any recession is not going to make BO look any better, for sure. Compromise benefits him supremely.

The problem is still the stubbornness of congress to put people first.

12/28/2012 3:59:42 PM

I don't grasp the resistance to a smallish stimulus. Considering we have more of a demand problem than a supply one, doesn't this make sense?

12/28/2012 4:08:15 PM

Things that sound bad just wont pass in congress: It is political dynamite. And, yes, even a small stimulus sounds bad because it is only rationalized by rich people giving more tax dollars to lazy bums that don't work. Even though it does make logical sense, because it was one of the moves that helped us out of the recession in the first place.

12/28/2012 4:12:33 PM

Time for Obama to live up to his original threat and get on national TV to publicly shame the GOP. Either a joint session or oval office address. At this point, he's already offered them several reasonable comprises, even upping the threshold to $500k and throwing in that chained CPI shit. Once we're over the cliff, all the pressure is on the GOP to pass something so they don't look completely insane and Obama can go back to a hard line at $250k.

12/28/2012 5:08:48 PM

so, so full of stupid

12/28/2012 8:36:21 PM

the right wing that comes up with this shit... it's just fascist man

12/28/2012 10:19:01 PM

My next paycheck that I will get after the new year was processed today and apparently they taxed it at they withheld foe the higher tax rate because they had to assume we will go over the cliff. That's what a notice from them said at least I (obviously) haven't seen the check yet.

12/28/2012 11:44:51 PM

Seems like the most powerful family in the world should have a budget of more than $21,000 / year... that's where the problem is...

12/29/2012 3:37:03 AM

Quote :

" I'm not worried about "slash spending" as much as I'm worried about "governing isn't about working across the aisle and compromising, its about winning""

I'm all for cutting spending, and I'm OK with hardball politics that are all about "Fuck the left, this is about winning." What I can't stand is the across the board detachment from reality. It's like a diverging oscillation of crazy. They are making wildly incorrect decisions--even in terms of furthering their own ends--due to their systemic lack of critical thought stemming from viewing everything as they wish it to be, not for what it is. They make up their minds first, and then look at the evidence to cherry pick what they want. That is not how you make correct decisions.

Quote :

"Republicans are willing to go over the cliff because they've sowed the seeds of doubt regarding the severity of the fiscal cliff, and the alternative is compromise, which is a more clearly understood failure, which is another card in their opponent's hand when reelection comes."

I think part of that's true, but part of it is that they'd rather go over the cliff, then accept LESS of what they want but call it voting for a tax cut rather than an increase (to appease Norquist and the Tea Party types), even though the net effect will be more of a tax increase.

More evidence that this isn't even about winning at all costs. It's about ideological purity in a very limited, technicality-based sense.

12/29/2012 7:03:18 AM

It is still about winning, because by not compromising and doing their job they didn't "lose" and can now start spinning the blame to put on democrats. The talking points have already started on Fox.

Lets be very clear, this is because of Republicans, they caused this

12/29/2012 10:38:58 AM

Quote :

"Seems like the most powerful family in the world should have a budget of more than $21,000 / year... that's where the problem is..."

So send the government some more money, since you're so altruistic and charitable. I'm so god damn tired of being told how much of my earnings belong to the government, and how it's absolutely necessary that I pay more so the U.S. government can keep running its fucking empire and buy votes with policy.

[Edited on December 29, 2012 at 10:56 AM. Reason : ]

12/29/2012 10:55:39 AM

You are the us government. It's not its own thing, it is made up of you and me and everyone else.

12/29/2012 11:53:53 AM

^^whoosh

12/29/2012 12:51:49 PM

i dont get it. You liberals voted for higher taxes and now that we may have to pay them you're all pissed off.


Oh that's right... you voted for OTHER people to pay more taxes.

Well what's good for the goose is good for the stupid

12/29/2012 1:02:49 PM

Nope, you're dumb

12/29/2012 1:33:47 PM

Quote :

"You are the us government. It's not its own thing, it is made up of you and me and everyone else."

No. I'm not the U.S. government. I am not the one making laws and telling people what they can and can't do.

Here are a couple of simple questions:

1) Do you think I should be required to pay taxes while living in the United States?
2) What do you think should happen to me if I refuse to pay taxes?

