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Full Version: The fiscal cliff
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The clock is a-tickin' for the lame duck Congress to take action.

The Senate passed a bill to extend Bush-era tax cuts for 98% of families while raising taxes on families with incomes over $250k/yr. Obama said that he will sign it once it is passed by the House.

Speaker Boehner is outraged, but some House Republicans are softening up to the measure. Assuming all House Democrats vote the bill up, they will require at least 26 Republicans to defect in order for the bill to pass. I think they might be able to accomplish that. It's all a matter of bringing the Senate-passed bill to a vote in the House. If passed, the bill is projected to reduce the federal deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade.

Boehner does not believe in raising taxes on anyone, even the upper 2%. He feels that we should instead cut government entitlement programs such as medicare and medicaid for the disabled, the elderly, and the poor. 56% of Americans support the Democrats' proposal. Obama has expressed a willingness to put even his 2010 healthcare law on the table for budget cuts.

Open your eyes, Boner. Your approval rating is abysmal, whereas the president's approval rating is at its highest point in over three years. You cannot pretend to be the voice of the American people when the only people you're looking out for are the wealthiest 2%, all while trying to cut off benefits to those who really need them: the disabled, the elderly, and the poor.

So... what will the House do? The ball is in their court.
Boehner's current plan seems to be proposing to cut taxes on the rich, because of course this creates more revenue. (Note: this is not true) The Republicans also refuse to say what they want to cut -- where are the cuts they want going to come from? They won't provide any details. And of course they act like Obama's proposals are laughably ridiculous, when in fact what Obama has said is exactly what he said he'd do during the election. By acting like they are, Republicans are trying to pretend that the election never happened and that they're in exactly the same place as they were before it.

Of course, that's not at all true, but I don't expect them to get the picture anytime soon, they're far too dug-in on horrible policy ideas and, as you say, destroying medicare, medicaid, and social security while also cutting taxes on the rich. As for taxes on the lower 98%... I'd guess that they're more willing to "compromise" on raising those taxes than anything for their core base of that top 2%...

Oh, one more thing -- it's not really a cliff, that's just a scare tactic word. It's more of a gentle downhill slope. Going over the "cliff" will have minimal immediate repurcussions. So yeah, if the Republicans continue to refuse to negotiate, I think we have to just go over it. I just hope that this time Obama really does stick to his word and force the Republicans to actually negotiate for once. Though most of his first term he usually compromised away most of his position before the negotiations even started, after when the Republicans would then demand (and get) even more, but this time he's being tougher. I'm hoping that this time he actually sticks with his positions and doesn't give in on far too much when pushed!

And on that note, as important or maybe even more important than the "raise taxes on the rich" part is that the end result of this can't cripple medicare, medicaid, and social security like the Republicans want it to. Obama can't accept a "compromise" that goes too far down that road... that would be very bad.

Quote: Open your eyes, Boner. Your approval rating is abysmal, whereas the president's approval rating is at its highest point in over three years. You cannot pretend to be the voice of the American people when the only people you're looking out for are the wealthiest 2%, all while trying to cut off benefits to those who really need them: the disabled, the elderly, and the poor.
But the american people want lower taxes for everyone, Grover Norquist insists! Sure, sure, they elected a president promising to raise some people's taxes, but that's not what they really want... and nor is that now more-Democratic senate. Only the house counts, I guess.

But wait... actually the Democrats won the house vote by something like 650,000 votes, overall, nationwide. The Republicans only held on to their majority there because of massive amounts of gerrymandering. I doubt you'll ever find the Republicans ever mention that fact though, for sure...

Quote: Speaker Boehner is outraged, but some House Republicans are softening up to the measure. Assuming all House Democrats vote the bill up, they will require at least 26 Republicans to defect in order for the bill to pass. I think they might be able to accomplish that. It's all a matter of bringing the Senate-passed bill to a vote in the House. If passed, the bill is projected to reduce the federal deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade.
It would be fantastic if they could peel off enough Republicans to manage this, but I don't really expect it... we'll see, though!
Quote:The Republicans only held on to their majority there because of massive amounts of gerrymandering.

