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Monday, December 06, 2010

It isn't even surprising anymore
Posted by Jill | 5:14 AM
Come on, admit it. The fact that Senate Democrats are caving to Republican demands that the top 1% keep their tax cuts doesn't even make you shriek with frustration anymore. I don't know about you, but I shrugged my shoulders when I read this:
White House officials and Congressional Republicans said Sunday they were closing in on a deal to temporarily continue the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, while bitterly frustrated Democratic Congressional leaders began exploring whether they would have the votes for such a package.

[snip]

Senior Democrats on Sunday said that they were resigned to defeat in the highly charged tax debate, and they voiced dismay.

“We’re moving in that direction,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat said dejectedly when Bob Schieffer, host of “Face the Nation” on CBS, asked him if the 2001 and 2003 tax rates would be extended even for the wealthy. “And we’re only moving there against my judgment,” Mr. Durbin added.

In meetings with administration officials after the Senate votes, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and many other House and Senate Democrats voiced deep unhappiness at the prospect of extending all the tax cuts and also expressed their belief that the White House did not appear to be getting enough for such a big concession, officials said.

What makes Nancy Pelosi think that this president even WANTS anything else? At this point, it's pretty clear that lip service to working Americans is all this guy does, while he amasses chits with Wall Street to be cashed in for a fat Wall Street paycheck when he leaves office. What's hilarious is that in return for a seven-figure windfall for Rush Limbaugh, Republicans "probably" would vote to extend unemployment benefits.

No guarantees.

Does anyone actually believe that an extension of unemployment benefits will be part of the final package?

Meanwhile, Wall Street multimillionaires are so concerned that they might have to buy one less Maserati that they're planning to move bonuses into 2010:
Worried that lawmakers will allow taxes to rise for the wealthiest Americans beginning next year, financial firms are discussing whether to move up their bonus payouts from next year to this month.

At stake is a portion of the hefty annual payouts that are a familiar part of the compensation culture on Wall Street, as well as a juicy target of popular anger. If Congress does not extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the highest income levels, a typical worker who earns a $1 million bonus would pay $40,000 to $50,000 more in taxes next year than this year, depending on base salary.

Goldman Sachs is one of the companies discussing how to time bonus season, according to three people who have been briefed on the discussions. Pay consultants who work with major Wall Street companies say that just about every other large bank has also considered such a move in recent weeks.

With tax politics in Washington unpredictable, bank executives have spent months sketching out several options for their bonus plans, including the possibility of an earlier payout. Lawmakers have been trading accusations across a partisan divide, but after this weekend, it appears likely that a compromise will extend the tax cuts for all income levels.

Even so, the banks’ discussions about bonus timing underscore how focused the industry is on protecting every dollar of pay.

Isn't is nice that Goldman Sachs and other banks are so concerned with protecting every single little dollar of their employees' pay, while other industries are still hemorrhaging jobs? Doesn't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy that the people who got us into this economic mess, the people WE THE TAXPAYER bailed out are going to have their bonuses protected come hell or high water while the rest of us are going to work every day wondering if today is the day we're going to get called in to find out we don't have a job anymore?

The fix was in from the beginning under the previous president, as Krugman notes today. Bush was an instant-gratification kind of guy who has always been able to evade any kind of responsibility:
Back in 2001, former President George W. Bush pulled a fast one. He wanted to enact an irresponsible tax cut, largely for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans. But there were Senate rules in place designed to prevent that kind of irresponsibility. So Mr. Bush evaded the rules by making the tax cut temporary, with the whole thing scheduled to expire on the last day of 2010.

The plan, of course, was to come back later and make the thing permanent, never mind the impact on the deficit. But that never happened. And so here we are, with 2010 almost over and nothing resolved.

[snip]

Bear in mind that Republicans want to make those tax cuts permanent. They might agree to a two- or three-year extension — but only because they believe that this would set up the conditions for a permanent extension later. And they may well be right: if tax-cut blackmail works now, why shouldn’t it work again later?

America, however, cannot afford to make those cuts permanent. We’re talking about almost $4 trillion in lost revenue just over the next decade; over the next 75 years, the revenue loss would be more than three times the entire projected Social Security shortfall. So giving in to Republican demands would mean risking a major fiscal crisis — a crisis that could be resolved only by making savage cuts in federal spending.

And we’re not talking about government programs nobody cares about: the only way to cut spending enough to pay for the Bush tax cuts in the long run would be to dismantle large parts of Social Security and Medicare.


Yes, but this is what Americans WANT, isn't it? They really truly care about deficits to the exclusion of all else, right? They WANT the wealthiest one percent to have big tax cuts continued because Rich People Create Jobs™, right?

Wrong:
According to a new CBS News poll, however, Boehner is off-base in his claim that Americans "want us to stop all the looming tax hikes."

The poll finds that 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year. That roughly matches the proposal put forth by the White House, which wants to extend the cuts only for incomes less than $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals.

Just 26 percent of Americans say they support extending the cuts for all Americans, even those earning above the $250,000 level, which is the GOP proposal.


Doesn't that make you feel great about America? And doesn't that just INSPIRE you to continue to elect the kind of people who allow this to happen?

