Post-election Drama in the House

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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Obama has laid a brilliant trap for his Republican foes in congress: Either they agree to his proposal to raise tax rates on the wealthiest 2% of Americans, or they refuse, presumably on principle, and the tax rates go up for all Americans, including the 2% they are supposed to be protecting. Either way it’s the Republican led congress who is likely to get the blame, and indeed they seem to have made their own bed, being the same ones responsible for the sequestration deadline in the first place. There’s no real way the President comes out of this looking worse than his obstructionist counterparts on the right.

Things like this are the reason i like Obama, at least as far as US presidents go. He saw the catch 22 people like Boehner had ensnared themselves in long before anyone else, he just needed to get re-elected and he’d get what he wanted. Well, he got re-elected and now he gets to whatch Congressional republicans, who have been blocking his every move for two years, get hoisted by their own petard: Mandatory tax hikes and a gutting of the military budget on the one hand, and the alienation of the millionaires and billionaires that make up the financial backbone of their party on the other.

i guess we’ll see for once where Republican loyalties actually lie - with the wealthiest Americans, or with the other 98% of us . . .?

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Well Obama obviously does not give a rat’s butt about the lower or middle class with that proposal.

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And the idiots in congress are saying crap like: we are holding the fiscal cliff hostage
for changes in… saying really stupid stuff like this isn’t really helping their cause.
Because the fact is they can’t stop the fiscal cliff unless they have a deal in place
before January. The hostage taking means nothing because they don’t have
anything to hold hostage, it is an empty threat. Great, hold the fiscal cliff
hostage, in January, it is automatically freed, no matter what you do.
the GOP HAS to come to the table to make this work. Obama just has to say
no and the GOP has nothing. It is simply playing poker with Obama having
the better hand and the GOP having nothing and Obama knows it and
the GOP knows it and the public knows it. The GOP can only threaten
to hold things hostage because they got nothing else.

Kropotkin

4

Uhhh… Kris, Obama sent a bill to congress a couple of months ago to keep the lower tax rates on all but the top 2%. The senate passed the bill and it is only the republicans in the house refusing to give a rat’s ass about the lower or middle class. You might be confused about who cares and who doesn’t…

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I am talking about the threat he made to raise all taxes if the Reps don’t agree. Frankly I dislike being punished for someone else. I don’t like that our president is using our well being as a threat. Thats like telling your wife you will beat your kids if she does not make pasta.

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Well, taxes have to be raised. We’re not paying enough as a society for all the things we seem to want to do. Though we pay far too much for stuff we don’t want to do, like military spending.

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Kris, the president isn’t making that threat. He really had nothing to do with implementing the fiscal cliff. That comes to us courtesy of congress, which passed the sequestration deadline.

Whether or not middle class taxes go up is actually in Republican hands at this point, they simply have to accept Obama’s terms if they wish to stop them going up. But Obama is not the one responsible for the automatic tax hikes, that’s all congress’ own doing.

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That’s not an Obama threat. It’s the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. He extended them last time because republicans wouldn’t allow them just to go up on the richest 2%, leaving the rest of us at the same rate. So he renewed them for everyone. Now we need revenue to continue social services, and the top 2% are richer than they’ve ever been, and the republicans are refusing Obama’s proposal to take away the 2%'s tax cut and keep us paying the lower rate passed under Bush.

So…Obama actually is fighting to make the top 2% pay a 4% higher income tax rate, so that we can generate the revenue to balance the budget without raising taxes on the middle and lower class at all.

AND…the republicans are saying, “if you raise em on the top 2% you gotta raise em on everyone”. They are holding the poor hostage at the barrel of a “fiscal cliff”.

BUT…now Obama can’t be stopped, and what he’s actually going to do is raise taxed on those with an AGI of 250k or more, and leave everyone else paying lower, Bush era tax rates.

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No it’s the republicans making the threat. “If you try and make us pay a fair tax rate on our billions, then we’re going to hike taxes on the poor and cut food and housing for the needy”.

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Basically Kris, if you don’t have enough money to retire on your own, or pay for your doctor when you’re sick, or if you make less than 250k a year, or if you earn your income rather than receive it through capital gains, then you should without question be Obama’s biggest fan. Because the other guys want you to pay more so that the people who already have money for rent and medical bills and retirement can keep more of their taxes.

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And I become unemployed under that top 2% tax increase. So its screw me one way or screw me the other. Gee thanx so much. Luxury jobs will be cut drastically. Well maybe not me but, the maids will get cut out. I work 7 days a week I might have gotten past luxury. Just how many luxury jobs will be lost?

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Uh, none? the top 2% will still be able to afford ridiculous luxuries…

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If you make at least a quarter of a million a year your taxes will go up. My employers make half amill to a million per year. If it goes out one way they will be forced to protect it another way. And luxury salaries are dispensable. I and several others do not bring in profit. Someone will get the axe.

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They’ll go up 4%. That’s 40 grand out of a million, 20 grand out of half that. 20 grand that could be used in social welfare programs that support you while you find a real job that isn’t wiping the dribbling mouths of rich idiots. In any event, I still don’t think you’d lose your job and that you aren’t as in touch with their money as they are (and therefore shoulsn’t speak for them).

