If Obama were smart, he’d increase the proportion of tax increases to spending cuts and lower the spending cuts. He can use the same line about a “deteriorating economy” as they used on Friday. Each day they stall, I’d make the package worse for them and cite outrage from my supporters. But this is Obama. He shouldn’t even be negotiating a debt deal in this Depression in the first place let alone not negotiating astutely.

GOP cows needs to stop their hypocritical pasturing.

I don’t know why Dick Cheney said it, but it was one of the few things he was right about. They don’t matter outside of some inflationary concerns. We just had a treasury auction end at 0%… we don’t have to worry about revulsion.

Deficit reduction is simply not as core to the Republican brand as the pledge of no new taxes. That is why you could have Dick Cheney out there saying “deficits don’t matter.”

if the D brand is deficit reduction (via spending reductions and tax increases) and the R brand is not to raise taxes, then the Ds are more bat shit crazy than the Rs.

and if we progressives don’t get this then we are too stupid to breath.

Sorry guys, but “no new taxes” is plenty for party appeal. Nothing else is needed.

Obama, et son parti républicain alliés peuvent manger achit et meurent !

Yup, the Dems should be fighting fire with fire, offering their own tax cuts to counter GOP tax cuts. Any tax hikes suggested (Pigovian taxes on carbon usage and financial market transactions could raise hundreds of billions and wouldn’t trip over income tax pledges) should be matched dollar for dollar with middle class tax cuts. As is becoming common, the last moderate Republicans is Ron Paul (!!!). So look at two of the tax credits he proposed last Congress. His defund Afghanistan bill he sponsored with Alan Grayson would have shifted $160 billion in war spending to tax cuts (first $70,000 of family income would be exempt from income tax).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/the-war-is-making-you-poo_b_585343.html

Paul’s proposed healthcare tax credit was even broader, anything spent on health insurance or HSA contributions (what wasn’t spent out HSA would become tax-free savings) would be credited against income AND payroll taxes.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/12/18/health-care-reform-individual-mandate-will-have-little-effect-on-what-people-pay-on-the-exchange/#comment-134774

So I guess the point being made here is that Democrats have to eat their peas, but Republicans get to keep their steaks and $350 bottles of Pinot Noir?

I agree that is appealing, maybe if we just get the large business’s that don’t pay their’s and eliminate charity to oil companies and the like that are drowning in profits we won’t need to cut social safety nets…another thing that is appealing for a lot of us humans, it’s called morals or taking care of our own. And by our own; I mean our countries..nobody should starve or freeze to death in the USA no matter how dumb, addicted or feeble they are. They only way to have a great country is to elevate the people. It’s disgusting to me that we place more value on celeberity culture than we do being good citizens and it’s that “mindset” that says it’s okay to be greedy, that if I can get away with it, it’s fine. If I get caught, it won’t hurt that much. We are spoiled so bad we can’t see how dumb we’ve become. No new taxes, no road/bridge repairs, rich neighborhoods can hire their own cops and fire support. Woohoo USA USA

It’s all a political kabuki show but with a twist.

Barack Obama wants a right-leaning deficit deal. For months, liberals have expressed frustration with the president’s deficit strategy. The White House made no effort to tie a debt ceiling vote to the extension of the Bush tax cuts last December. It pre-emptively conceded that any increase in the ceiling should be accompanied by spending cuts. And every time Republicans dug in their heels, the administration gave ground.

The not-so-secret secret is that the White House has given ground on purpose. Just as Republicans want to use the debt ceiling to make the president live with bigger spending cuts than he would otherwise support, Obama’s political team wants to use the leverage provided by those cra-a-a-zy Tea Partiers to make Democrats live with bigger spending cuts than they normally would support.

Why? Because the more conservative-seeming the final deal, the better for the president’s re-election effort. In that environment, Republicans have every incentive to push and keep pushing. Since any deal they cut will be used as an election-year prop in 2012, they need to make sure the president actually earns his budget-cutting bona fides.

Tax increases are lurking just over the horizon. The White House hasn’t made spending concessions just because the president wants to campaign as a deficit cutter next year. It has made concessions because it knows that taxes are already scheduled to go up when the Bush-era tax rates expire at the end of 2012.

If Obama gains a second term, Congressional Republicans will have to choose between a deal that lets the top rate go back to 39 percent (a $700 billion tax increase over 10 years) or no deal at all (a $3.8 trillion tax increase). Obviously, this dilemma won’t exist if President Mitt Romney occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But Obama’s re-election is the more likely scenario, meaning that any deal struck this summer comes with a very large asterisk attached: *Includes tax increases to be named later.