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8 Comments:
Blogger Ema Nymton said...
.

1. "Republicans want billionaires to be richer. We want poor people to be able to eat."

2. "Republicans want billionaires to be richer. We want you to not have feces on your food."

3. "Republicans want billionaires to be richer. We want the men and women who rescued people after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to get healthy."

4. "Republicans want billionaires to be richer. We want firefighters and police officers to be able to get fair pay."

5. "Republicans want billionaires to be richer. We want all Americans to be able to openly serve in the military."

6. "Republicans want billionaires to be richer. We want women and men to make the same wage for the same work."

7. "Republicans want billionaires to be richer. We want to make the nation safe from nuclear weapons."

(Thanks to Rude Pundit)

Ema Nymton
~@:o?
.
12/6/10, 6:16 AM  
Blogger Serr8d said...
"...7 million dollar windfall for Rush Limbaugh..."

How can one get a 'windfall' when it's HIS money to begin with?

You Leftists astound me with the level of hatred, envy, greed and jealously you unabashedly display for the 'rich'.

Get this straight: IT'S.NOT.YOUR.MONEY.PERIOD.

You cannot just take things that don't belong to you, redistribute wealth as you see fit for 'feel-good' projects that you imagine to be important.

We are NOT all socialists now, no matter what you want or think should be. TANSTAAFL. Live within your means. Stop having kids you can't afford.

Be STRONG AMERICANS again!
12/6/10, 7:49 AM  
Blogger PurpleGirl said...
So they aren't really bonuses for especially good work. The money is salary. What a racket. I'll bet not one person who gets the money allocated to them this year to save on taxes gives any of it to a charity or non-profit organization.
12/6/10, 8:43 AM  
Anonymous mandt said...
"Stop having kids you can't afford." That's the best right-wing argument for abortion yet!
12/6/10, 4:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Serr8d: Lessee:wages for the middle class have stagnated for 30 years (uh, since the election of Ron Reagan--how coincidental). Massive upward transfer of wealth in the same period.

It's not "hatred, envy", etc--it's self-preservation. The side which has screamed so often about "class warfare" has been the one waging it--on us.

And there HAS been a windfall to the rich, because the deck's been stacked--I mean, Enron, Goldman Sachs, etc didn't just happen by themselves. They had a lot of help from the proponents of the Laffer Curve/ "trickle down"( read: "piss on") school of economics.

And please, please, please don't lecture me about "living within your means," when the Masters of the Universe saw fit to airfreight their Maseratis to wherever in the world they were having their next party. Maybe you should give them your finger-wagging lecture. Maybe if they had bothered to "live within their means," the Great Meltdown of 2008 wouldn't have happened.

Not my money? Can't take things which don't belong to me? Hmmm...my guess is the corporate boys didn't worry too much about that when they were looting pension funds and savings and loans. Maybe you should spare your little lecture for that fine upstanding citizen, Bernie Madoff.

Further, some of that money IS our money--in the form of taxes. Sorry, but government services must be paid for. And I might remind you that under that great Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 90 percent. And somehow the capitalist system survived that and even thrived despite that(and how odd that when the tax rates were cut, the economy ultimately went to shit). And you're whining about a 3-4% REVERSION of the tax rate on incomes ABOVE $250,000.

"Be strong Americans again!" Little hard to do when the ultimate effect of Reaganomics is 9%-plus unemployment, the outsourcing of America's manufacturing base to cheap labor overseas, and the transformation of America into a jumbo banana republic.

Serr8d, I can see you back in the Gilded Age, saying that the robber barons had the best interest of America at heart, and believing that Social Darwinism was a perfect theory of social dynamics. If you're happy being an apologist for the superrich, fine, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard. The "party of fiscal responsibility" has proven anything but...
12/6/10, 4:18 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...
Well, Serr8d, that's one of the great things about America--how richly it rewards a lack of talent and intellect, those being replaced by bloated windbaggery...
12/6/10, 4:21 PM  
Blogger Serr8d said...
A comment, published? Fascinating~!

First, it now seems that Mr. Obama has made a deal to allow the 'Bush Tax Rates' to continue, to not return to the 'Clinton Tax Rates'. A good thing, but it does include at least one poison pill; the exchange of 'no unfair class-warfare tax hike on the EVIL RICH!' for 'welfare goodies to assuage the constituency, so's I can get their votes!'. I don't trust gifts that are ticking down to a Cloward-Piven event.

I could care less about air freighted Maseratis. Workers made 'em; workers fly and maintenance the jets; workers wax 'em, earning their keeps. I'm not jealous, envious or spiteful to or toward those who buy and fly about their Maseratis and I can't or don't, but it seems you are. You should work on that, really; envy and jealousy are a cancer to your heart and soul.

And isn't Madoff dead or in prison? What comes around...

I'm not apologizing for the 'super rich'; I realize that they are filling a niche role, much like eagles do over rabbits, and without 'em rabbits would likely overpopulate the land and eat up all the resources and damage the earth until they were clubbed to death (see Australia circa the 60's?). Should've all been aborted, really.
12/7/10, 9:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
The Gospel of Anus Rand, Serr8d?
12/7/10, 11:51 PM  
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