen, but that seems unlikely, rather than commonsensical, to me.

[coyotes_geek]

Asking your own constituents to sacrifice something is hard. Letting everything go to shit and blaming it all on the other team is easy. I fully expect our politicians to take the easy way out. Red team and blue team will continue to point fingers at each other while allowing the SS and medicare trust funds to be depleted. Once that happens SS&M benefits will be cut to match available revenues, regardless of the impact those cuts will have on beneficiaries. The money simply won't be there. People with the financial means and the foresight to have prepared accordingly will come out okay, everyone else gets fucked. When that happens, our politicians will be there to remind us that it's all the other team's fault.

[101A]

People with the financial means and the foresight to have prepared accordingly will come out okay, everyone else gets fucked.

...and because of their foresight and diligence will be ridiculed, and whatever private financial nest egg they have saved will be taken for the public good. Their fair share, after all.

[coyotes_geek]

...and because of their foresight and diligence will be ridiculed, and whatever private financial nest egg they have saved will be taken for the public good. Their fair share, after all.

Certainly a portion of it. What a country!

[CosmicCowboy]

Asking your own constituents to sacrifice something is hard. Letting everything go to shit and blaming it all on the other team is easy. I fully expect our politicians to take the easy way out. Red team and blue team will continue to point fingers at each other while allowing the SS and medicare trust funds to be depleted. Once that happens SS&M benefits will be cut to match available revenues, regardless of the impact those cuts will have on beneficiaries. The money simply won't be there. People with the financial means and the foresight to have prepared accordingly will come out okay, everyone else gets fucked. When that happens, our politicians will be there to remind us that it's all the other team's fault.

They will just keep monetizing the debt. The money may not be worth shit but they will continue to pay the dollar benefits they promised.

[CosmicCowboy]

That's why I'm loading up on hard assets/debt and going long at low fixed interest rates.

[CosmicCowboy]

Oh and when inflation really kicks in they will blame it on the greedy business people and impose mandatory wage and price controls.

[boutons_deux]

After Promising To Preserve Medicare For Curent Retirees, GOP Demands Immediate Cuts In Fiscal Cliff Talks (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/12/03/1273861/republicans-demand-immediate-cuts-to-medicare-as-down-payment-in-fiscal-cliff-talks/)


House Republicans say the down payment should be at least $110 billion, the value of the automatic spending cuts they would cancel next year, and they want those savings to come largely from cuts in Medicare and other benefit programs. [...]

But Republicans say they are selling Congress short on what can be done before the January deadline. They made clear that they want some initial changes to entitlement programs ahead of larger talks next year.
Senator Michael D. Crapo, Republican of Idaho and another Gang of Six member, said some initial changes to entitlement programs could and should be in the down payment.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/12/03/1273861/republicans-demand-immediate-cuts-to-medicare-as-down-payment-in-fiscal-cliff-talks/

[coyotes_geek]

They will just keep monetizing the debt. The money may not be worth shit but they will continue to pay the dollar benefits they promised.

I don't think so. Too much pressure from the richers, the corporations and foreign governments who stand to lose big time.

Edit: You can also add every state and local government to the list above.

[CosmicCowboy]

I don't think so. Too much pressure from the richers, the corporations and foreign governments who stand to lose big time.

Nah, corporations will just jack their prices to keep pace with inflation.

[coyotes_geek]

Nah, corporations will just jack their prices to keep pace with inflation.

Sure, that's what they would do, but it's not going to come to that.

Trying to monetize the SS&M hole screws absolutely everyone. Sticking it to SS&M beneficiares has far less damage.

[CosmicCowboy]

Sure, that's what they would do, but it's not going to come to that.

Trying to monetize the SS&M hole screws absolutely everyone. Sticking it to SS&M beneficiares has far less damage.

Hell, they are doing it right now...monetizing debt without addressing any significant cost cuts.

[coyotes_geek]

True, but they're not worrying about SS&M right now.

[CosmicCowboy]

True, but they're not worrying about SS&M right now.

Red and blue team both know SS&M are broke and the only way they will be able to pay those promised benefits will be to significantly increase revenue (taxes on everybody) or print money.

[Winehole23]

Oh and when inflation really kicks in they will blame it on the greedy business people and impose mandatory wage and price controls.like Nixon did in the early seventies, for example

[RandomGuy]

Oh and when inflation really kicks in they will blame it on the greedy business people and impose mandatory wage and price controls.

Price controls have become politically unpossible. I have a hard time seeing any combination of events that would make such a thing possible.

[CosmicCowboy]

Price controls have become politically unpossible. I have a hard time seeing any combination of events that would make such a thing possible.

Just curious...how old are you? I'm old enough to remember 18% inflation and wage and price controls. It wasn't that long ago.

[Winehole23]

prediction isn't a particularly strong point for CC, but that never discouraged him.



(Benghazi, Solyndra, Keystone XL, ACORN . . .)

[RandomGuy]

Just curious...how old are you? I'm old enough to remember 18% inflation and wage and price controls. It wasn't that long ago.

42

They were bad ideas then, and bad ideas now.

Modern GOP ain't gonna impose any, and Democrats, having been the party that ended them in the 70's won't impose them either. Economists would simply point out to either party how dumb they are, and that would be the end of it.

As much as many buy the myth that Democrats don't understand free markets and economics, that isn't fully the case, and policy makers most certainly would get quite a bit of expert advice why such controls would be a bad idea.

[Th'Pusher]

GOP counteroffer http://m.politico.com/iphone/story/1212/84522.html

[CosmicCowboy]

prediction isn't a particularly strong point for CC, but that never discouraged him.



(Benghazi, Solyndra, Keystone XL, ACORN . . .)

i'm not sure what you think I predicted in those cases...maybe have me confused with someone else?

And you honestly think we can continue to run trillion dollar deficits year after year and keep monetizing debt without eventually stimulating a nasty round of inflation?

[Winehole23]

you said they'd be big hairy scandals that could sink Obama. you weren't even close.

as for inflation, I have no idea. I don't pretend to be an expert on macroeconomics like you.

[CosmicCowboy]

you said they'd be big hairy scandals that could sink Obama. you weren't even close.

as for inflation, I have no idea. I don't pretend to be an expert on macroeconomics like you.

Please find a quote where I said that.

[boutons_deux]

Republicans Revert To Pre-Election Tax Plan: Promise To Raise Revenue By Magic (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/03/1275261/republicans-revert-to-pre-election-tax-plan-promise-to-raise-revenue-by-magic/)


The $2.2 trillion blueprint extends Bush tax cuts for all Americans, including the wealthiest two percent, but finds $800 billion in revenue from “tax reform” by limiting or closing unspecified tax loopholes and deductions. Significantly, the higher revenues will be identified by the relevant House committees (https://twitter.com/jonathanweisman/status/275707379167932416) next year, and will not be included in the immediate down payment. The plan also enacts an array of mandatory and discretionary spending cuts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2012/12/03/694dbc1e-3d84-11e2-a2d9-822f58ac9fd5_story.html):


– $600 billion in health savings, including raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

– $300 billion from savings in other mandatory programs.

