It's easy. Convince your fellow voters to agree with you. Then the politicians will bend over backwards to do what you want.
Simply not true. The people were overwhelmingly against Obama's healthcare bill, but they passed it anyways. The people were also overwhelmingly in support of raising taxes on the super-rich, yet that does not happen either. You'd be surprised how little politicians actually give a damn about our opinions. After all, you win elections by digging up dirt on your opponent and engaging in character debates, not by debating actual ideas.
Someone should really go tell those people this science is settled and that there is consensus. There's no room for doubt or skepticism in this kind of scientific debate.
As noble as your libertarian ideal is, it has been proven to fail.
What the heck is it with the extremist reactions to anything even remotely "small-government"? -- let me set up a similar straw man: "As noble as your socialist ideal is, it has been proven to fail". You do realize there's a whole slew of shades of gray in between differing philosophies -- libertarians don't want anarchy you know.
citizens require a strong but ethical federal govornment
A country where absolute power doesn't corrupt absolutely and politicians choose altruism and ethics over selfish greed and personal career advancement? Sign me up. We'll call that country "fantasyland"
What I want is for them to pay a fair progressive income tax and eliminate tax exemptions that are nothing less than welfare for the wealthy.
Newsflash, libertarians want the same thing. What they don't want is the package deal of freebie handouts that comes WITH your reasonable stance on general taxation.
They chose instead to extend them. So "reality" is where I get my info. Your myopic choice to paint the debate as "ending a portion of the tax cuts" (namely of the rich) rather than the "entire tax cuts" is proof that you don't get it -- demanding a change in existing legislation isn't "compromise" -- saying "sure, we want half of this to expire, but we want to keep the half that benefits our party" is not compromise. Either you're for extending the bush tax cuts or you're against it, it's as simple as it. Trying to scramble for a third option that better benefits your party (or fucks over the other party) is political maneuvering. You just see it as "compromise" because you agree with the course of action.
Tax cuts on the middle class do, because they have the effect of the middle class spending money and putting pressure on manufacturers to increase production.
History speaks to the contrary of the middle class claim. Via a variety of stimulus checks and payroll tax cuts and a number of other means, middle class America has seen the equivalent of quite a few "tax cuts" over the past 2 years, yet the economy has been just as much in the shitter. Of course, your counter to that is "well, it would have been worse without it". And of course there's zero defense against that argument -- though I do have a tiger repellant rock to sell you.
And yes, reduce spending -- but not on Social Security or Medicare, because we the middle class have been paying taxes that were supposed to go to those programs only
Oh fuck that tired argument -- we're spending way too much on those programs. I don't care if it shows up on my W-2 as "Federal income tax: [ludicrously large sum of money]" or "OASDI tax: [ludicrously large sum of money]". It doesn't change the equation of where the bulk of MY taxed income is actually going (other than in my actual pocket).
Soooooo, the banks are in league with the schools?
Yes, these people think that. Else they wouldn't be demanding that all rich people pay off their student loans (ie "forgive the debt"). It's borderline paranoia really. The rich man is the root cause of all their ills, even when it isn't immediately obvious how or why. They'll find a way to justify it.
In addition, the BTC also lowered the capital gain tax rate and raised the estate tax limit, so expiring the BTC would affect those uber-rich you mention.
I agree, but that isn't what the Dems are calling for -- they want the upper tax bracket to revert to the way it was (250k joint I believe), and that's it. I've never heard them calling for a restoration of the old capital gains taxes. Frankly, if the Dems were serious about expiring the Bush Tax Cuts, they would do exactly that, instead of trying to retain the tax cuts for the lower brackets. It's gamesmanship on the other side -- the Dems don't want the Republicans to have the political ammunition of "you raised taxes on the middle-class during a recession".
When used incorrectly, yes. People are trying to pretend that moving something around into different "pots" of money somehow changes its cost to the taxpayer. It'd be like introducing an exorbitant separate tax for defense spending that fully covers the whole bloated program and then demanding that such spending be excluded from our debt talks because "it's solvent based on the separate tax". It's an absurd way to view budgeting.