12/29/2012 2:34:35 PM

Yes
Criminal penalties

12/29/2012 4:50:56 PM

From my comfortable position, I see two main benefits to going over the fiscal cliff:

-drastic cuts to military. At least 'drastic' is the adjective they always use to describe cuts to this sector, but like many other cuts its really just a drop in the bucket. However, cuts of this magnitude would never make it through a true bipartisan agreement (or did they, hehe )
-tax increases on the wealthy. I am aware that taxes will go up for everyone, and I prefer Obama's proposed plan to extend the bush tax cuts for the middle class, (<250k), but a tax hike on the wealthy would never pass with a GOP majority.

Funny how in any other circumstance both of these items would not have any chance in hell of passing through the house and senate, yet they are now a very real possibility, all made possible by the gang of 6. Now that's fucking Power.

12/29/2012 11:22:31 PM

Are the military cuts operational or to procurement or research arms? Or are they not known?

12/29/2012 11:38:18 PM

All of the above. It's already happening. You should see how many outstanding Marines are breaking their balls to reenlist and being told to fuck off. Just a small example.

12/29/2012 11:57:18 PM

nobody truly understands how nice your life can be if you join the marines. sure you risk being sent to the middle east, but most of the guys in the military would have nothing else going for them if they hadnt enlisted. And they get pay, housing, utilities and more pay if they get married and more pay if they have kids.

12/30/2012 7:03:07 AM

Quote :

"Are the military cuts operational or to procurement or research arms? Or are they not known?"

I think the only thing that's off the table is pay for currently enlisted soldiers and direct benefits for veterans*


*tricare might be affected indirectly.

12/30/2012 9:45:45 AM

^^
Banjo, I would agree that you can have a pretty nice life in the military. The rest, at least in my experience is inaccurate, or misleading. (Not saying that you are intentionally misleading anyone, but that the information itself is misleading) Not picking a fight, just disagree.

12/30/2012 3:21:27 PM

Instead of having make-work programs to build national parks and infrastructure, we use the military as a make-work program

12/30/2012 4:15:40 PM

Quote :

"Time for Obama to live up to his original threat and get on national TV to publicly shame the GOP."

did you catch meet the press today?

12/30/2012 5:35:49 PM

Quote :

"The rest, at least in my experience is inaccurate, or misleading. (Not saying that you are intentionally misleading anyone, but that the information itself is misleading) Not picking a fight, just disagree."

pay increases that I cited are accurate. I really don't like that system, because you are encouraging marines to have a bunch of kids that the government then has to support.

Maybe, I was being misleading in my description of the qualification of enlisted men, but let's just say that I have never met a marine who had many other options after high school.

12/30/2012 9:02:44 PM

Quote :

"I think part of that's true, but part of it is that they'd rather go over the cliff, then accept LESS of what they want but call it voting for a tax cut rather than an increase (to appease Norquist and the Tea Party types), even though the net effect will be more of a tax increase. More evidence that this isn't even about winning at all costs. It's about ideological purity in a very limited, technicality-based sense."

If your speculation is true, that just makes it even more about winning. If they're willing to put Americans through a period of high taxes Just so they can claim they "cut taxes", clearly their only priority is re-election.

The people in congress are neither stupid nor crazy. They understand the economic fall-out of their actions. They don't have any incentive to work towards the greater good. As a whole, the House may appear to be fucking up, but each individual's actions are completely logical when you consider their only priority is re-election. For some congress-people, that means being "idealistic". This is why Congress is completely useless as it is now. America is

- too bipolar for a natural consensus on any god damn thing;
- too easily swayed by political ads to let their representative get away with compromise; and
- too broken to survive in a legislative vacuum.

Are you aware of the "majority of the majority" policy in the GOP? The House Speaker is all but forbidden from allowing any bills to be voted on that aren't agreeable to the majority of Republicans. Even if 100% of democrats and 25% republicans support a bill, it won't come to the floor. There have been plenty of tax compromise bills that were all but GUARANTEED to pass the House, but Bohner won't allow them to be voted on because it could hurt his chances to remain Speaker. Even bills he personally supports.

The whole "Its about winning" thing? That's exactly whats fucking this country.

12/31/2012 5:33:44 AM

Both parties are liberal fiscally, the problem is that the dems are so super liberal that there can't be a reasonable compromise. The republicans stance is already a huge compromise.

Conservatives can barely justify voting republican as it is, if they start compromising they'll lose all the fiscal conservatives

12/31/2012 11:46:28 AM

Interesting that there is zero mention of Capital Gains.

12/31/2012 12:54:51 PM

^^ ooooook

12/31/2012 1:21:04 PM

So it looks like the deal will end up raising the income threshold to 400/450k and doesn't really have any spending cuts. I still think going over the cliff would have been better but this is ok. Definitely better than the deal that included cuts to SS.

