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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
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Republicans are fucked in the head, but they were simply pursuing their goals on this one. Well played.
We chose the first two and demonized the third option.
Not even close.
The Federal Government borrows 40¢ of every dollar it spends.
This deal doesn't change that much at all.
So expect to be back at this table soon.....
Some are saying that the reason that the Dow dropped so much after the deal was announced is that they know that this will slow down growth - thus less money in the economy for people to buy their goods and services.
It seems that most of these Republicans either forgot or slept through their basic civics classes - especially when it came to the part about how revenues are needed to keep a country strong. Come to think of it, they must have slept through math as well - you have to have money coming in to pay for past bills and future purchases.
The good thing is that the triggers that are in place will FORCE the Republicans to get serious about revenues or cut defense dramatically, which needs to happen.
The core of his frustration stems from the fact that this was an entirely manufactured crisis. Despite what you're hearing from many pundits (and @4, @6), the U.S. is having no problem borrowing money at VERY low interest rates. We simply don't have a debt crisis at the moment - the GOP was threatening to screw up the economy over literally nothing.
There's also the fact that Obama has totally failed to lead from the left on this issue - he's bought in to the right-wing anti-tax rhetoric to the point that he thinks slashing spending is the best way to close the deficit.
There's also the fact that a large chunk of the current debt and deficit came from the Bush tax cuts, which congressional Republicans insisted on extending last December.
It's infuriating all around.
Yes, the spending cuts are stupid and painful and will damage the economy. Yes, the Bush tax cuts have been crippling economic growth for a decade now (growth under Bush, even in the "good" years, was miserable). But the Republicans were damaged in this fight.
I actually like the "if the super committee can't agree on revenues, half the resulting cuts come from Defense" clause. needed to be 100%, but compromise is supposed to be good, right?
What sucks is that the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, which are basically giant bonfires of US money, had the potential to pump billions back into the broader US economy, possibly putting an end to this recession. Now we'll be lucky to tread water with that money.
The upside to The Great Depression is that it ultimately killed off small government fanaticism. Seems we'll have to go through that pain all over again to kill off the Tea Party idiots.
To answer the original question, this "deal" increases the deficit, punishes the lower classes for the crime of being poor, further depresses the economy, increases unemployment and perhaps most importantly it has proven to the terrorist party, (the GOP) that terrorism is an effective form of governance and has made America nothing more than a banana republic ruled by black shirts. America is now officially dead. Time to hit the streets Egyptian style, because no amount of voting will change things. To quote The Coup: "You're voting /which you're hoping /will stop the guns from smoking/ is someone fucking joking?:
The real problems are the economy, which was gutted by the banking and financial crises, things which would have been avoidable if the right-wing idealogues hadn't gutted the regulatory framework that worked just fine for 70 years, and the raid on the Treasury by the previous Administration.
Without being able to spend, and stimulate the economy, it's unclear how we're ever going to get out of this recessionary environment. If we could, and reestablish real growth again, and put back in place a progressive income tax, the deficit and the National Debt would go away. This "plan" all but prevents that.
So, this calamine lotion is worse than useless. It's a time- wasting diversion that delays us getting the right medicine. The result is that poor people will get destitute, the middle class will get poorer, and the concentration of wealth in this country will far surpass your average banana republic.
The worst fear of all is that with this economic stress comes social instability, and with that comes the very real threat of fascism in response
So, yeah, it's a pretty fucked up deal.
"The CBO baseline already assumes that the Bush Era tax cuts will expire at the end of 2012. The spending levels for 2013 include the additional revenue from those cuts expiring. If Republicans want to extend those tax cuts (which are considered spending), they will have to make cuts to the budget to offset every penny. They won’t have the political control needed to do that before the end of 2012, even if the President loses his office and they take control of the Senate, as the cuts expire in 2012, and a new administration and Congress would not be seated until January 2013. . . ."
Worth a read.
"Give me the cheat sheet again as to why I am mad. Oh, we just want to tax the rich again. OK, got it."
- The economy is still very weak, and government spending is a major part of our economy. With nothing but spending cuts in this deal, it will put even more pressure on the broader domestic economy.
- It doesn't address the single biggest factor driving the deficit: Bush-era tax cuts. While no one likes taxes and no one ever says, "Government spending is efficient and well managed," spending isn't out of control - nearly the entire deficit is driven by the tax cuts Bush pushed through. As long as we don't have a realistic dialogue about taxes, the deficit will remain or get worse.
- It puts so-called entitlement programs at risk, even though the tax burden associated with them probably won't go away. Sooner or later, if cuts are the only answer, they'll reach Social Security and Medicare. I personally expect to pay these taxes my entire working life to help fund withdrawals by current beneficiaries, but never see the benefit of these programs myself.
All of which just blows, especially when the causes for it have largely been to the benefit of the super-rich. While I myself am doing just fine, I'm not one of the so-called "job creators" who have seen their effective tax rates slashed even as they have created almost zero jobs, hence the jobless recovery. And even that recovery is at risk with this deal, hence the downturn in the stock market and the weak GDP growth in the first half of 2011. The deal is fucked, and so are most of us along with it.
