Far be it for me to correct the estimable Jim Pethokoukis. But doesn’t he mean the “bi-partisan, fiscal-cliff avoiding, what’s best and most prudent given the circumstances, and god bless us all for being so prudent and avoiding the hectoring of naive, un-nuanced fringe teabagging extremists” tax hikes?
Small correction, but an important one. Please, Jim. Proceed:
How much more “balance” does Obama want?
1. Well, the fiscal cliff deal is a $620 billion tax hike, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Obama’s original offer to House Speaker John Boehner called for $1.6 trillion in tax hikes, including a) $960 billion in higher tax rates and higher taxes on investment income along with b) $600 billion in additional taxes, such as limiting tax breaks for wealthier Americans.
2. In a November policy memo, White House economists thought a tax hike of around $500 billion was doable via broadening the tax base.
3. Also recall that the president’s 2013 budget called for a $300 billion corporate tax hike.
So adding it all up, it would seem the president’s second term goal is for roughly $2 trillion in new taxes. We’re only one-third of the way there.
But what leverage will Obama have to make good on his tax-hike threats? As The Wall Street Journal editorial page notes today, “The President has had unusual leverage over Republicans because he just won re-election and because taxes were going to go up even if they did nothing.”
One potential Obama bargaining chip is the sequester, particularly the $500 billion in defense cuts that many GOPers loathe. So perhaps Obama can offer to turn off the defense cuts in exchange for $500 billion from limiting tax breaks for the rich. And then maybe another $300 billion in corporate tax hikes for agreeing to change how Social Security benefits are calculated. Many scenarios are possible. What’s for sure is that the Obama desires vastly higher taxes to pay for his expanded welfare state. Desires and needs them. And it’s now Democrat economic theology that tax rates could return to pre-Reagan levels without hurting growth.
Tax hikes? Obama is only just getting started.
Fortunately for him, he has his “Obama tax cuts for the middle class” to fall back on to show how much he’s willing to protect the working man. So the GOP’s failure to accept whatever “balanced plan” (what’s in it won’t ever be discussed; in a post-modern American, just calling it “balanced” then repeating that forces the GOP to decide, publicly: are you for or against “balance” — and honestly, what kind of extremist is against balance, or compromise for that matter?) Obama comes up with next to raise taxes, increase spending, and further hasten us toward the now inevitable collapse of the dollar and the economy, will once again place the blame directly on them.
After all, Obama stands for a balanced approach — and the GOP just admitted that he offered them one by passing his tax hike (with no cuts in spending). So why the sudden recidivism into unbalanced obstructionism, the media might query.
To which the answer will be: you know, they’re right! We must surrender here, because why give up whatever’s left of our political capital?
They must be holding that capital in gold, is all I can figure.
The GOP doesn’t have any political capital. They squandered it on shit deals which betray classical liberal principles, and the only place they can get more of it is from us.
I wish them good luck with all that.
the sequestration should happen it’s a minimal little spending cut that’s already been passed by our failshit congress and signed into law by our failshit president
that’s about as good as it gets these days
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard “tax-cuts cost the government money” spoken without any intention of irony, that is, spoken utterly in ignorance of the implications of the statement. The phrase has descended to the point of a mindless mantra.
Can we dispense with the “Obama tax cuts for the middle class” bullshit? You know it’s bullshit, I know it’s bullshit, you know I know, and I know you know, etc. etc. But here’s the thing: repeating it makes it true for those who don’t know.*
It’s the Obama prosperity killing tax increase on the upper-middle class (formerly known as “the rich”).
*This is what happened to Left when they sought to mock Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative by calling it “Star Wars.” People liked Star Wars.
People like tax cuts, too.
I understand why your doing it (Tyler Durden too), but it’s time to short-hand it as Obama’s tax cuts that weren’t or something.
My resolution for the New Year is to stop using both possessives and contractions, since I cannot seem to do so correctly.
I expect to break it within the day.
I know. How very pragmatic of me. Like a good Republican should be.