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Fat cats, huge payouts called golden parachutes, pensions that God would dream about. The fact is any company skilled workers are irreplaceable, middle and upper management are ten a penny, although they do control financial outlay, the meetings and a vested interest in keeping their jobs. Fire the wasters in management, make it more lean, keep anyone who is skilled is the key to company survival, sadly though this means admitting as the top management that you are replaceable. It’s a hard thing to admit that someone else could do your job, the fact is 10 years experience on the ground floor, no one can do your job quite like you, even if you stack boxes, every lay off of a valuable long term member of staff affects people far more than you know.

Sometimes in any company there are too many chiefs and not enough indians. Whilst both chiefs and indians are valuable you don’t get ahead by getting rid of your most valuable war party.

Tax evasion is often the single biggest drain on any budget from the work force, far more for example by often a factor of 100 to 1 than welfare cheats and the generally indolent. And yet, this vast amount of cash that companies off set or offshore is seen as ok, because they are not cheating anyone but the tax payer. Hella what? Companies have to get real, the problem isn’t tax it’s greed. Pay anyone what they are worth, not what they think they are worth.

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The problem is both, really. Taxes too low, greed too high.

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:slight_smile: I think you may be right.

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How do you become unemployed? If the company you work for makes more than 4% profit, or can cut it’s own spending and reduce it’s own waste and be efficient then it can keep you employed. One thing I usually look at is how much is going to shareholders and getting paid out in bonuses and such.

The alternative to increasing those taxes is to lower the lowest rung of the ladder in America to a level that no human should be asked to tolerate. The poorest of the poor, those who truly are dependent are under attack by profiteers. These guys aren’t asking for lower taxes because they want to help the country to be great, or because they want to let you keep your job. They’re doing it so that they can continue to amass power in the political sphere and perpetuate a system wherein the American dream is truly just that. A dream. When you were younger you probably grew up in a world where hard work and dedication, sacrifice blood sweat and tears would get you somewhere, even if it took a bit of luck. My generation is pretty much born into a minimum wage life, or a lifetime of debt via student loans, or privilege, or you can choose to break the law and try to get your hands on enough of something to where you don’t have to be a full blown slave anymore.

It’s a much different world than the one you started off in. There really is almost no opportunity out there for honest people to work and earn a dignified living. You gotta understand that guys like Romney lie to you so that they can keep exploiting you. They want you to believe that they are the only ones who can take care of you. If they get their way then they really will be. You’ll have stripped your elected government of the will or the power to act on your behalf and in your interest and handed that power to men who work in private and have no term limits or accountability to the people who’s lives they dictate.

19 
QFT

Before anyone asks definition there.

urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=QFT

tru dat.

20

Thanks, tralix, for the link, otherwise, I’d be the one asking for the definition. O:)

The Republicans, last I heard/read, were offering a package that left the tax breaks but included eliminating tax loopholes for corps and the very rich. I question whether or not this is immediately possible and whether or not they’re sincere? Seems to me letting the Bush era tax breaks end would be less of a loss to the corps and the super rich than eliminating tax loopholes. Let the tax breaks lapse first–then get rid of the tax loopholes, hidden bank accounts, etc.

What exactly were the ‘middle-class’ tax breaks given by the Bush era? Has the demography of the middle-class changed materially as a result of those tax breaks?

Kris, from what you’ve written, I understand you work for a family rather than a company and that that family earns at least $1M/year. Do they work?

Is your job really a ‘luxury job’ or would your job be a luxury to you if you were able to hire someone to do it? Are your employers able to ‘write off’ your salary on their tax forms?

Imm, the President is trying to save people like you and me (retired and on a fixed income), people with skills that have been off-shored, people left with no money as a result of the financial skullduggery on Wall Street, young and middle-aged people without the means to achieve what they believed a thriving US economy promised them. These aren’t the homeless and/or the indigent. They’re people who go to a doctor for a ‘covered’ medical reason–who’re then hit with a bill for the doctor’s use of an office/clinic within a hospital complex! Insurance doesn’t cover that–I don’t know if medicare covers anything other than medical fees.

I have electrodes buried in my deep brain (thalamus) to control essential tremor. The electrodes are attached to battery operated pulse generators implanted in my chest. If I go to the neurology clinic located in a hospital, I’m charged a ‘specialist’s co-pay.’ But I don’t consult the neurologist; instead, I see his physician’s assistant, a specialized nurse, who renews my prescriptions, checks my batteries, and okays a life-time disabled parking permit (I need a cane to keep my balance when walking.) Then we get a bill for the use of the examining room–close to $100. Iow, we’re paying the doctor’s rent.

Drug co-pays increase every year–even for generic drugs. Some are even taken off the list of ‘approved’ drugs, which leaves the patient liable for the full (or close to it) amount. And the Republicans want to cut medicare payments in order to ‘balance the budget?’ Get real, folks.

Rant over for now–but, believe me, I could go on.