Not that we don't need better spending and reduced spending, too -- like the unfinanced stupid war in afghanistan and some other things, notably, we do need death panels to control health care costs obviously even when dying you're not allowed to run up another $500 million in health care costs to extned your personal life by two minutes....so yes that's a death panel.
the deal also locks us into a structure where congress reduces its reponsiblity via this supercongress thing.
once again, obama is just the troll outfoxed by the goats, see colbert he explains it better than anyone. IT's a 100% failure of messaging and explaining. FDR had
Even Ronald fucking Reagan was smart enough run up the deficit in the face of the late-70's recession, with deficit hawks predicting doom every step of the way. What happened? The economy strengthened during the 80's, boomed in the 90's, and the supposedly insurmountable deficit was paid off with the huge leap in tax revenues you get when everyone is making piles of money.
Haven't you heard? FDR and the New Deal schoolalizms caused the Great Depression even though it began four years before he was elected. That's the latest from the Tea Klux Klan-crazed dumFux Nooz crowd.
Srsly, it's a miracle that our kuntree manages to function most days in light of the fact that half the population is psychotic.
He now palns a bus tour of the middle west to promote job creating ideas like a payroll tax holidy (not a bad idea, but a small idea) patent law reoform ( a typical harvard professor type idea perhaps good but again small and oh wait the first beneficiaries are his rich sililcon valley donor pals and benefits in form of jobs have to tricke down..more trickle downisn) trade deals with foreign nations (wow, how fucking progressive, more trade....I recently bought 2 computers and printers not one made in USA....somehow trade isn't leading to jobs....) and I hope when he goes on this tour he can't even fill a room and the people who show up give him major catcalls for being such a cowardly lion and giving in to the tea party.
This is not good.
Obama won't change and he will continue to imlement the tea party agenda.
that supercongress ain't gonna propose a single fucking tax increase and we will be back right where we started in 2013 only this time the goat will be EVEN BIGGER.
No, this goes way beyond social justice or class politics. This is about sending the largest economy in the world into a tail spin. Almost every sector of the economy will be hurt, and all boats - from luxury yachts to inflatable dinghies - will sink. And it will negatively impact the entire world.
Keynesian economics proposes low taxation/high spending during economic downturns and high taxation/low spending during economic booms. I'm not trying to argue that taxes are as job-killing as the teabaggers claim, but you should get your facts straight.
Rebecca, please read my comment here for a somewhat simplified breakdown of what the deal actually means, and then, hopefully, you'll realize it's not nearly as shitty as the hand-wringers keep trying to make it out to be; in point of fact, it's a pretty GOOD deal when you start to dig into the particulars, as it totally takes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, Pell college grants, and a whole host of other social safety-net discretionary spending OFF the table so far as cuts go, thus preventing the GOP/Tea Party from holding these programs hostage in any future debt reduction negotiations.
As a matter of fact, far from "getting 99% of what they wanted" under this deal, as is suggested above, the Republicans are actually totally fucked: they can go on-and-on about how this is a win for them on the front-end, but it will totally bite their asses on the back-end. Boehner has negotiated himself into a corner he can't get out of without triggering either deep reductions in the base defense appropriations budget on the spending side (his defense contractor buddies are surely going to LOVE that), or, an end to the Bush-era tax cuts on the revenue side, so there's that as well...
I hope you're enjoying your idiocracy, you fucking idiot.
Obama is letting the Republicans THINK they won so they can save face, but once the Bush tax cuts are repealed they're going to know they were took to the cleaners.
so sorry, seandr-
we didn't adapt our post for "Retardo Comprehension"
50% of US HOUSEHOLDS pay zero Federal income taxes.
how many households are headed by children?
how many (other than yours...) are headed by retards?
How many libs here called Murray, Cantwell, or the White House? Over half of tea party voters contacted their representatives.
Way to go swallowing the GOP mythical talking points there buddy.
This canard has already been repeatedly refuted, but hey, don't let those pesky facts get in the way of your parrot imitation, m'kay?
Oh, and while we're on the subject, isn't it YOUR SIDE that's constantly COMPLAINING that people already PAY TOO MUCH IN TAXES? So, even if this were true, you'd think you-all would be doing little jigs of joy over it, since it's exactly what you keep claiming you want - more people paying less in federal taxes to the big, bad, gubbamint.
Unless of course, you are one of those big, hairy hypocrites, who only want rich people to not pay taxes, because, um, well, because - actually, I'm still not clear on that particular plank in your platform, because, frankly, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
But then, so much of what comes out of your mouths or into your keyboards makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, so I guess this is just par for the course...
As @49 points out, what you actually meant is complete bullshit as well. What a shocker.