– $200 billion by applying a less generous measure of inflation to Social Security and Medicare benefits.

– $300 billion in cuts to agency budgets.

The White House rejects the plan:

“The Republican letter released today does not meet the test of balance. In fact, it actually promises to lower rates for the wealthy and sticks the middle class with the bill. Their plan includes nothing new and provides no details on which deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they will close or which Medicare savings they would achieve. Independent analysts who have looked at plans like this one have concluded that middle class taxes will have to go up to pay for lower rates for millionaires and billionaires. “

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/03/1275261/republicans-revert-to-pre-election-tax-plan-promise-to-raise-revenue-by-magic/

[boutons_deux]

Krugman rampaging and trashing Repugs, as usual, and as justified

The Big Budget Mumble


In the ongoing battle of the budget, President Obama has done something very cruel. Declaring that this time he won’t negotiate with himself, he has refused to lay out a proposal reflecting what he thinks Republicans want. Instead, he has demanded that Republicans themselves say, explicitly, what they want. And guess what: They can’t or won’t do it.

No, really. While there has been a lot of bluster from the G.O.P. about how we should reduce the deficit with spending cuts, not tax increases, no leading figures on the Republican side have been able or willing to specify what, exactly, they want to cut.

And there’s a reason for this reticence. The fact is that Republican posturing on the deficit has always been a con game, a play on the innumeracy of voters and reporters. Now Mr. Obama has demanded that the G.O.P. put up or shut up — and the response is an aggrieved mumble.

Here’s where we are right now: As his opening bid in negotiations, Mr. Obama has proposed raising about $1.6 trillion (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-to-open-fiscal-talks-with-plan-to-raise-taxes-on-wealthy/2012/11/13/9984cd78-2dc1-11e2-89d4-040c9330702a_story.html?wprss=rss_politics) in additional revenue over the next decade, with the majority coming from letting the high-end Bush tax cuts expire and the rest from measures to limit tax deductions. He would also cut spending by about $400 billion, through such measures as giving Medicare the ability to bargain for lower drug prices.

Republicans have howled in outrage. Senator Orrin Hatch, delivering the G.O.P. reply to the president’s weekly address, denounced the offer (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34222_162-57556610-10391739/sen-hatch-wh-fiscal-cliff-plan-a-bait-and-switch/) as a case of “bait and switch,” bearing no relationship to what Mr. Obama ran on in the election. In fact, however, the offer is more or less the same as Mr. Obama’s original 2013 budget proposal (http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2012/11/16/understanding-president-obamas-revenue-targets/) and also closely tracks his campaign literature.

So what are Republicans offering as an alternative? They say they want to rely mainly on spending cuts instead. Which spending cuts? Ah, that’s a mystery. In fact, until late last week, as far as I can tell, no leading Republican had been willing to say anything specific at all about how spending should be cut.

The veil lifted a bit when Senator Mitch McConnell, in an interview (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578151322684021276.html) with The Wall Street Journal, finally mentioned a few things — raising the Medicare eligibility age (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42683), increasing Medicare premiums for high-income beneficiaries and changing the inflation adjustment for Social Security. But it’s not clear whether these represent an official negotiating position — and in any case, the arithmetic just doesn’t work.

Start with raising the Medicare age. This is, as I’ve argued in the past, a terrible policy idea. But even aside from that, it’s just not a big money saver, largely because 65- and 66-year-olds have much lower health costs than the average Medicare recipient. When the Congressional Budget Office (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9925/12-18-healthoptions.pdf) analyzed the likely fiscal effects of a rise in the eligibility age, it found that it would save only $113 billion over the next decade and have little effect on the longer-run trajectory of Medicare costs.

Increasing premiums for the affluent would yield even less; a 2010 study by the budget office put the 10-year savings at only about $20 billion.

Changing the inflation adjustment for Social Security would save a bit more — by my estimate, about $185 billion over the next decade. But put it all together, and the things Mr. McConnell was talking (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/the-full-mcconnell/) about would amount to only a bit over $300 billion in budget savings — a fifth of what Mr. Obama proposes in revenue gains.

The point is that when you put Republicans on the spot and demand specifics about how they’re going to make good on their posturing about spending and deficits, they come up empty. There’s no there there.

And there never was. Republicans claim to be for much smaller government, but as a political matter they have always attacked government spending in the abstract, never coming clean with voters about the reality that big cuts in government spending can happen only if we sharply curtail very popular programs. In fact, less than a month ago the Romney/Ryan campaign was attacking Mr. Obama for, yes, cutting Medicare.

Now Republicans find themselves boxed in. With taxes scheduled to rise on Jan. 1 in the absence of an agreement, they can’t play their usual game of just saying no to tax increases and pretending that they have a deficit reduction plan. And the president, by refusing to help them out by proposing G.O.P.-friendly spending cuts, has deprived them of political cover. If Republicans really want to slash popular programs, they will have to propose those cuts themselves.

So while the fiscal cliff — still a bad name for the looming austerity bomb, but I guess we’re stuck with it — is a bad thing from an economic point of view, it has had at least one salutary political effect. For it has finally laid bare the con that has always been at the core of the G.O.P.’s political strategy.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/opinion/krugman-the-big-budget-mumble.html?ref=opinion

[Winehole23]

Please find a quote where I said that.you make so many predictions you can't possibly recall them all. that's ok with me.

[CosmicCowboy]

you make so many predictions you can't possibly recall them all. that's ok with me.

Chill with the attacks dude. I am being quite civil with you and would appreciate the same. I never predicted any of those items would sink Obama. On the contrary I consistently predicted that Obama would win the election and even bet a friend $100 on Obama winning.

[Winehole23]

Chill with the attacks dude. I am being quite civil with you and would appreciate the same.Chill out, dude, repeating what you've said before isn't an attack.


I never predicted any of those items would sink Obama.Count me unsurprised you deny it.

[CosmicCowboy]

Chill out, dude, repeating what you've said before isn't an attack.

Count me unsurprised you deny it.

Show me a quote where I said any of those things would sink Obama. I may have found the way Benghazi was handled personally reprehensible but I never underestimate the stupidity of the general electorate.

[CosmicCowboy]

Seriously, why the attacks? Had a bad day? Sorry.

[LnGrrrR]

Show me a quote where I said any of those things would sink Obama. I may have found the way Benghazi was handled personally reprehensible but I never underestimate the stupidity of the general electorate.It sounds like you're saying that Benghazi should've sunk Obama, if only Americans weren't so dumb. Is tha the message you were going for?

[CosmicCowboy]

It sounds like you're saying that Benghazi should've sunk Obama, if only Americans weren't so dumb. Is tha the message you were going for?

No, I'm saying that I believe the white house lied their ass off. I never made any predictions that Benghazi would affect the outcome of the election. I even felt so strongly that Obama would win the election that I bet $100 on Obama.

[LnGrrrR]

No, I'm saying that I believe the white house lied their ass off. I never made any predictions that Benghazi would affect the outcome of the election. I even felt so strongly that Obama would win the election that I bet $100 on Obama.

That might be true, but tying stupidity to the electorate (implying those who voted for Obama) right after mentioning Benghazi could certainly lead to that conclusion. For example...

