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This is the time for new ideas, not re-fighting old battles for short-term political gain.
-- Aide to a Democratic senator talking to Power Play about President Obamas tax proposals.
When the best Obama can get as an answer to pass this bill today from Sen. Dick Durbin, the number two Senate Democrat, and longtime friend and home state senator is, sometime next month one gets the sense that the blue team is not feeling the fierce urgency of now.
Part is the fact that Obama served up mostly a rehash of his first, February 2009 stimulus package. The White House thought that would make it harder for Republicans to say no since the ideas arent controversial. But not only have Republicans been able to repeat more failed stimulus until they are hoarse, but Obama has not been able to win the support of key moderate Democrats.
Even the payroll tax cut extension and expansion, assumed to be the least controversial parts of the presidents plan, have been kind of a fizzle. Conservatives said such temporary measures dont work since businesses crave predictability and many Democrats dislike the fact that taxes being lowered are the ones that finance Social Security.
Translation: Wealth redistributionThe president is pretty plainly trying to bait House Republicans into a battle in which they are defending millionaires and billionaires. Obama is even naming the measure after billionaire Warren Buffett, one of his most prominent supporters, who has asked that he be taxed at a higher rate. And rather than talking about stimulating the economy, Obama is explicitly talking about flattening income inequality.
But the congressional Democrats on whom Obama is relying to keep Republicans pinned down have so far not joined the president at the barricades. Part of that has been that liberals arent happy that the president has proposed stimulus lite, but mostly because Democrats dont currently see Obama as a good friend to have these days.
Since Obama began his fall campaign effort, the administration has been beset by scandal (Fast and Furious, Solyndra and LightSquared) and Democrats have lost two special elections in which Obama himself was the central issue. The president has obtained no job-approval bounce from his latest publicity blitz. The administration is pushing back with vigor against a new book by Ron Suskind which shows a dysfunctional White House and a president who compares his own management style with that of Jimmy Carter.
We're Saved!Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue - Yahoo! News
At least he's not calling it 'spending cuts in the tax code' anymore.
OK, so what's the plan for paying off that $15 trillion in national debt?
OK, so what's the plan for paying off that $15 trillion in national debt?
It ought to balance the books in say 50-75 yrs. Millionaires & Billionaires .....errr......I mean "job creators" (latest GOP talking-point) are going through a difficult time dontcha' know.
OK, so what's the plan for paying off that $15 trillion in national debt?
Cut funds to programs for the elderly and children. Its the Conservative way
So now it's $1.5 trillion in tax increases, but $800 billion on the wealthy."I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12 (2008). "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
Yet more economic lunacy from Obama:
Key features of Obama's plan, as described by senior administration officials Sunday evening:
-$1.5 trillion in new revenue, which would include about $800 billion realized over 10 years from repealing the Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000. It also would place limits on deductions for wealthy filers and end certain corporate loopholes and subsidies for oil and gas companies.
-$580 billion in cuts in mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion in Medicare and $72 billion in Medicaid and other health programs. Other mandatory benefit programs include farm subsidies.
-$430 billion in savings from lower interest payment on the national debt.
By adding about $1 trillion in spending cuts already enacted by Congress and counting about $1 trillion in savings from the drawdown of military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, the combined deficit reduction would total more than $4 trillion over 10 years, senior administration officials said.
News from The Associated Press
This is not a plan. It's just class warfare on the tax front, wistful thinking on Savings From Lower Interest Payments (at some point, China is going to demand a higher rate), and complete sophistry on the savings from Iraq and Afghanistan.
And didn't he already cut Medicare to pay for ObamaCare?
Yeah. We need to leave them alone. They've had tax-cuts going on 10- years. Cuts to programs for the elderly & children are way to go
OK, so what's the plan for paying off that $15 trillion in national debt?