The Democrats had a supermajority in Congress, but they needed more than that to pass their agenda -- they needed 60% in the Senate to break a filibuster, as the Republicans deployed the nuclear option and filibustered almost everything. The problem was always that the Dems had a majority, but you need more than that to bring cloture.
They had 60% of the Senate. Otherwise, Obama's healthcare plan never would have passed. Every single Senate Republican voted against it (and never stopped filibustering). Yet the bill passed...By the roll call: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act
"PPACA passed the Senate on December 24, 2009, by a vote of 60-39 with all Democrats and two Independents voting for, and all Republicans voting against" -- that's 60 Democrats (since we all know those two "independents" really caucus with the Democrats).
I thought the whole point of social security was to be revenue neutral. Basically just a savings account that the government tells you that you have to have, so you can look after yourself when you're too old to work.
Except that it isn't, because the money isn't mine. If this was money going into a forced IRA or a forced 401k that I owned, that would be something entirely different. Social Security is money going into some government fund that politicians can do any fucking thing they want with that may or may not be there when I need it. These are important differences.
How do you think this is valid logic???
A budget is "total expense" vs "total income". Whether you have separate taxes or not, the cost to the American taxpayer is identical (and thus the impact to the economy is identical). Just because a bunch of accountants put it into a separate column doesn't somehow eliminate the expense. It'd be like me taking out a gigantic mortgage I can't afford while living on a shoestring budget and then claiming my budget is financially sound because the mortgage payment is a "necessary expense that isn't put of my discretionary budget", despite the fact I'm paying way more than I can afford.
You do everyone a disservice by perpetuating this ridiculous claim -- if I wasn't paying social security tax, I'd have far more expendable income to pump into the economy. And/or the government would have far more room to tax me to do universal healthcare or whatever other ludicrous ideas it comes up with.
You are drinking the koolaid. Social Security by itself is completely solvent for the next 15 years, and the long term shortfall could be easily addressed by raising the cap on payments into it to a higher income level or cutting the benefits about 15% to 20%.
YOU are drinking the koolaid. Using fancy accounting tricks to pretend that a 1 trillion dollar per year tax/expense isn't relevant to the budget is like saying "all rich people are broke because they have a 1 dollar income". Wake up.
Really? Because we have historically low tax rates right now. How do you think that happened if "the Government just gets bigger and bigger and bigger"?
Because the population grew? GDP grew? The "total federal budget" represents the size of government -- this has continued to escalate over time (beyond the rate of inflation). And the important factor is that the RATIO of "increased government spending to GDP growth" has been trending upward for nearly a century: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html
What you mean to say is that they want SPECIFIC parts of the the temporary tax cuts to expire (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/11/22/bush_tax_cut_debate_dooms_deal_to_cut_deficit/): "Most Democrats, including Obama, want to extend the Bush tax cuts only to individuals making less than $200,000 a year and married couples making less than $250,000."
And that isn't even CLOSE to the same thing. They could have let the tax cuts expire a long time ago -- what they want is to have their cake and eat it too.
Sure, some will argue that raising taxes on the wealthy - the "job creators" - especially in a recession is the wrong idea, but I would counter that (1) most of the really rich in this country get their money from investments, not earned income,
If you recognize that most of the super-rich do not pay income tax, and that an income tax increase would largely not affect them at all, why do you push for it? If anything, the entire brunt of that increase will be felt by the upper 10% and entirely ducked by the 1%. The correct options are to go after the "uber rich surcharge" or address the capital gains loophole. Trying to muck with income tax brackets is a dumb idea.
The Ds were willing to cut $3 of government for every $1 of tax increase.