I keep hearing this, but I thought that this occurred on both sides of the aisle? It's a simple fact of politics and will always happen. Is there evidence that it was particularly odious in 2012? Simple geography may explain the phenomenon:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/...d-on-house
Gerrymandering gave us the first term of George W. Bush, the loser of the popular vote. While I'm sure Democrats have done their share of gerrymandering, the Republicans are either more notorious or better at it.
Congress actually set up a bomb to threaten themselves to do something. It was a dumb plan that isn't even working.

I really don't know what's going to happen. I wish some sort of compromise occurred, but what's being requested by the Republicans is such a parade of horribles that it's like compromising on only a little genocide. Yes, I'm aware the republicans don't see it that way, and yes, I'm aware they feel the same way about what Democrats are requesting, hence the impasse. Here's the difference. What Republicans are requesting is undoing much work done over the past 100 or so years, and what they don't want to happen is something that's been at the backbone of government since it's founding, and pretty much all of them: taxes. At a certain point, you have to remove the "humanities class" glasses and realize that sometimes one side is just plain wrong. Sometimes you just can't compromise with the devil, even when they are doing "the exact same thing".
Sacred Jellybean Wrote:I keep hearing this, but I thought that this occurred on both sides of the aisle? It's a simple fact of politics and will always happen. Is there evidence that it was particularly odious in 2012? Simple geography may explain the phenomenon:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/...d-on-house

While both parties do gerrymander, the Republicans are better at it -- they're much more likely to be tough and force through horribly gerrymandered bills, while the Dems are more likely to equivocate and try to be fair. Also, remember that redistricting happens after each census. That means that redistricting this time happened in 2011-2012, right after Republicans won in so many statehouses. Many of those newly more Republican state legislative bodies then forced through tough, hugely R-skewed gerrymanders. In other states that happened some time ago, but regardless of when, the fact is, the Republicans are better at it, and went into this redistricting cycle with a big advantage in state legislatures. And only a couple of states have nonpartisan commissions draw the lines, like Arizona and California do (note: in both of those states, the new lines ended up to favor the Democrats, it seems. Or maybe it's just that non-gerrymandered lines lean Dem? I don't know.)

So, some states which should have a lot more Democratic House delegation members than they do, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, have very few because of how effective the Republicans have been at gerrymandering those states. On the other hand, there are only a few states where Democrats have serious gerrymanders helping them; for the 2010 redistricting cycle, Illinois was one of the only states which implemented a serious D-leaning gerrymander. Most in the party just won't do that. It's unfortunate that it's needed, though, because what we should have is independent, nonpartisan commissions drawing the lines in every state. It's crazy that it's not that way already, that's how it is in most other countries I'm pretty sure!

I mean, yes, it IS true that because of the Republican advantage in all of those low-population Western states they are going to have a better House representation than their national popular House-elections-all-added-together vote is going to show, but no, the result you see is NOT representative of the country, even considering that. In nonpartisan-drawn districts, the Democrats would probably have taken the House this year.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:At a certain point, you have to remove the "humanities class" glasses and realize that sometimes one side is just plain wrong. Sometimes you just can't compromise with the devil, even when they are doing "the exact same thing".

Exactly. In fact, that reminds me of an article I read recently that pointed out the media's refusal to acknowledge the Republicans' flip flops (i.e. criticizing Obama for cutting medicare during the election, then complaining that he isn't cutting it enough post-election) because doing so would cause them to come off as "liberally biased." Fox News and conservative talk radio are going to accuse them of having a liberal bias no matter what they say, though, so they might as well point out the obvious fact that the vast majority of the GOP is full of shit.

This notion that there are always two sides of an argument isn't necessarily a bad one, but like you said, sometimes one side is just plain wrong. Just because two sides exist does not mean that both sides are equally valid. Besides, conservatives are every bit as biased as they accuse liberals of being. Many of them do not compromise. Many of them refuse to see the other side of the argument. There's no dancing around the fact that they're hypocrites, and thankfully, the 2012 election restored my faith in the American people, a faith that was almost completely lost in 2010--most Americans now realize that the Tea Party is full of shit (though some of us knew that back in 2009).
Also, I'll note that "there's always two side to everything" is demonstrably false. Sometimes there's millions of sides, and sometimes there's only the mobius strip of reality (evolution for example, there IS NO other side to that argument).
But DJ, there are millions of Americans who would say that you are wrong there, and CNN and other news organizations can't possibly be expected to say anything that people might disagree with, no matter how wrong those people are, can they?
A Black Falcon Wrote:But DJ, there are millions of Americans who would say that you are wrong there, and CNN and other news organizations can't possibly be expected to say anything that people might disagree with, no matter how wrong those people are, can they?