My only major criticism is that this deal does nothing about debt ceiling clusterfuck, which looks to be setting up another blood bath on Capitol Hill later this year.

[Edited on December 31, 2012 at 1:39 PM. Reason : :]

12/31/2012 1:36:55 PM

^ what about the Tax on the richman?

12/31/2012 1:47:11 PM

Fiscal cliff is some bullshit term. Let's call it what it really is; Financial Collapse.

12/31/2012 2:05:07 PM

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/31/obama-gives-congress-pay-raise/

obama just gave congress a pay raise for their stellar jobs.

12/31/2012 2:26:10 PM

Well taxes obviously have to go up so we can pay congress more.

12/31/2012 2:36:36 PM

haha, the GOP is gonna let the taxes kick in for a day so that they can then vote to "lower" taxes. What a fucking joke.

And they obviously dont want to spend too much time covering this, because they are pushing to cut tax breaks for the middle class. Fox news will be all over the debt limit though, throwing the black man under the bus.

[Edited on December 31, 2012 at 10:38 PM. Reason : still undecided]

12/31/2012 10:37:47 PM

did we go over the cliff?

1/1/2013 12:02:57 AM

Silly BanjoMan, why are you watching Fox News?

1/1/2013 12:03:08 AM

I'm not, I love TRMS and Ed Shultz and that white due that looks like kelsey grammer, I was replying to a post

1/1/2013 12:06:31 AM

deal is pretty much done. He extended the Bush tax cuts to a 450,000 threshold but increased them to clinton level after that. What Harry Reid dais is right, I am less happy than I thought I would be.

1/1/2013 4:14:37 AM

looks like the "deal" was to raise taxes and not cut spending

1/1/2013 9:56:23 AM

the "cuts" will never happen anyways

Quote :

"According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts. When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased taxes in return for spending cuts—cuts that never ultimately came—they did so at ratios of 1:3 and 1:2. “In 1982, President Reagan was promised $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes,” Americans for Tax Reform says of those two incidents. “The tax hikes went through, but the spending cuts did not materialize. President Reagan later said that signing onto this deal was the biggest mistake of his presidency. "In 1990, President George H.W. Bush agreed to $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The tax hikes went through, and we are still paying them today. Not a single penny of the promised spending cuts actually happened.”"

1/1/2013 12:42:46 PM

Breitbart sucks and you cannot trust ANYTHING in the form of analysis from the hacks that they allow to publish. I suspect the cuts are to proposed spending increases over a decade, and that those cuts don't bring us below our current spending level is the logic that are using.

[Edited on January 1, 2013 at 12:48 PM. Reason : M]

1/1/2013 12:47:02 PM

or, the "spending cuts" are what they have always been: smoke and mirrors

1/1/2013 1:46:30 PM

Just curious, how often do bills get passed in the Senate first and then sent to congress? Is this normal

1/1/2013 2:24:55 PM

Again, if this bill passes, then it will have broken the 10 year Republican opposition to tax increases (Norquist) while giving up practically nothing as far as entitlement spending. It's the closest thing to a "clean" bill Dems could have possibly hoped for.

1/1/2013 2:47:57 PM

I've read that it is a victory for both sides, because they upped the cash threshhold to 450,000.

1/1/2013 3:28:56 PM

Aaaaaaand it looks like the House just killed the deal. It passed the Senate with 89 votes but Boehner/Cantor wouldn't even bring it up for a vote in the House, even though it sounded like it would have gotten 40-50 GOP votes.

1/1/2013 4:15:09 PM

It is basically his way or the highway. Just fuck em, go over the cliff.

1/1/2013 4:49:34 PM

Quote :

"Are you aware of the "majority of the majority" policy in the GOP? The House Speaker is all but forbidden from allowing any bills to be voted on that aren't agreeable to the majority of Republicans. Even if 100% of democrats and 25% republicans support a bill, it won't come to the floor. There have been plenty of tax compromise bills that were all but GUARANTEED to pass the House, but Bohner won't allow them to be voted on because it could hurt his chances to remain Speaker. Even bills he personally supports"

Yes, and they are not going to be kicked out any time soon which is very scary. We need redistricting now.

Quote :

"Most members of the House now come from hyperpartisan districts where they face essentially no threat of losing their seat to the other party. Instead, primary challenges, especially for Republicans, may be the more serious risk."

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/as-swing-districts-dwindle-can-a-divided-house-stand/#more-37996




[Edited on January 1, 2013 at 5:08 PM. Reason : f]

1/1/2013 5:05:47 PM