"I thought starting a war in Iraq, and the way the evidence was presented, was reprehensible, but stupid electorate..."

[CosmicCowboy]

That might be true, but tying stupidity to the electorate (implying those who voted for Obama) right after mentioning Benghazi could certainly lead to that conclusion. For example...

"I thought starting a war in Iraq, and the way the evidence was presented, was reprehensible, but stupid electorate..."

No need to try to put words in my mouth that weren't there. I realize that WC isn't in here and even though I'm a moderate I'm still the closest thing to a red teamer in here at the moment. That doesn't give you and winehole the right to paint me with all the red teams alleged sins and claim I said things I didn't say.

[LnGrrrR]

No need to try to put words in my mouth that weren't there. I realize that WC isn't in here and even though I'm a moderate I'm still the closest thing to a red teamer in here at the moment. That doesn't give you and winehole the right to paint me with all the red teams alleged sins and claim I said things I didn't say.

I didn't put words in your mouth, though. All I did was take your words, and twist them slightly to show how it might sound coming from a blue teamer. Maybe the way you're saying something isn't coming out quite like you intended. When you bring up a topic, then lament dumb voters, the two tend to be conflated.

[ElNono]

GOP counteroffer http://m.politico.com/iphone/story/1212/84522.html

So there's still no specifics? What entitlements they want to cut? What tax deductions go away?

[CosmicCowboy]

So I assume from the posts that blue teamers are happy to just "raise taxes on the rich" and kick the whole SS and medicare clusterfuck down the road?

[ChumpDumper]

Faulty assumption.

[LnGrrrR]

So I assume from the posts that blue teamers are happy to just "raise taxes on the rich" and kick the whole SS and medicare clusterfuck down the road?

I'm not sure any blue teamers (besides boutons and maybe dan) have said that. I'm also fine with tax reform.

But if Republicans are going to ask for a large amount of spending cuts, maybe they should specify exactly what they'd like to cut. Claiming that revenue should increase because you change something doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. I want them to come up with actual areas they want cut, and how they plan to do it, so we can have a public debate.

[Th'Pusher]

So I assume from the posts that blue teamers are happy to just "raise taxes on the rich" and kick the whole SS and medicare clusterfuck down the road?
SS and Medicare are a clusterfuck because of the cost of healthcare. We need to address the cost of healthcare. What is the new "free-market" plan to address healthcare costs now that O stole the idea for a mandate?

[ElNono]

So I assume from the posts that blue teamers are happy to just "raise taxes on the rich" and kick the whole SS and medicare clusterfuck down the road?

tbh, I was under the impression that neither team wants to touch SS right now... that's not going to be part of the talks on the 'fiscal cliff' from what I read.

[Winehole23]

Show me a quote where I said any of those things would sink Obama. I may have found the way Benghazi was handled personally reprehensible but I never underestimate the stupidity of the general electorate.You rival it, so I defer to your expertise.

[Winehole23]

Seriously, why the attacks? Had a bad day? Sorry.I had a good day.

You? Not so good, tbh.

[Winehole23]

It's understandable you'd be unwilling to claim your own bs, when called out on it. Your predictions suck.

[Winehole23]

That's not an attack. It's an observation. Also, true. You make predictions, often wrong.

I'm not sorry if that hurts.

[Winehole23]

tbh, I was under the impression that neither team wants to touch SS right now... that's not going to be part of the talks on the 'fiscal cliff' from what I read.correct. neither side has the guts.

[Winehole23]

nor the sense of responsibility, though they do have the power

[ElNono]

I get the feeling the question here is not if Barry will give in, but when... at the end of the day, the true rich folks will keep on stashing their money in tax havens, so the change of rates don't really matter to them.

Which really puts into context what this discussion is all about: posturing.

[Winehole23]

Pretty much. I do wonder what sort of deal will be done, if any. I'm expecting some sort of craven half measure that both sides will say the other side forced them to.

[ElNono]

If Barry doesn't fold, it'll be a first, tbh

[Winehole23]

Obama can't be elected again, so that could change the math, but you're probably right.

[Winehole23]

Folds faster than patio furniture, is the pattern.

[Winehole23]

The GOP offer was immediately rejected by the White House, but it provides the most detailed statement to date of what Republicans are willing to concede for now. It comes days after the White House put forward its opening bid in the high-stakes deficit talks. With both sides now having made preliminary offers, the parameters for future negotiations between Republicans and the White House are becoming clearer.

Monday's proposal would make $600 billion in cuts in Medicare and other health programs over 10 years, compared with the $350 billion the president proposed. It would also slow the growth of Social Security benefits, a move most Democrats oppose. The tax-revenue figure is one Republicans say could be achieved without increasing income-tax rates, one of their core objectives.

"What we are putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House," said House Speaker John Boehner (http://topics.wsj.com/person/b/john-boehner/6252) (R., Ohio), in a briefing for reporters.

The proposal was made in a letter sent to the White House and signed by Mr. Boehner and other GOP leaders, notably including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (http://topics.wsj.com/person/r/paul-ryan/6420) (R., Wis.), who has been an opponent of any tax increase both in Congress and as Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running mate. His support will be vital to any final deal.

The offer's outlines are similar to a budget deal that was emerging in private talks between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner in mid-2011, when Mr. Boehner agreed to $800 billion in new revenues but Mr. Obama sought more. Those talks collapsed with each side blaming the other for the breakdown.

The immediate Democratic reaction was dismissive. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the plan "includes nothing new and provides no details on which deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they will close or which Medicare savings they would achieve."

He stuck with the president's insistence that the GOP agree to raising tax rates on upper-income Americans.

Administration officials were surprised by the GOP offer. They played down its potential to advance talks, saying Mr. Obama continues to wait for Republican leaders to soften on higher tax rates.
Still, officials said, congressional leaders and the president could meet by the end of this week. Their last meeting was nearly three weeks ago. Discussions between congressional and White House staff continued over the weekend, officials said.

House Speaker John Boehner calls the new proposal 'a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House.'

On Capitol Hill, congressional Democrats made clear they would not be satisfied until the GOP gave ground on raising upper-income tax rates.

Rep. Sander Levin (http://topics.wsj.com/person/l/sander-levin/5988) (D., Mich.), ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Republicans were in "a state of denial" if they believed they did not have to concede on tax rates.

"The recent election was not a status quo election, but rather a validation of the president's often-stated position on taxes," said Mr. Levin.

Beyond the question of what to do with the top tax rates, another likely sticking point for Democrats in the GOP proposal would be how it treats Social Security. Republicans want to change the way cost-of-living increases are calculated, a shift that would save money by slowing the growth of benefits without fundamentally altering the structure of the program. Many Democrats want to exclude the program from the deficit discussion, because they don't think it contributes to the nation's deficit problem.

Despite the public bantering, typical of a negotiation with weeks to run, the proposal represented modest movement in the face of a deadlock between the parties on how to avoid the fiscal cliff, the $500 billion in tax increases and spending cuts due to take effect in January.

The White House last week irked Republicans by making an opening bid in the budget talks that largely summarized the president's most-recent budget proposal, one that was heavy on tax increases and light on spending cuts.
If nothing else, the GOP offer gives Mr. Obama something more specific to respond to.