The point is, the Republicans need to know what they’ve given him.
We know the truth. LIV don’t care. And I’m not sure the GOP does, either. It is what it is. I’ve already explained in the course of each post that the “tax cuts” were status quo Bush-era tax rates opposed by Biden, Schumer, et al.
I can’t do all the work for everyone.
In addition, if the GOP loses the house in 2014 (and I think they will), between 2015 and 2016 you’re going to see the largest tax increases in the history of the country. They will try to jam everything they can.
It would be useful if the GOP would publicly state that the Middle Class is not who Obama thinks they are. If somebody is on unemployment or wellfare or food stamps or making less than 20k a year, it doesn’t matter if that person has everything else a middle class person has – big screen TV, car, cable, internet, Iphone, etc- they’re not middle class. Its about what you make and earn, not about what you have. My father used to refer to our family as lower middle class, as he made around 40-50k a year and my mom worked part time.
It’s about what you make and earn, not about what you have.
Yup. I’m the other side of that coin: the wife and I bring home pretty decent salaries, but we have a tiny house and a modest car and little in the way of conspicuous consumption, because we pour half our income into retirement savings (in the hopes that those accounts will be worth something when we retire, preferably in our 50s).
What’s worse is knowing that our little pile of savings makes an irresistible target for the improvident and their
overseerselected representatives. And still the grasshoppers wonder why the ants are all arming themselves…Happy New Year, everyone. I missed you while I was visiting the in-laws.
I’ve been calling it “Obama’s ratification of Bush’s tax rates,” or sometimes “Obama’s repudiation of Clinton’s extortionate tax rates” just to get on people’s nerves.
I’ve been calling it the Weimar Republic, just to be succinct.
Now was the time to reclaim some of the speech and momentum, not give in and chide your base. But it was the only play the GOP knows, and it’s not worth trying to teach them another.
It’s all just Leviathan Kabuki, which will, by the way, be the name of my band.
“It’s all just Leviathan Kabuki, which will, by the way, be the name of my band.”
You didn’t build that.
barackynomics
link
Jeff, sadly 85% of that political capitol is being held in the form of burned bridge futures. 5% is in “not in the face” flinching securities. Another five percent is shares of a mixed cap fund that mostly works with magic beans and ghost money. The balance is held in a fear based derivative called ” pop a tiny umbrella to stop the falling boulder” bonds. The cash value of these is currently very low but in a crazy enough market who knows? Might as well hold onto them a little longer.
Ants find the sugar.
McGehee – do you need a drummer?
Ants find the sugar.
At my house, they find the Terro. Which, I suppose, makes me a Terro-ist who engages in chemical warfare. I suppose the ants will petition the UN to issue a strongly-worded condemnation real soon now.
Obama is lying again on FauxNewz. I can tell because words are coming out of his mouth.
is he on the golf course?
I bought something gun-related (though not a gun) before Christmas, but I took it with me ice fishing the other day, so you can guess where it ended up.
I cannot figure out how this keeps happening to me.
is stock piling arms in lakes legal?
Ace be wishin’ hard. Wishin’ for a Boehner step-down or vote out. But Hot-Air says “no.”
http://minx.cc/?post=336217
– What is awe inspiring is a big chunk of the electorate actually think they’re getting a tax cut.
– Remember that guy who said “we’re fucked?”.
– He was being a show boating optimist.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/02/report-group-of-20-republican-congressman-to-block-boehners-election-as-speaker-tomorrow/
Updated: or not! I dunno.
– Here’s the only positive I can take away from the last 5 years.
– The bastards on the Left have set themselves up for the mother cluster fu$k of all fails, amd when the roof finally caves in on “identity politics”, theres going to be a reckoning second to none.
– Small comfort maybe, but at least it will be healing in so many ways just to watch the Progs burn, and believe me, there will be no mercy in throwing gasolibe on the fire.
gasolibe needs some ethanol. to bad the ethanol is stuck on the train to nowhere.