In other words it’s intended to be a set up.

Obama needs to get Warren Buffett – who agrees that upper tax tiers need to go up – and hit the road to GOP districts like Boehner’s, getting on local TV news & newspapers with his position.

That is how a president damages the poll numbers of opponents. He should have done so last December, instead of caving in on extending the clearly-failed Bush tax cuts of 2001, that Trickled Down zero shared prosperity. An easily winning hand, that Obama won’t play.

– Balkingpoints / www

Their commitment is to kill the government, to kill all social programs, and to kill all laws and regulations that limit the power of corporations to do anything they want.

The means by which they are doing that is to increase the national debt by diverting spending into military defense and war, while at the same time cutting taxes to force a debt crisis and make the “liberals” accept cuts in social programs, even the most sacred ones. They have consciously, purposely engineered this crisis since Reagan.*

Now we have a supposedly Democrat president who models himself on Reagan, and who has cut the FICA tax to undermine the financial security of Social Security and enable the myth that SS is insolvent and part of the budget deficit. He wants to do more.

IT IS NOT ABOUT TAXES. IT IS ABOUT KILLING THE GOVERNMENT. They refuse to raise taxes to force the cuts. It is a planned explicit public strategy that has been in place for 30 years. They have finally reached the point where they have the government in a corner and are determined to kill it. I believe that the president and the democratic leadership are complicit in this and intend to help it happen.

*David Stockman inadvertently revealed that his plan, (and that of the original group that “rescued Social Security” by increasing the FICA tax to establish the trust fund that we are now told does not exist) was to increase the cost of Social Security to the point that the people would demand that it must be killed.

I like your explanation, Jon Walker. I was thinking just this morning that the stubborn resistance to any tax increase or the closing of any tax loophole was rooted in the belief that George H.W. Bush lost the 1992 election because he broke his no-new-taxes pledge, even though the real reason is that the economy tanked. You’re right though. Their irrational refusal to raise taxes even one penny is the only thing they have left to distinguish themselves from the Democrats, especially after Obama co-opted the rest of their agenda.

Agreed and they are his allies.

I thought those were going to expire before once ?

Supported extending the tax cuts for billionaires and , oohh, time to “eat our peas.” poor puppy!

http://pages.citebite.com/r8g6n1u1pnia

How about we all just stop paying taxes. They can’t jail everyone. Want to screw up the budget? Let’s really screw it up.

Since I love playing the devils advocate (goes with being an INTP, I guess), look at this way.

If Obama gets re-elected, that makes him a lame duck president. Does not have to worry about another term. This has some advantages. On being that he can push policies that he would not have been able to initially. Does not have to worry about pissing people off. So he can simply say, hey I will veto any bill that does not have tax increases in it. (Or anything else that I want)

Interesting political ploy if he can pull it off.

Also as Ross Douthat explains..

For now, tax increases and entitlement cuts are equally unpopular. But with every passing year, the constituency for letting Medicare grow as scheduled gets bigger and bigger, and the clout of working-age taxpayers diminishes. Already, even a relatively radical proposal like Paul Ryan’s budget seems compelled to exempt current retirees from its Medicare reforms. Imagine how the landscape will look in a decade.

the Dems should be fighting fire with fire, offering their own tax cuts to counter GOP tax cuts.

exactly!

yikes re your links. is ron paul the most progressive member of congress? with the cpc calling for fed govt surpluses, i’m not sure he isn’t!

Stupid ass Obama gave away that farm by extending the Bush tax cuts.

Your sound-bite bits are approaching sublimely superb, selise.

(Just don’t suggest that “progressives”, on the count of “three”. should all hold their breath, close their eyes, and visualize a kinder, gentler world until the cows come home – ‘cuz them thar progressives are actually starting to quote you or your sources, hereaboots …you’re gettin’ through!)

;~DW

“…Republicans get to keep their steaks and $350 bottles of Pinot Noir?”

And the middle class gets to rip off their bandages. The ones we put on to try and keep from bleeding out over the last 3 years. If SS, Medicare, and Medicaid go in the tank I don’t think I can manage my household, my 88 year old parents, and help my son while he looks for a job. Of course, if someone wants to live in the garage and I put a tent in backyard maybe….

A common opinion held by many genuinely stupid people.

“Social programs” are socialist. Can’t have that in Obma’s Repubican Merica.