Republicans said they were tempted to respond by offering their own most uncompromising proposal—the House-passed budget from Rep. Ryan that called for a far-reaching overhaul of Medicare and no tax increases.

Instead, they drew on a proposal from Erskine Bowles (http://topics.wsj.com/person/b/erskine-bowles/911), a Democrat who has been pushing for bipartisan deficit-reduction plans. The proposal was narrower than that recommended by the president's 2010 deficit-reduction commission, known as Simpson-Bowles.

Mr. Bowles distanced himself on Monday from the GOP proposal, which had been drawn from his testimony before Congress's 2011 deficit-reduction "supercommittee," noting he had simply taken "the midpoint of the public offers put forward during the negotiations to demonstrate where I thought a deal could be reached at that time," Mr. Bowles said in a written statement on Monday.

In their counteroffer, Republicans did not accept Mr. Obama's bottom-line demand that income-tax rates increase for the top two income brackets. GOP aides describing the plan said they believed the proposed $800 billion revenue target could be met without raising rates, but by closing loopholes and deductions in a broad rewrite of the tax code.

The proposal represented a series of targets without much policy detail on how they would be met, such as the specific loopholes and deductions Republicans would get rid of.


Asked if the plan called for an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare, the GOP aides didn't answer directly, but one said, "I don't think there is any way to get a comprehensive deal without it."

The proposal did not say how the plan would fit into the two-step legislative process that leaders of both parties have tentatively embraced. That would include a small deficit-reduction package crafted and passed by year's end, setting the stage for a broader effort next year to revamp the tax code and curb Medicare and other entitlement spending.

The proposal also did not specify how Congress would address the $110 billion in spending cuts set to take effect Jan. 2 in defense and discretionary spending. The GOP aide suggested the plan's savings would be enough to allow the "sequester" to be postponed or replaced.

In a signal of the political pressures facing Mr. Boehner as he seeks compromise with the president, he came under fire Monday from some conservatives for an offer they said conceded too much.
"Speaker Boehner's counteroffer today offers disappointingly small spending reductions," said James Valvo, policy director of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political group.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324355904578157450983453958.html

[MannyIsGod]

No fucking way. Horrible idea.


Why? (eliminating debt ceiling)

[boutons_deux]

Washington's Serious People Are on the War Path Against Middle-Income and Poor People

The Serious People in Washington, such as The Washington Post (both the opinion and news sections), the Wall Street Campaign to Fix the Debt, and the Republican Congressional leadership are in full budget-cutting frenzy. They demand cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and everything else that benefits middle income and poor people because, well, because the market demands it.

And we know the market demands these cuts because the Serious People told us the market demands these cuts. The fact that the cuts have the effect of redistributing income from the rest of us to the Serious People and their friends is just a coincidence.

Those of us who focus on numbers and data might see that we actually have near-record low interest rates on U.S. government debt, suggesting that the markets aren't at all concerned about budget deficits. We can also point out the obvious truth that budget deficits are supporting the economy, given the loss of more than $1 trillion in annual construction and consumption demand as a result of the collapse of the housing bubble.

But the Serious People in Washington don't have the time to deal with the stinkin' numbers. They have worked themselves into a full-fledged budget-cutting frenzy.

Corker's plan, the Fiscal Reform Act of 2012 includes items like cuts to Social Security and Medicare, which are described in classic Washington fashion as "reform."

But the best part of Corker's plan is his proposal for cuts in the wages and benefits of the federal government's workforce. These cuts average $$180,700 for every federal employee. That is not a typo. The figure comes from taking the $397 billion in savings that Corker wants to come from "Federal Employee Hiring and Benefit Reform" and dividing it by the 2,197,000 employees on the federal government's payroll.

That one is worth mulling over for a few minutes.

We're talking about $180,700 in wage and benefit cuts for every nurse and custodian working at the Veterans Administration's hospitals; $180,700 in cuts for every letter carrier who delivers our mail; $180,700 in cuts for every meat inspector at the Food and Drug Administration who ensures that our food is safe.

As always, the folks who were the central cause of the economy's wreckage and the large current budget deficits escape largely unscathed in the Serious People's offensive on the debt. For some reason, the Serious People never consider the idea of a modest tax on Wall Street speculation. Hey, they don't even consider the idea of cutting the pensions of folks like Alan Greenspan, whose astounding incompetence as Federal Reserve Board chairman allowed the housing bubble to grow so big that its collapse would destroy the economy.

But going after the rich and incompetent would not be Serious. In Washington, "Serious" means beating up on people without money and power. It's that simple.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13105-washingtons-serious-people-are-on-the-war-path-against-middle-income-and-poor-people

[boutons_deux]

8 Reasons Wall Street Greed Is the Cause, and the Solution, To Phony Fiscal Cliff Crisis

1. The Wall Street Crash Lies at the Heart of the Problem

Once again our politicians and pundits are showing signs of financial Alzheimer's. They just can't remember that Wall Street's insatiable greed caused the Great Crash of 2008 -- not poor people buying homes, not the government's interference, not the auto-industry, not the debt. In a matter of months, 8 million American lost their jobs. Business and personal tax revenues plummeted, as expenditures rose to assist the unemployed. That's why deficits rose.

2. Wall Street Never Paid For the Bailouts

Finance is the bloodstream of capitalist production. The crash was like a heart attack, crippling the vital organs of the economy (and the saturated fats in the bloodstream were all those glutinous financial innovations). The bailouts and stimulus programs were designed to prevent the patient -- the economy -- from dying. Giving Wall Street all that money and debt guarantees should have been accompanied with immediate reforms, including removal and punishment of top management. Instead it was treated as part of the bonus pool for those who pushed the economy over the cliff. All that free money pushed up government deficits.

3. Wall Street Is Still Collecting Obscene Bonuses

While the rest of America suffers, Wall Street bonuses continue like nothing happened at all. Just look at this revolting chart below on Wall Street bonuses in New York. And total compensation is heading even higher according to recent reports:

http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/large/public/screen_shot_2012-11-30_at_2.06.04_pm.png

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reports that total compensation at Wall Street [3]firms rose 4% last year to more than $60 billion, near pre-crash levels—and the third highest level ever.

Think about that for a moment: The folks who took down the economy and then got bailed out, are getting bonuses like they had nothing at all to do with the crash. And they are the first to call for "fiscal responsibility" and the cutting of "entitlements.

4: Wall Street Was Never Held Accountable

Not one Wall Street executive was indicted for crashing the economy. Sure, about 50 hedge fund honchos have been nailed for insider trading, but none of those trades had anything to do with the crash. Those who deliberately puffed up the housing bubble and who pedaled junk securities were not personally punished. Few even lost their jobs. Had they been running small banks instead of too-big-to-fail behemoths, the FDIC at least would have taken away their toys. Even the finance-friendly Reagan administration jailed over 1,000 savings-and-loan crooks.

