beethoven said:http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/12/21/16065562-plan-b-fiasco-leaves-gop-lost-divided-and-weak?lite
Traveler said:Remind us again what spending cuts Obama has offered up? Oh wait, spending's not the problem, we just need to tax the rich. :roll:
Boehner's "Plan B" Doesn't Help the GOP
A Commentary By Scott Rasmussen
President Obama and congressional Democrats are still winning the messaging battle in the debate over the impending "fiscal cliff."
Republican House Speaker John Boehner tried to change that with a fallback position extending tax cuts for everyone except those making more than a million dollars a year and letting the scheduled spending cuts go through. As I write this, the vote on Boehner's "Plan B" has not been taken, but it doesn't really matter. Either way, Republicans will end up as losers in the court of public opinion.
That's true even though raising taxes on millionaires is supported by 62 percent of voters nationwide. Boehner's plan fails to accomplish the speaker's goal of showing that Republicans are willing to raise taxes on the rich, however.
Why? Because 59 percent of voters also want to see taxes raised on those who earn more than $250,000 a year. In other words, the president can continue his rhetoric unchanged, and people still will side with Obama over Boehner.
Most significantly, Boehner's plan doesn't gain Republicans any support from unaffiliated voters. Sixty-three percent of these voters like the idea of raising taxes for those who earn more than a million dollars a year. But the exact same number (63 percent) want to raise taxes on those who earn between $250,000 and a million dollars a year, too.
So by agreeing to raise taxes on anyone, Boehner has antagonized his base. By refusing to raise taxes on enough upper-income Americans, Boehner has antagonized those in the middle. Most Americans consider $50,000 a middle-class income, and the speaker is seen as trying to protect those who make five times that amount.
Republicans are losing the debate because the fiscal cliff talks are about fairness rather than about taxes and deficit reduction. Most voters (56 percent) believe the U.S. economy is unfair to the middle class. That's the issue Obama is talking about and Republicans are ignoring.
With Republicans avoiding the topic, the president defined the terms by saying those who earn more than $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes. It's true that $250,000 a year doesn't make someone rich, but the overwhelming majority of Americans defines such affluent citizens as "upper-income."
Republicans have a choice to make. They can continue opposing all tax hikes and attempt to make the case that it's the fair thing to do. If they take that approach, voters in the middle will tune out all other GOP talking points about the need for spending cuts and entitlement reform. Or they can let taxes go up on the president's terms and earn a chance to make the case for spending cuts and entitlement reform from a stronger position.
Both approaches are risky. That's what happens when you have a bad hand to play. But Boehner's plan is worse than either option because it further erodes support from the party's base without gaining any ground in the middle.
The only good news in all of this for the House Republicans is that the messaging over the fiscal cliff will not determine how they fare on Election Day in 2014. At that point, the president's popularity and his party's prospects will be judged by the state of the economy.
beethoven said:tug o war traveler, tug of war
Oldtimer said:Traveler said:Remind us again what spending cuts Obama has offered up? Oh wait, spending's not the problem, we just need to tax the rich. :roll:
Actually Obama doesn't need to offer any spending cuts...If the Repubs can't agree to a new tax increase and spending cut proposal the Dems will go along with-- the old spending cut proposal they agreed to a year ago goes into effect-- along with an end of all Bush tax cuts...
TexasBred said:Oldtimer said:Traveler said:Remind us again what spending cuts Obama has offered up? Oh wait, spending's not the problem, we just need to tax the rich. :roll:
Actually Obama doesn't need to offer any spending cuts...If the Repubs can't agree to a new tax increase and spending cut proposal the Dems will go along with-- the old spending cut proposal they agreed to a year ago goes into effect-- along with an end of all Bush tax cuts...
You think not? That was not what he told the nation when he was campaigning. But when did he ever start keeping his word, taking responsibility for anything bad that happens during his presidency and look on any white man as an equal?? Tell me OT...when does that spending cut that the dems. agreed to last year go into affect??