If you had the reading comprehension skills of, say, a fifth grader, you'd know that 85% of American households already pay local, state & federal taxes, including FICA, Social Security & Medicare. But, thanks to your uber-wealthy cronies on the Right, many of these earn such a pittance from their poverty-level wage jobs, or conversely, they are entitled to take itemized deductions (home mortgage interest, charitable donations, capital losses, medical expenses, etc., etc.) that reduce their AGI to a level that qualifies them for a refund of taxes they've already paid, and from which the government has been earning interest for the roughly 4 to 16 months it sits in the bank before tax-filing season gets fully underway.
That's how the system works - and if you think your buddies in the upper income brackets are somehow missing out on their own tax windfall - at a level that makes the pittances the lower 50% of wage-earners receive pale in comparison - well then clearly you're just as stupid as you sound in print.
But hey, just keep living in your little happyland of ignorance and denial - I'm sure things will continue to look just peachy-keen over there, at least until your lords in the upper classes finally squeeze the last few drops of disposable income out of your wallet, at which point I have no doubt you'll make a wonderfully obedient serf for their future fiefdoms.
By all means, let's tax those freeloaders.
Meanwhile investment capital will flow even faster to the higher-interest high-GDP-growth nations of Red China and India.
When you wake up and cancel the Bush Tax Giveaways to the Rich and Corporations that just accelerate this process, give me a shout.
@4 wins
as long as you are OK with half the country paying ZERO Federal Income tax you will be mired in an ideological shithole.
enjoy the view.......
Just to clarify: saying an individual has no federal income tax liability isn't the same thing as saying they don't pay federal income taxes. In many cases they do, but they get most, or sometimes all of it back as a refund after the fact because the amount they've paid in ends up being less than what they owed after deductions and exemptions are calculated.
And depending on circumstances, some SS benefits ARE taxable, particularly if the individual had other sources of income that, combined with their SS income, pushes their MAGI over the base amount for their filing status for that year.
Fuck! I'm not usually talking about this stuff until at least January...
those not paying federal income tax still pay tax. but in any event when the top two percent including the top 400 families in america with median income of $280 million each only pay 18% in taxes, they are undertaxed. and our nation isundertaxed compared to 9a) our nationhistorically when the economy was growing for decades and decades, and also in the 90's, and (b) ohter nations doing better than us such as canada or germany.
so those families making $250,000 don't like taxes, but adding to their taxes to bring it back to 39% marginal means they can only go to five seahawks games a year -- not six. but adding to the taxes of the poor families making $20K or $40K means they can't eat, can't pay for meds, the co pay, or they can't pay for community college for junior and pull him out of school where he works in a donut shop never getting educated thus fails to earn morein his lifetime thus pays less taxes thus assholes like you have to either pay more or live in a crappier more third world like harsh nation. THAT's WHY I say we're undertaxed. And that's why your faux question, faux logic and faux outrage are just bullshit. And you know it. Just like the entire right wing knows it all this crap about "it's a spending problem not a taxing problem" is lies you all know are just masking your greed because at the top end where wealth has been growing andincome too in the last few decades since this antitax thing really grew with reagan you all just want to have SIX FAMLIY DAYS AT THE SEAHAWKS A YEAR NOT JUST FIVE and you want THRE WEKS IN SUN VALLEY NOT JUST TWO andyou don't give fuck all about other people, the nation, the econoomy or facts or logic or history in your stupidity-mongering greed.
Hopefully that explains it better.
The TEA Party blew a gasket and tried to burn the house down for no good goddam reason, and I'm supposed to see a victory in the fact that Obama managed to wrestle the fire extinguisher out of John Boehner's hands and put out the fire before it did any lasting structural damage...
"It could have been worse" is not much to rally around.
Just to clarify: saying an individual has no federal income tax liability IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING as saying they don't pay federal income taxes.
(we would normally insert 'dumbass' here but that would be unfair to dumbasses....)
Its math, Chris-
if we give you $20 bucks to pay for something then you say, 'wait, you don't owe me anything for this' and return the $20 WE PAID ZERO....
and, btw, many of the Moocher 50% actually get back MORE than they paid, so not only are they freeloading bums who contribute NOTHING to the operation of our fine Federal Government they cancerous parasites sucking up the taxes of actual hardworking contributing Real Americans.
It is an anti-solution; kill the tax cuts and there's no need for a debt deal because the debt is gone. It's like stabbing someone, then "healing" them by refusing to draw then knife and bleeding them dry instead. This is, of course, precisely how Republicans roll.
@66 You are a tool.
@69 You are a good person. @66 is a tool. And a troll. A tooll? A trol? Whatever. Hang in there, Amyl!
the mere fact that you're arguing against his paranoia with your own paranoia is telling.
Now perhaps you would be so kind as to enlighten me as to just who's supposed paranoia I am arguing against? I'm only answering the original question posed by Rebecca.
Perhaps you would be best served by keeping your insipid snipes to your own convoluted thought process and resist the temptation in the future to illuminate the world by your comments as to just what a simpleton you indeed are...
as for the rest of your response, you clearly don't know me very well...I can prattle on for days in order to illuminate the world as to just what a simpleton I indeed am. I'm not particularly worried about losing face on the internet.