5. Wall Street Hedge and Equity Funds Pay Only 15 Percent in Taxes on Their Incomes

All this talk about raising the top tax bracket from 35 percent to 39 percent is a joke for Wall Street, and a cruel one for the rest of us. That's because much of the trillion-dollar hedge fund and private equity syndicates pay themselves with something called "carried interest." Instead of getting an income, they get this special version of capital gains so that their income is capped at 15 percent. If this loophole isn't eliminated during these fiscal negotiations, you'll know that Wall Street owns both parties.

6. Wall Street Is the Only Industry Without a Sales Tax

Wall Street buys and sells trillions of dollars of stocks, bonds and derivatives each year. And none of those sales are taxed...unless they take place in London which has a financial transaction tax on stock sales (and it's been in place for the past 300 years or so).

I asked Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, why we don't have one. Here's how a "Treasury Department official" responded on his behalf:

A financial transaction tax (FTT) is not an idea we are planning to support in the U.S.

FTTs are hard to implement globally, are generally borne by retail investors, are prone to regulatory arbitrage, depress asset prices and trading volumes, and increase capital costs.

The Obama Administration's Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee applies at the institutional level, levied as a tax on certain liabilities of large financial firms in order to discourage excessive leverage. This is fully consistent with the principles agreed to by the G-20 Leaders. In our view, a tax on liabilities is a better way to generate funding while addressing excessive leverage.

Not only would Geithner's proposed fee be minuscule, but guess what? That fee hasn't been implemented and was never even mentioned during the campaign. So Wall Street is still paying bupkis for the damage it has done.

7. If President Obama and the Democrats Had the Guts to Take on Wall Street, There Would Be No Need for Fiscal Cliff Debates

A small financial transaction tax on all of Wall Street's transactions -- from stocks and bonds to every exotic instrument our greedy financial "engineers" dream up -- could easily generate more than a trillion dollars of revenue over the next decade. Eliminate the vulgar carried interest loophole and you'll generate another $200 billion. Better yet, take some of that money to put our people back to work and to pay for our kids to go to public colleges tuition-free. Then you'll have an economic boom that will make our debt nearly vanish as a percent of GDP.

8. Making Wall Street Pay for the Damage It has Done Is an Easy Sell to the American People

Wall Street has got to be the most hated institution in the entire country -- excepting Congress, of course. Nearly every American is furious about what financial elites get away with. There's a reason why Occupy Wall Street hit such a raw nerve. If the president went to the American people and said it was time to make Wall Street pay and sacrifice like the rest of us, he would ignite a tidal wave of support.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/8-reasons-wall-street-greed-cause-and-solution-phony-fiscal-cliff-crisis?paging=off

[coyotes_geek]

Why? (eliminating debt ceiling)

Because as big a pain in the arse the debt ceiling is to deal with, it's still the only speed bump we have on the road to insolvency. It's existence will at least force a discussion about our financial problems that wouldn't occur otherwise.

[boutons_deux]

"on the road to insolvency."

You Lie, total bullshit. The US won't be insolvent. What's your real objective behind bullshit scare-mongering?

[coyotes_geek]

If you really think there's no need to deviate from the financial tract we're on, feel free to state your case.

[CosmicCowboy]

"on the road to insolvency."

You Lie, total bullshit. The US won't be insolvent. What's your real objective behind bullshit scare-mongering?






:lmao

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

boutons, you're a complete embarrassment to liberals everywhere the way you're pretending the deficit isn't a big deal since it's currently a liberal in office who can't get a handle on it. You're no better than the Republicans who couldn't give two shits about the national deficit from 2001-2008 and suddenly started caring in 2009.

[coyotes_geek]

"on the road to insolvency."

You Lie, total bullshit. The US won't be insolvent. What's your real objective behind bullshit scare-mongering?






If you really think there's no need to deviate from the financial tract we're on, feel free to state your case.

How completely surprising that thinkprogress hasn't provided boutons with a response yet.............

[Winehole23]

http://www.speaker.gov/sites/speaker.house.gov/files/documents/letter_to_wh_121203.pdf

[boutons_deux]

boutons, you're a complete embarrassment to liberals everywhere the way you're pretending the deficit isn't a big deal since it's currently a liberal in office who can't get a handle on it. You're no better than the Republicans who couldn't give two shits about the national deficit from 2001-2008 and suddenly started caring in 2009.

DoK, you don't a fucking clue what's going on because you've been suckered by the VRWC/Repugs into "knowing" the deficit is huge, immediate problem that the Repug propaganda tells you requires shared sacrifice/austerity ONLY by the 99%.

[boutons_deux]

What the CEOs Lobbying on the Fiscal Cliff Really Want (http://www.thenation.com/blog/171500/what-ceos-lobbying-fiscal-cliff-really-want)
http://www.thenation.com/sites/default/files/user/17/CEOs_Graphic_615px_0.jpg
Notably, none of the corporations represented in Washington today except Home Depot actually paid anything close to the corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Most would benefit handsomely from a territorial tax system, though not all—the interests of these companies don’t always align perfectly. Some, like Honeywell and Yahoo!, wouldn’t gain anything from reductions to Medicare and Social Security—the demands from those CEOs to cut spending on those programs is perhaps nothing more than a cover for their windfalls elsewhere. Others, like Goldman Sachs and Aetna, surely would benefit from a reduction in these programs.

What’s clear, though, is that the sacrifice preached by these CEOs is most certainly one-sided.


http://www.thenation.com/blog/171500/what-ceos-lobbying-fiscal-cliff-really-want

[boutons_deux]

The Archeology of Decline

Debtpocalypse and the Hollowing Out of America


“Debtpocalypse (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/us/fiscal-cliff-slope-debtpocalypse-it-means-austerity.html)” looms. Depending on who wins out in Washington, we’re told (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/us/fiscal-cliff-slope-debtpocalypse-it-means-austerity.html), we will either free fall over the fiscal cliff or take a terrifying slide to the pit at the bottom. Grim as these scenarios might seem, there is something confected about the mise-en-scène, like an un-fun Playland. After all, there is no fiscal cliff (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175615/tomgram%3A_kramer_and_hellman,_it%27s_the_politics ,_stupid/), or at least there was none -- until the two parties built it.

And yet the pit exists. It goes by the name of “austerity.” However, it didn’t just appear in time for the last election season or the lame-duck session of Congress to follow. It was dug more than a generation ago, and has been getting wider and deeper ever since. Millions of people have long made it their home. “Debtpocalypse” is merely the latest installment in a tragic, 40-year-old story of the dispossession of American working people.



Think of it as the archeology of decline, or a tale of two worlds. As a long generation of austerity politics hollowed out the heartland, the quants and traders and financial wizards of Wall Street gobbled up ever more of the nation's resources. It was another Great Migration -- instead of people, though, trillions of dollars were being sucked out of industrial America and turned into “financial instruments” and new, exotic forms of wealth. If blue-collar Americans were the particular victims here, then high finance is what consumed them. Now, it promises to consume the rest of us.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175623/tomgram%3A_steve_fraser%2C_the_national_museum_of_ industrial_homicide/

[TeyshaBlue]

Just curious...how old are you? I'm old enough to remember 18% inflation and wage and price controls. It wasn't that long ago.

http://www.alan.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/win_button1.jpg

[boutons_deux]

Bernie Sanders: 'We Will Not Accept Cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid'http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bernie-sanders-we-will-not-accept-cuts-social-security-medicare-or-medicaid?paging=off

Bernie speaking for the majority of the 99% and diametrically opposed to the Repugs and 1%.