By what yard stick? The latest Dem proposal was 1 trillion in tax increases, 1 trillion in cuts, and 300 billion in stimulus spending. And of the 1 trillion in cuts, only 200 billion are from mandatory spending. So 1 trillion new dollars from taxes plus 300 billion from stimulus == 1.3 trillion in demanded concessions from Republicans vs 200 billion in mandatory spending reductions.
I'm not seeing the 3 to 1 ratio you're claiming, certainly not in relation to mandatory spending (which is what Republicans care most about -- they're looking for actual structural changes to the entitlement system, not a pittance of cuts). Even ignoring the "location of the cuts", it's still 1.3 trillion of revenue increase/additional spending vs 1 trillion in cuts. That's still nowhere near 3 to 1.
That same fallacy applies to tax increases during a recession -- they shrink an economy as well. That's why we're in a lose-lose debate. However, if you're willing to accept the fact that we have to engage in some kind of "economy-shrinking" behavior, the only question left is "tax increase" or "spending cut".
I could say that one of his greatest leadership failures was he couldn't bring the fractured Democrats in and couldn't push any of his big promises through. Instead, you got over-compromised agreements like the health care bill which makes little sense without the all-important public option.
Then what the OP said is only partially untrue. Obama did enter office with no intention of bipartisanship/compromise (remember the "back of the bus" comment)? The only thing that stood between him and forcing his agenda down our throats was the divided Democrat party. And that's why I consider the claims of Republican obstructionism to be revisionist history at its finest. Even with a supermajority, Obama couldn't get that public option through.
It makes no sense. No sense at all. If you find spending that you're willing to cut, cut it. Don't play games by trying to include a token revenue raise that accomplishes nothing, and then claim that because that token isn't met the other side is evil and unwilling to compromise. You're the one holding onto the completely irrational token!
It's 200 billion in Medicare cuts in exchange for 1 trillion in new taxes PLUS 300 billion in stimulus spending. Is that your definition of compromise?
With all due respect I think you're making a false equivalence here. Please provide an example of how the Democrats are as extreme as Republican with regards to debt reduction. The Democrats have put their sacred cows on the table despite popular support for preserving the social safety nets. They've offered cuts to these programs in exchange for tax increases on the richest people in our country.
The false equivalence here is that you've assumed that any compromise on the Democrat "sacred cows" is a sufficient enough compromise, whereas you've clearly put stipulations on specific levels/sources of revenue increases on the Republicans to be viewed as "compromise". Personally, I believe the proposals the Dems have put forward are an absolute joke. The last one I saw called for nearly a trillion dollars in revenue increases, 300 billion in stimulus spending, and only pitched 200 billion in mandatory spending cuts (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/10/super-committee-democrats-go-big-3-trillion-plan/44169/). A 5-to-1 tradeoff in taxes vs entitlement reform? And you find that fair? 200 billion in mandatory spending over ten years is 20 billion a year -- that's a drop in the bucket next to the ~2 trillion we spend on mandatory spending per year. And on top of that, they want to spend even more than that on stimulus spending! (in the same bill that is supposed to be cutting expenses)
They get it: "Such reforms are vastly superior to misguided policies that do not actually reduce health care costs, but merely shift them. Unnecessary cuts to benefits and indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts to providers -- as the Super Committee is reportedly considering -- are blunt methods of reducing the federal deficit. Instead, the Super Committee should seize the opportunity to modernize the health care system -- and reduce total health care costs while improving the quality of care."
Slashdot Mirror
Simply not true. The people were overwhelmingly against Obama's healthcare bill, but they passed it anyways. The people were also overwhelmingly in support of raising taxes on the super-rich, yet that does not happen either. You'd be surprised how little politicians actually give a damn about our opinions. After all, you win elections by digging up dirt on your opponent and engaging in character debates, not by debating actual ideas.
A refreshing breath of sanity -- ah, Rohan, must I leave this country to find sane discussion?
Someone should really go tell those people this science is settled and that there is consensus. There's no room for doubt or skepticism in this kind of scientific debate.