Perhaps if the media were to treat evolution as common knowledge, which it should be, rather than "an opinion that some people have," then more people might accept evolution for what it is: a proven fact of nature.
So the Senate and the House passed the fiscal aversion deal. Though most House Republicans voted against the bill, enough voted in favor of it that, along with House Democrats, they were able to pass it. Now the bill will be signed by President Obama and avert the "crisis" retroactively. The bill allows tax rates for individuals making over $400k/yr. and households making over $450k/yr. to rise while stopping tax hikes for everyone else. House Speaker John Boehner voted in favor of the legislation.

This bill does not address spending cuts, however, which are due to take effect automatically in the near future unless Congress acts. The new Congress will likely inherit this issue. On the table are so-called "entitlement" programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The president also wants to extend unemployment benefits which are due to expire early this year. Republicans would rather use the newly gained revenue from raising taxes on the rich to pay off the deficit rather than spend it all on government programs as the president wishes to do.

So that's one major battle out of the way, and the final one for the lame duck Congress. Rest assured, we will not be paying higher taxes this year. Also, the American market is thriving now due to Congress's ability to pass a bipartisan fiscal bill. There is an air of optimism for the moment.
I put my thoughts on this deal here: http://tcforums.com/forums/showthread.ph...extremists!

Yeah, basically I don't like the deal much at all. The biggest problem is that it leaves the sequester to come back in two months, but without the leverage of tax hikes coming to get Republicans to compromise, which means that the Democrats are probably going to let the Republicans set the narrative again and are probably going to let them win again, as usual (Democrats, actually standing up for what they supposedly believe in? Hah!). Obama's already saying that he refuses to discuss the debt limit again, but when teh Republicans force his hand, what's he doing to do? Will he discuss it anyway, or will he go against his prior opinions on the matter and raise it without Congress's approval, something that is maybe constitutional but he's said he doesn't think he should do? And I am certain that the Republican House WILL force his hand on this, as they will with the sequester.

So yeah, this deal on its own wasn't too bad, but in two months, things will get ugly, and I have no confidence in the Democrats' ability to actually stand up for themselves and push back. They have, after all, rarely done it so far. And given that the stakes include Social Security and Medicare, this is important.
One TRILLION Dollars! A bunch of pundits are talking about a trillion dollar coin being minted. I have no idea if that's even being officially considered or if it's the mad syphilitic dream of a pundit's brain.

What I can say is that even the news taking the idea seriously is like a mockery of commerce itself. Sure, it would legally "work", but what would it actually accomplish? Seems to me like it's an invitation for everyone to realize that money is just worth what people think it's worth, and when everyone realizes that at once, you get inflation. People need the lie to keep the market working.

Well, at any rate, the debt is 16 Trillion. Why not just print a 16 Trillion dollar coin? It makes as much sense. If not that, then print 16 1 Trillion dollar coins. Heck, print a 20 Trillian dollar coin and put the nation in 4 Trillion surplus! Anything's possible!

And because anything is possible, here's my scenario. The 20 Trillian dollar coin is printed, and just before it can be delivered, a mad nobleman in a tuxedo, top hat, monocle, and with a handle bar mustache descends upon the convoy in a hot air balloon, stealing it with one of those grabber claws and then vanishing into the upper trade winds to buy "all the tea in China". The police escorting the convoy will be too distracted by his small army of wind up automatons to stop it.
[Image: fiatstupid.jpg?1357854173]

I really hope that Fox was actually being serious here, because that would be too hilarious... Lol

But yeah, while I'd rather see the Republicans cave to the inevitable, if something like this is required, and it might be with how they are sure to be extremely intransigent, then so be it. We obviously can't let the country default just because they're crazy.