[boutons_deux]

If you really think there's no need to deviate from the financial tract we're on, feel free to state your case.

the financial TRACK needed right now is more spending/stimulus to get the 99% employed and consuming shit again, AND paying taxes to offset

We've been hearing from you right-wing assholes for 4 years now, arguing against Keynesian stimulus which was supposed to bring on hyperinflation and collapse of the dollar. Y'all been WRONG ALL ALONG, and still are.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

DoK, you don't a fucking clue what's going on because you've been suckered by the VRWC/Repugs into "knowing" the deficit is huge, immediate problem that the Repug propaganda tells you requires shared sacrifice/austerity ONLY by the 99%.

Do you just assume anyone who disagrees with you is a right winger? I'm just as much for tax increases on the rich as you are and my post had nothing to do with what I think the solution should be. My concern about the deficit didn't start with the Repugs either, the second I got old enough to seriously follow politics in around 2005-2006ish when George Bush had record low taxes and was putting wars in a credit card was when I started to worry about the deficit.

[CosmicCowboy]

and it's worked so well, too...:rolleyes:

[CosmicCowboy]

the financial TRACK needed right now is more spending/stimulus to get the 99% employed and consuming shit again, AND paying taxes to offset

We've been hearing from you right-wing assholes for 4 years now, arguing against Keynesian stimulus which was supposed to bring on hyperinflation and collapse of the dollar. Y'all been WRONG ALL ALONG, and still are.


and it's worked so well, too...:rolleyes:

[coyotes_geek]

the financial TRACK needed right now is more spending/stimulus to get the 99% employed and consuming shit again, AND paying taxes to offset

We've been hearing from you right-wing assholes for 4 years now, arguing against Keynesian stimulus which was supposed to bring on hyperinflation and collapse of the dollar. Y'all been WRONG ALL ALONG, and still are.

Short term stimulus and long term entitlement reform aren't mutually exclusive. I've consistently advocated massive increases in infrastructure spending and increased taxes to fund it. Short term stimulus spending and long term entitlement reform aren't mutually exclusive. We can, and should, do both.

[CosmicCowboy]

Funny how people don't mind raising taxes to fund infrastructure but hate toll roads.

[coyotes_geek]

Do you just assume anyone who disagrees with you is a right winger?

Yes. Yes, he does.

[CosmicCowboy]

Everyone in here is righter wing than boobot.

[coyotes_geek]

Funny how people don't mind raising taxes to fund infrastructure but hate toll roads.

There are plenty of people mind raising taxes to fund infrastructure. That's why the gas tax hasn't been raised in 20 years in this state.

[Th'Pusher]

and it's worked so well, too...:rolleyes:
Pretty much every credible independent economist suggests the stimulus played a criticl role in averting a depression. In 2008 every republican candidate campaigned on a stimulus (Romney's was the largest). Are you actually suggesting the stimulus didn't work or was unnecessary?

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Any economist with an IQ above room tempurature will tell you that this country needs both significant revenue increases AND significant spending reductions to fix the national debt. If you think it's a question of either/or, or if you think we only need minor spending cuts or minor revenue increases, you're probably a red team/blue team shill. Only reason I side with blue team is they acknowledge we need significant revenue increases (but have no clue how to get them) while neither side wants to cut all the excessive spending. The GOP considering itself the fiscally responsible party when it not only thinks our defense spending is fine but wants to increase or defense spending more prevents me from taking them seriously. The most specific spending reduction plan I've heard from the GOP is cutting funding for PBS and Sesame Street.

[CosmicCowboy]

Pretty much every credible independent economist suggests the stimulus played a criticl role in averting a depression. In 2008 every republican candidate campaigned on a stimulus (Romney's was the largest). Are you actually suggesting the stimulus didn't work or was unnecessary?

So what do all those credible independent economists say will be the result of a current 16 trillion dollar deficit that continues to grow at a trillion plus per year? You really think that QE Infinity is the answer?

[TeyshaBlue]

There are plenty of people mind raising taxes to fund infrastructure. That's why the gas tax hasn't been raised in 20 years in this state.

yuppers

[Wild Cobra]

So what do all those credible independent economists say will be the result of a current 16 trillion dollar deficit that continues to grow at a trillion plus per year? You really think that QE Infinity is the answer?
They probably say exactly what our Comrade in Chief wants to hear.

It will destroy this nation.

[Th'Pusher]

So what do all those credible independent economists say will be the result of a current 16 trillion dollar deficit that continues to grow at a trillion plus per year? You really think that QE Infinity is the answer?

The fed is obviously using monetary policy to combat a slumping economy as any fiscal policy is untenable due to the makeup of our current congress. Generally speaking, I'd say they would recommend additional short term stimulus with a credible plan for long term deficit reduction.

[CosmicCowboy]

LOL @ singling out and blaming it on the current congress.

[Th'Pusher]

LOL @ singling out and blaming it on the current congress.

The inability to pass any additional stimulus is absolutely the fault of our current congress.

[Wild Cobra]

The inability to pass any additional stimulus is absolutely the fault of our current congress.
I would say the problem is government. They keep changing regulations, taxation, and all other types of things that affect employers.

I would say if they just left things alone, everything would stabilize.

Once again, government intervention is not the solution. They need to get out of the way of progress, and anyone who wants government help, should just move back in with their parents. At least I equate such desires as wanting the nanny, or being taken care of by others.

[Th'Pusher]

I would say the problem is government. They keep changing regulations, taxation, and all other types of things that affect employers.

I would say if they just left things alone, everything would stabilize.

Once again, government intervention is not the solution. They need to get out of the way of progress, and anyone who wants government help, should just move back in with their parents. At least I equate such desires as wanting the nanny, or being taken care of by others.
Ok. We disagree on how to address economic issues.

[Wild Cobra]

Ok. We disagree on how to address economic issues.
Start by letting business be able to plan for the future, that doesn't keep changing with a political whim. Start bringing employment back here. Too much has been outsourced because it can be make elsewhere for less. Make the changed in this area. Too many of our policies keep us from being competitive in the world.

[ElNono]

Unless we start importing chunks of roads and brigdes, infrastructure projects in America can't be outsourced. There's simply no political will to invest in that, or at least have government directly invest in that, as coyotes_geek pointed out.

[Wild Cobra]

Unless we start importing chunks of roads and brigdes, infrastructure projects in America can't be outsourced. There's simply no political will to invest in that, or at least have government directly invest in that, as coyotes_geek pointed out.
Yes, certain jobs simply cannot be outsourced. However, when everything else is, at what tax rate will the working have to be taxed to subsidize the poor and non working?

[boutons_deux]

"infrastructure projects in America can't be outsourced."

google: "bay bridge imported"

[boutons_deux]

Move Over Simpson-Bowles... There's a New Plan in Town


Raises significant revenue, and does so progressively.

Simplifies the codes (repeals the AMT!) again in a progressive manner (e.g. turns some deductions into credits, which is a) more plausible than ending said deductions, and b) more fair than the current system).