Let's just go over the cliff....go badk to the Clinto era tax rates. Things were supposedly wonderful during his presidency and we supposedly had a surplus. [/u][/b]
I thought I heard during the election that Buckwheat promised 3 dollars in spending cuts for every 1 dollar of tax increase?
Steve said:I thought I heard during the election that Buckwheat promised 3 dollars in spending cuts for every 1 dollar of tax increase?
yes but that was in the language of plain ol political bull,
interpreted to reality it is for every $1 in tax increases they will seek $3 additional dollars in actual spending. followed by a demand for an additional $3 in additional taxes.. to pay for more spending..
Boehner leading GOP to the apocalypse
By Timothy Stanley, Special to CNN
updated 11:18 AM EST, Fri December 21, 2012
Editor's note: Timothy Stanley is a historian at Oxford University and blogs for Britain's The Daily Telegraph. He is the author of "The Crusader: The Life and Times of Pat Buchanan."
(CNN) -- Now that the Mayan apocalypse has proven to be a fantasy, we can turn our attention to the real thing. Step forward John Boehner and the House Republicans, who could not agree on a tax rise on the rich and so have permitted taxes to jump on everyone. Over the fiscal cliff we go. And should the markets tremble and the economy rupture in the new year, we'll know who is the real author of our Armageddon. Not some Mayan priest but the GOP.
Here's the sad story of the fiscal cliff in a couple of tweets. On December 14, Eric Cantor tweeted, "We will not adjourn Congress until a credible solution to the fiscal cliff has been announced."
Indeed, it seemed like President Barack Obama and Boehner were determined to find a compromise, with the speaker edging toward "new revenues" and the president lowering the amount that he wanted. But on Thursday, Boehner tallied up the votes for his Plan B on taxes, calculated that he didn't have the number necessary for an increase on those earning more than $1 million and then withdrew the measure.
A few minutes later, Cantor tweeted, "The House of Representatives has concluded legislative business for the week. The House will return after the Christmas holiday when needed." Some might say that the business hasn't been concluded and that the House is needed right now. Either way, the "credible solution" feels as far away as it did when Cantor promised it last week.
The Republicans will pay for this. It's true that Plan B probably wouldn't have passed the Senate, and it's also true that because they don't control the presidency the Republicans were always negotiating from a position of weakness. But the popular perception will be that they preferred to allow a fiscal crisis to happen rather than raise taxes on what is calculated to be just 2% of the population (a position that polls suggest the voters favor). It smacks not only of ideology but also of greed -- a horrible combination. The result is that in the new year all those Bush tax cuts will disappear.
As the Democrats make a case for tax relief for the middle class, the GOP will be left making a case for giving a break to the rich. That puts the president's party in a good position to retake the House in 2014.
"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes..."
~Leona Helmsley
Oldtimer said:"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes..."
~Leona Helmsley
Whitewing said:Hatred doesn't enter into the picture with Mr. Wide End. It's all about envy which is why Obama's pitting one section of society against the other is such a siren's song to OT.
As much as he whines about the wealthy and their loopholes, he'd sell his grandkids to the devil if thought it'd make him wealthy.
Oldtimer said:"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes..."
~Leona Helmsley
Oldtimer said:"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes..."
~Leona Helmsley
"She was a millionaire long before she married Harry," Colicchio said. "She would not have gotten as far as she did in real estate with the kind of personality that was painted as being her. She was intelligent, dedicated. She could be charming if she wanted. And her hotels were union hotels. She didn't have the authority to just fire people left and right. The union would have held a hearing. Those people would have been hired back with back pay. It wouldn't make business sense."
The famous Helmsley tantrums, her former shrimp-plopper said, were almost always aimed at conniving hotel managers - not the maids, bellmen and other union workers who staffed the hotels.
"Back in the 1980s, a lot of those managers didn't believe a woman belonged out of the kitchen - much less as the boss of a big hotel. They said awful things behind her back."