It's mighty convenient that the only time window that can be used to attribute to CO2 is also one that supports the argument, isn't it?
lol -- you perhaps, but I'm protected with my fancy tinfoil hat
What the heck is it with the extremist reactions to anything even remotely "small-government"? -- let me set up a similar straw man: "As noble as your socialist ideal is, it has been proven to fail". You do realize there's a whole slew of shades of gray in between differing philosophies -- libertarians don't want anarchy you know.
A country where absolute power doesn't corrupt absolutely and politicians choose altruism and ethics over selfish greed and personal career advancement? Sign me up. We'll call that country "fantasyland"
Newsflash, libertarians want the same thing. What they don't want is the package deal of freebie handouts that comes WITH your reasonable stance on general taxation.
The Democrats could have ended the temporary tax cuts you speak of back in December: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20026069-503544.html
They chose instead to extend them. So "reality" is where I get my info. Your myopic choice to paint the debate as "ending a portion of the tax cuts" (namely of the rich) rather than the "entire tax cuts" is proof that you don't get it -- demanding a change in existing legislation isn't "compromise" -- saying "sure, we want half of this to expire, but we want to keep the half that benefits our party" is not compromise. Either you're for extending the bush tax cuts or you're against it, it's as simple as it. Trying to scramble for a third option that better benefits your party (or fucks over the other party) is political maneuvering. You just see it as "compromise" because you agree with the course of action.
History speaks to the contrary of the middle class claim. Via a variety of stimulus checks and payroll tax cuts and a number of other means, middle class America has seen the equivalent of quite a few "tax cuts" over the past 2 years, yet the economy has been just as much in the shitter. Of course, your counter to that is "well, it would have been worse without it". And of course there's zero defense against that argument -- though I do have a tiger repellant rock to sell you.
Oh fuck that tired argument -- we're spending way too much on those programs. I don't care if it shows up on my W-2 as "Federal income tax: [ludicrously large sum of money]" or "OASDI tax: [ludicrously large sum of money]". It doesn't change the equation of where the bulk of MY taxed income is actually going (other than in my actual pocket).
Well to be fair, most OWS protestors probably don't consider a 3 month old fetus an actual life. Tea Party on the other hand...
Yes, these people think that. Else they wouldn't be demanding that all rich people pay off their student loans (ie "forgive the debt"). It's borderline paranoia really. The rich man is the root cause of all their ills, even when it isn't immediately obvious how or why. They'll find a way to justify it.
I agree, but that isn't what the Dems are calling for -- they want the upper tax bracket to revert to the way it was (250k joint I believe), and that's it. I've never heard them calling for a restoration of the old capital gains taxes. Frankly, if the Dems were serious about expiring the Bush Tax Cuts, they would do exactly that, instead of trying to retain the tax cuts for the lower brackets. It's gamesmanship on the other side -- the Dems don't want the Republicans to have the political ammunition of "you raised taxes on the middle-class during a recession".
When used incorrectly, yes. People are trying to pretend that moving something around into different "pots" of money somehow changes its cost to the taxpayer. It'd be like introducing an exorbitant separate tax for defense spending that fully covers the whole bloated program and then demanding that such spending be excluded from our debt talks because "it's solvent based on the separate tax". It's an absurd way to view budgeting.
They had 60% of the Senate. Otherwise, Obama's healthcare plan never would have passed. Every single Senate Republican voted against it (and never stopped filibustering). Yet the bill passed...By the roll call: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act "PPACA passed the Senate on December 24, 2009, by a vote of 60-39 with all Democrats and two Independents voting for, and all Republicans voting against" -- that's 60 Democrats (since we all know those two "independents" really caucus with the Democrats).
Except that it isn't, because the money isn't mine. If this was money going into a forced IRA or a forced 401k that I owned, that would be something entirely different. Social Security is money going into some government fund that politicians can do any fucking thing they want with that may or may not be there when I need it. These are important differences.