Disposes of that artificial250,000 threshold line-in-the-sand.

Some preferential treatment of investment income but closer to goal of equal treatment.

Lowers the corporate rate, something many businesses and their think tanks have clamored for (paid for by closing corporate tax breaks).

Builds on the1.5 trillion of spending cuts on the books, but without hurting vulnerable beneficiaries of the safety net and social insurance.

Protects domestic programs (non-entitlements) from further spending cuts; generates Medicare savings from specific reform to the delivery system.

$100 billion to preserve the payroll tax cut, or something like it, in 2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/fiscal-cliff-plan_b_2240254.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

Repugs have NOTHING specific in their proposal. It's a joke.

[ElNono]

Yes, certain jobs simply cannot be outsourced. However, when everything else is, at what tax rate will the working have to be taxed to subsidize the poor and non working?

We've had this conversation before. It's not a taxing issue. You could reduce taxes to effectively zero and the cost of living in the US would still be much higher than China, India, etc.

While certain things like vehicles or gas are cheap in the US comparatively, things like housing are not. There's no "supply side" or "free market" solution to that problem.

[boutons_deux]

In an interview with PBS' Gwen Ifill on Tuesday, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman tore into the GOP's fiscal cliff proposal and launched a spirited defense of President Barack Obama.

Krugman explained that Obamacare has done more to bring down entitlement costs than anything Republicans have proposed. "In Washington, that is considered not serious because he's not actually taking benefits away from people who need them. It's a really weird thing. It's only considered serious if you inflict pain on vulnerable people," he said, referring to the recent GOP proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age.

That proposal is "cruel" and would save a "trivial" amount of money. He also said that reducing the inflation adjustment (http://www.newser.com/article/da2v74581/new-inflation-measure-proposed-by-gop-would-mean-smaller-social-security-colas-higher-taxes.html) for Social Security benefits, as Republicans have proposed, would inflict "some serious hardship for very little money."
Krugman hammered home the jarring point that the Republican proposal only "sounds serious because it hurts vulnerable people."

He is not the only economist noting that raising the Medicare eligibility age wouldn't significantly reduce entitlement costs. Austin Frakt (http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/this-is-not-entitlement-reform/), a health care economist at Boston University, wrote in a blog post Wednesday that "the savings are too small" and "it does nothing, absolutely nothing, to increase the efficiency of Medicare or the health system."

Qualifying for Medicare at age 65 is a critical lifeline for many seniors; 16.3 percent of Americans (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/data/incpovhlth/2011/Table7.pdf) age 45 to 64 lacked health insurance last year, according to the Census Bureau. The government's adjustment of Social Security benefits for inflation (http://www.newser.com/article/da2v74581/new-inflation-measure-proposed-by-gop-would-mean-smaller-social-security-colas-higher-taxes.html) also helps prevent the elderly from finding essentials to be more unaffordable as they age, according to the Associated Press.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/paul-krugman-budget-deficit_n_2243625.html


Republicans have proposed reducing the cost of Medicare by raising the eligibility age. Currently, Americans can enroll in Medicare when they turn 65. Some Republicans have proposed increasing the eligibility age to 67 or 68.

But Krugman said that proposal wouldn’t bring much savings, because most seniors between 65-68 years old are relatively healthy.

“It makes almost no difference to the financial outlook,” he said. “But it’s cruel.”

Krugman said it was wrong to focus on Medicare and Social Security to reduce the federal deficit.

“All of these things that have occupied all our attention are not actually where the big bucks are. The big bucks are in making high-income people pay higher taxes and in actually addressing health care costs, which the Affordable Care Act does and none of the things that we’re talking about now will actually do.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/04/krugman-budget-proposals-only-considered-serious-if-you-inflict-pain-on-vulnerable-people/

[boutons_deux]

Conservatives Whine: This Fiscal Debate Is So Unfair!


http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/shutterstock_120094498.jpg

Peggy Noonan thinks our current fiscal battle is so unfair to Republicans, who are constitutionally banned from making an appealing case to the public (or something like that). Now we find John Podhoretz also arguing (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_republican_crisis_Qa5DtRK4LC6EtswfoLo8mN) that we should shed a tear for Republicans, who have the deck stacked against them, largely through circumstances they couldn't possibly have controlled:


Now, as the Right tries to pick itself up and dust itself off and start all over again, it finds itself in the heat of a battle for which it is learning it is rhetorically and emotionally unprepared.The "fiscal cliff" coming on Dec. 31 will automatically cause everyone's taxes to rise and draconian defense cuts to go into effect. That leaves Republicans and conservatives having to fight a very public battle on these matters only weeks after a national defeat.

And they've somehow been maneuvered into arguing that benefits must be cut and taxes on the wealthy must not be raised -- without having a single populist argument in their favor.


Yes -- Republicans and conservatives were "unprepared" to do battle over the sequester -- which was signed into law sixteen months ago! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Control_Act_of_2011#Legislative_history)

And they've been maneuvered -- somehow! -- into saying benefits should be cut and taxes on the wealthy not raised! What scoundrels did this to them?

http://www.alternet.org/media/conservatives-whine-fiscal-debate-so-unfair?akid=9776.187590.4jEMua&rd=1&src=newsletter757186&t=7

Repugs figured, having listening to all their thought dictators that Bishop Gecko would win in a 300+ electoral vote landslide, they'd destroy the Dems. Medicare, Medicaid, SS, AND the 99% by controlling all 3 branches of govt. Are these mofo's EVER right about anything? :lol

[Winehole23]

You may have heard that the U.S. is about to plummet off of a fiscal cliff. Policymakers may disagree about how to bring the nation's finances into balance, but one thing they don't disagree about are the forces pushing us towards the abyss: in a word, runaway health care spending.


As former Obama OMB and CBO director Peter Orszag quipped in 2010, "it is no exaggeration to say that the United States' standing in the world depends on its success in constraining this health care cost explosion; unless it does, the country will eventually face a severe fiscal crisis of crippling inability to invest in other areas."


http://www.medicalprogresstoday.com/assets_c/2012/12/hcruleseverythingaroundmehcreamgetthemoney-thumb-700x507-122.jpg (http://www.medicalprogresstoday.com/hcruleseverythingaroundmehcreamgetthemoney.jpg)
What is true at the federal level is also true at the state level. State Medicaid expenditures account for almost a quarter of state budgets today, second only to education funding. Medicaid expenditures are also projected to rise faster than state revenues, increasingly crowding out funding for other critical state priorities. Addressing the shortfall may require sharp tax increases, painful budget cuts, or both.


You'll also get little opposition from either side of the aisle that America isn't getting the best value for our outsized health care spending, currently at 18% percent of GDP and rising. According to a 2011 article in JAMA, "in just 6 categories of waste, over treatment, failure of care coordination, failures of execution of care processes, administrative complexity, pricing failures, and fraud and abuse, the sum of the lowest available estimates exceeds 20% of total health care expenditures." The same report estimated annual loses from fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid at up to $98 billion annually.


There are two basic arguments about how to tackle the problem of rising costs, and they split largely (but not entirely) on ideological lines.