Depriving the government of tax revenue is the lynchpin of the GOP’s stranglehold, preventing government from working for the people. As you say, it’s also the GOP’s last rallying cry, it’s last claim to be pursuing the people’s interest by “saving” them money. That lower taxes ultimately cost middle Americans far more than they save is arithmetic the people are not meant to calculate.

A good piece today, and quite true. I think one thing worth pondering is the impact of the “no new taxes” pledge upon Bush #41, and what happened to him after he caved. Now the GOP has painted itself into a corner, and the resistance to taxes is more than a masturbatory ideological urge.

Obama should also remember this, and consider whether cajoling (or ultimately forcing) another retreat from the GOP might be preferable to invoking a 14th Amdt “nuclear option.” That trick might be risky, too new, and play into GOP hands, no?

If the GOP hangs tough and some beneficiaries’ checks are delayed, it’ll be the GOP’s fault. Right now most folks don’t seem to want the limit raised, but their tone will change soon enough.

Indeed, it’s not clear what the D brand means, if anything, anymore.

If the GOP hangs tough and some beneficiaries’ checks are delayed, it’ll be the GOP’s fault. Right now most folks don’t seem to want the limit raised, but their tone will change soon enough.

I think this is true. America’s biggest problem, culture wise, is always wanting to go for the short term Fix. It has killed business and the economy alike. It can also kill politicians.

He was one of only a handful of GOP congressmen that voted against the Ryan Plan (ditto his son over in the Senate). The only other Republican who’s close is Walter Jones, who’s cosponsoring the Clean Money campaign finance bill.

That is how a president damages the poll numbers of opponents.

Why would we want him to do that? We’re his opponents.
:o)

fwiw, i just called and emailed his office, trying to get them interested in your platinum coin plan.

as beowulf says, fight fire with fire. :)

And the Republican bullshit about job creators is nothing but fumes. Heard a radio caller on Fargo talk radio say it straight: The Middle Class are the Job Creators. The money flows out of our pockets if we have jobs. Not trickle down.

What do we see from the ultra-class? Layoff, hoard, outsource, gamble. Lazy hogs wallowing in wealth on the backs of the middle class.

THE MIDDLE CLASS ARE THE JOB CREATORS.

Oh boy. I suspect you’d have better luck selling grass fed beef to a vegan.
:o)

Nevertheless, way to take the initiative!

Well said.

beowulf,

I suspect you’d have better luck selling grass fed beef to a vegan

i wrote “make the fed do it” and quoted you on how the fed is not independent and must do what the treasury says. all true — and some of the bits i thought would appeal most to a fellow fed hater. :)

I tend to agree. The wealthy as job creators is a bit murky. It would relate to how any one of them spends his/her money, which could be on most anything.

It could be, say, buying yachts, or it could be investing in a widget factory, or both. All of it would tend to create jobs after a fashion, but there are also dependencies being created at the same time among the workforce. Furthermore the ultimate usefulness of their product to the public at large is something to think about, as I drift leftward.

Some of that effort may indeed be toxic to the public good in the long run — I am thinking about those talented yacht craftsmen. They became a lightning rod several years ago as I recall when a luxury tax was imposed on yachts and some other extravagances. I’m still not convinced a luxury tax is so off base, though.

Yet in a free economy some of this sand will always be in the gears, no? What do we replace it with? I’m not sure, but would acknowledge some limits so that we don’t become a command economy — who would want that?

The wealthy’s spending would also overlap middle income spending to some degree, which is OK to the extent it is not profligate and in excess, or driving up prices for others.

I think perhaps revisiting the luxury tax might be a modest idea — add in those business jets, some Gucci stuff, etc., to the yachts. But will it generate a lot of revenue? Probably not.

It’s not the case that all Republicans are all about resisting tax increases. RINOs traditionally haven’t been that reliable about opposing tax increases. In 2010, Tea Party candidates were elected on an express platform of resisting tax increases, but that’s not all: they also pledged to cut spending and shrink government.

It’s not that the Tea Party caucus is indifferent to the deficit, it’s that their first priority is to shrink government. They therefore want to attack the deficit by cutting spending, not by increasing taxes. There’s no reason deficits must be attacked with tax increases. They can be attacked just as readily with spending cuts, and Tea Partiers believe that’s the only way to attack the deficit without further harming the economy and bloating the state.

Uh huh. Point to any of the roll call votes in appropriations as well as the debt ceiling rises by the Republicans since 2004, and compare with those same people in Congress today. They’re virtually identical.