Jrez, I haven’t heard back from Zac Starkey so you’ve got a shot. Now I just need a guitarist, bass player and lead singer.
The progressives will burn with the rest of us, but their idiot ideology will never be gone from us. It’s too ingrained in humanity. What we used to have in this country was the oddity.
What is awe inspiring is a big chunk of the electorate actually think they’re getting a tax cut.
They’re also excited that the Chocolate Ration has been increased.
One potential Obama bargaining chip is the sequester, particularly the $500 billion in defense cuts that many GOPers loathe.
I’d like to know exactly who these ‘many GOPers’ are. I’ve yet to find anybody among my (admittedly Hobbity) associates that thinks the DOD can’t get along just peachy on $50B less per year… which is what, like a 7% cut? And somehow I suspect it’s not a ‘real’ cut, but simply less budget growth than otherwise expected/promised/whatever.
My only complaint: it should be a real 10% cut, and it should happen at every Federal department.
dems in 1850 pitching slavery?
I play a sick zither.
The sequester was a plan to spend 1.6 trillion dollars a year instead of 1.7
It doesn’t cut anything but projected increases.
Spending still goes up compared to the prior year. It only goes down compared to the “original” proposal for spending for next year.
It’s like saying you spend too much money, and you need to cut your spending so you decide that were going to spend $17 but now you will only spend $16 which means you have saved 1$ over your prior plans, but you are still spending $4 more than the $12 you spend yesterday.
Watch the reaction when the Obama voters see their paychecks shrink with the expiration of the payroll tax holiday.
Make sure to offer them a cheery “You fucked up–you trusted him! And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! How else do you think he can keep giving you all that free shit?”
On your way to improving your bolthole property and related assets, of course.
its hard not to get despondent and depressed over the state of this nation and the direction in which our “elected” officials seem hell bent on taking it. It seems like no amount of basic common sense or critical thinking will prevail. The country I initially grew up in is alien to me and there is apparently nothing I can do as an individual to change it. Let it burn is attractive, but then what do my young children do? They will never know this nation was once great, as even that is being erased from the history books.
– The answer. We gotta break mean, mean as a junk yard dog. When it hurts them enough they’ll stop. Not before. They see this as their only real opportunity to gain control in a society that actually hates them.
– The revenge of the merds, come to life.
[…] CEO To Visit North Korea Pressure Builds To Nix Gift Of Tanks, Fighters To Egypt BLOGS & STUFF Protein Wisdom: “Why The Obama Tax Hikes Have Only Just Begun” Belmont Club: Till Grendel Come To Heorot Sister Toldjah: Why Was The Senate’s Sandy Bill […]
You want a lead guitar player, I’m your axeman.
http://kentuckyfriedwave.blogspot.com/2011/09/shadowplay-camp-of-saints-lp-1989.html
El Diablo: America is an idea that can never been vanquished as long as one person believes in it.
Teach your children the history of it; let it gain a foothold in their hearts and minds.
Tell them of the men who risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to preserve, protect, and defend her. Infuse them with The American Spirit. They are the future warriors who will have to defend the American Idea from it’s eternal enemies, be it in a fifty-state America or in some other physical form.
Never despair.
As Mr. Belvedere implies, your kids will know it if you take responsibility for making them know it. Part of the failure we’ve all let go on too long has been acceding to the government’s monopoly in that regard.
Teach your children well. No one else has as big a stake in their education as you.
For Speaker Boehner, upon hearing that he might resign, an appropriate Serenity quote:
“You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords. “
A. Lincoln: Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838
– So we get the usual feel good anal retentive narrative from the Prognerds, but reality slams the door on their empty skulls. Sandy hook kids visit their new school setting yesterday, and what do they find? Super upgraded security hardware plus onsite armed police at all times when the school is open and children are in attendence.
– But for the cave bear cult clan, thats a bad idea of course.
That’s ‘Bob’ to you, McGehee!
That’s not what you tell Wesley.