One, approach, generally favored on the left (and largely embraced in the Affordable Care Act), is to attack the problem on the supply side by increasing government's role in setting prices and defining insurance packages, along with driving delivery system reforms. Supply side reforms include bundled payments for Medicare and Medicaid; Medicare's new Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB); price controls on reimbursements for health care goods and services (Medicare's DRG pricing system; ACA cuts to provider reimbursements); stringent rate reviews for insurance carriers; and even heavier-handed market controls like bans on physician-owned hospitals, and requiring state pre-approval for new health care related facilities through certificate of need laws.


The other approach, generally favored on the right, is to focus on improving the functioning of health care markets on the demand side. This means increasing consumers' "skin in the game" for routine health care costs through consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs); capping or eliminating the tax exclusion of employer-provided insurance and replacing it with a standard deduction or tax credit for health insurance; and shifting other public programs, like Medicare, towards a defined contribution approach where seniors would shop from a competing menu of health care plans with a defined level of public support. Proponents of more consumer involvement in health care also support efforts to improve transparency on provider prices and quality, so that consumers can seek out the most effective and efficient providers (or in the case of insurance, the most efficient networks).


Whatever you may think about the Affordable Care Act, our recent election guaranteed that it is going to be implemented, more or less. The choice before the country now is how that implementation will be structured, and how to make that implementation sustainable given the massive cost explosion that the ACA - whatever its other merits - has done little to address. As we've argued elsewhere, many of its key provisions will likely make the health care cost problem worse, because it heavily subsidizes consumption of traditional, first-dollar insurance for families making up to about $92,000 a year, or four times the Federal Poverty Level.


But implementation, and America's mounting fiscal woes, also provides an opportunity for genuine dialogue and compromise. We're beginning to detect a growing acknowledgement on the center-left (http://square.concordcoalition.org/profiles/blogs/fix-premium-support) that more consumer side reforms are needed and inevitable, particularly in the ACA and, on the right, that mitigating (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/334956/yes-state-exchanges-douglas-holtz-eakin#) the ACA's worst flaws could turn out to be both good policy (http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/11/27/opposing-obamacare-is-no-longer-enough-toward-a-new-conservative-health-care-agenda/)and good politics - especially for an electorate that is increasingly frustrated by Washington's inability to tackle America's most serious challenges.

That conversation should be helped by a thoughtful and balanced paper from Richard P. Nathan, a senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. The paper, How to Rein in Health Care Costs: Empower Consumers (http://www.rockinst.org/pdf/health_care/2012-12-Rein_In_Costs.pdf), is a concise tour de force in health economics and public choice theory that makes the case for incorporating more consumer-driven insurance choices into both public and private insurance programs, including the ACA.
First, Nathan recognizes that we'll need "at least one more round" of health care reform to truly tackle the cost problem.


Taken together, Medicare and Medicaid account for 25 percent of federal spending; they are projected to account for one-third in 2021. Medicaid also accounts for a huge and growing share of state budgets, and in some states local budgets as well. Focusing on Medicare, Jonathan Gruber estimates that in order

"to put the program on a solid footing for the foreseeable future would require imposing a 15 percent payroll tax. Every person in America would have to pay 15 percent of their wages to the government, basically doubling the tax burden on American families. ...


An analysis by Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute shows the share that Medicare taxes and premiums cover "of the care provided to the average recipient ranges from 51 to 58 percent over time." Steuerle says "[for] the rest we borrow from China and elsewhere, and we use up ever-larger shares of income tax revenue, leaving ever-smaller shares for the government functions. Bottom line: without reform, current workers would continue to shunt many of their Medicare costs onto younger generations."



Nathan is right on the mark. And to paraphrase Stein's law, if something can't keep going on forever, it won't.


While broadly supportive of the ACA, Nathan is skeptical that supply side reforms can adequately grapple with the endemic cost problems in American health care:


Provider-value social engineering shouldn't be the main line strategy for dealing with the fiscal imperative of fast-rising health care costs. Politicians are good at giving social benefits but not so good at taking them away. Likewise, leaders in government public health care programs tend to come to their jobs with a concern about and belief in the programs they are responsible for. Government
does not have the necessary penetration -- nor the leverage commitment, or clout needed-- to reform the huge health care industry.

This is a variation on Mancur Olson's famous theory of collective action. In a nutshell, it's very hard for large groups of individuals to organize for broad social aims - even when that organization would produce large gains for society. On the other hand, small, highly motivated special interest groups have powerful incentives to organize and lobby government for wealth transfers. In the case of health care, this means that providers (hospitals, nursing homes, physicians, home health care workers, etc.), consumer groups (like the AARP), and public sector unions (like the SEIU) are well positioned to push for increases in health care spending, with politicians reaping the rewards from campaign contributions and energized voting blocks.

Although Democrats are more associated with the welfare state, both parties have facilitated the expansion of public funding for the medical-industrial complex from a mechanism to help the poor and disabled to get access to care, to an entitlement program for the middle class and older (and more affluent) consumers. Republicans, after all, created the Part D Medicare drug benefit, and Republican governors, like George Pataki, in New York, have worked hard to leverage federal dollars to support local state Medicaid providers (http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_medicaid.html).

Unsurpringly, when it comes to meaningful reforms of Medicare and Mediciad, the track record of the federal government has been mostly disappointing. (And when it comes to weeding out fraud and abuse in those programs, the record is downright disgraceful (http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Developmental-Center-Staff-Report-for-Hearing-9-20-12.pdf).)


While supply side reforms are necessary, Nathan believes, "in the long run creating and managing competition in the health care marketplace is the better approach for achieving health care cost control by mobilizing price-consciousness in a way that at the same time protects consumers from having to pay the high costs of catastrophic care."

http://www.medicalprogresstoday.com/2012/12/a-cure-for-the-health-care-cost-disease.php

[boutons_deux]

GOP’s Latest Fiscal Cliff Offer: Permanent Extension Of Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/12/1323671/republicans-insist-that-bush-tax-cuts-for-wealthiest-americans-be-made-permanent-reports-say/)


BASH: I talked to a Democratic source who said that Republicans sent back to the White House late yesterday included a call for a permanent extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the top 2 percent.

Now you know we’ve been talking constantly about the fact that the biggest divide between the two when it comes to taxes is that tax break for the wealthiest. So this Democratic source who I talked to familiar with the proposal said this was a sign to the White House that the Republicans are either unwilling or not capable of offering something that can pass the House and the Senate and, more importantly, that the president can sign, because he has said he does not want to — he wants to raise tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. I will tell you, Republicans who I spoke with countered that that doesn’t make sense to them, that the Republicans’ whole intention is to deal with the Bush era tax rates right now because you have to deal with that, but that down the road they want to reform the tax code.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/12/1323671/republicans-insist-that-bush-tax-cuts-for-wealthiest-americans-be-made-permanent-reports-say/

[boutons_deux]

Boner: Don't make Christmas plans, 'serious differences' remain in 'fiscal cliff' talks
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1212/Boehner-Don-t-make-Christmas-plans-serious-differences-remain-in-fiscal-cliff-talks?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Scie nce+Monitor+|+All+Stories%29