You do everyone a disservice by perpetuating this ridiculous claim -- if I wasn't paying social security tax, I'd have far more expendable income to pump into the economy. And/or the government would have far more room to tax me to do universal healthcare or whatever other ludicrous ideas it comes up with.
YOU are drinking the koolaid. Using fancy accounting tricks to pretend that a 1 trillion dollar per year tax/expense isn't relevant to the budget is like saying "all rich people are broke because they have a 1 dollar income". Wake up.
Because the population grew? GDP grew? The "total federal budget" represents the size of government -- this has continued to escalate over time (beyond the rate of inflation). And the important factor is that the RATIO of "increased government spending to GDP growth" has been trending upward for nearly a century: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html
No they don't. They could have done that the last time they extended the cuts: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20026069-503544.html
What you mean to say is that they want SPECIFIC parts of the the temporary tax cuts to expire (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/11/22/bush_tax_cut_debate_dooms_deal_to_cut_deficit/): "Most Democrats, including Obama, want to extend the Bush tax cuts only to individuals making less than $200,000 a year and married couples making less than $250,000."
And that isn't even CLOSE to the same thing. They could have let the tax cuts expire a long time ago -- what they want is to have their cake and eat it too.
If you recognize that most of the super-rich do not pay income tax, and that an income tax increase would largely not affect them at all, why do you push for it? If anything, the entire brunt of that increase will be felt by the upper 10% and entirely ducked by the 1%. The correct options are to go after the "uber rich surcharge" or address the capital gains loophole. Trying to muck with income tax brackets is a dumb idea.
That fallacy is incredibly annoying.
By what yard stick? The latest Dem proposal was 1 trillion in tax increases, 1 trillion in cuts, and 300 billion in stimulus spending. And of the 1 trillion in cuts, only 200 billion are from mandatory spending. So 1 trillion new dollars from taxes plus 300 billion from stimulus == 1.3 trillion in demanded concessions from Republicans vs 200 billion in mandatory spending reductions. I'm not seeing the 3 to 1 ratio you're claiming, certainly not in relation to mandatory spending (which is what Republicans care most about -- they're looking for actual structural changes to the entitlement system, not a pittance of cuts). Even ignoring the "location of the cuts", it's still 1.3 trillion of revenue increase/additional spending vs 1 trillion in cuts. That's still nowhere near 3 to 1.
The Dems sure didn't hate them when they passed them with no stipulations.
That same fallacy applies to tax increases during a recession -- they shrink an economy as well. That's why we're in a lose-lose debate. However, if you're willing to accept the fact that we have to engage in some kind of "economy-shrinking" behavior, the only question left is "tax increase" or "spending cut".
Then what the OP said is only partially untrue. Obama did enter office with no intention of bipartisanship/compromise (remember the "back of the bus" comment)? The only thing that stood between him and forcing his agenda down our throats was the divided Democrat party. And that's why I consider the claims of Republican obstructionism to be revisionist history at its finest. Even with a supermajority, Obama couldn't get that public option through.
Both sides are doing that -- the Dem mandatory spending proposal is a joke: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/10/26/354289/instead-of-cutting-billions-from-medicare-democrats-on-super-committee-should-modernize-the-system/
It's 200 billion in Medicare cuts in exchange for 1 trillion in new taxes PLUS 300 billion in stimulus spending. Is that your definition of compromise?
The false equivalence here is that you've assumed that any compromise on the Democrat "sacred cows" is a sufficient enough compromise, whereas you've clearly put stipulations on specific levels/sources of revenue increases on the Republicans to be viewed as "compromise". Personally, I believe the proposals the Dems have put forward are an absolute joke. The last one I saw called for nearly a trillion dollars in revenue increases, 300 billion in stimulus spending, and only pitched 200 billion in mandatory spending cuts (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/10/super-committee-democrats-go-big-3-trillion-plan/44169/). A 5-to-1 tradeoff in taxes vs entitlement reform? And you find that fair? 200 billion in mandatory spending over ten years is 20 billion a year -- that's a drop in the bucket next to the ~2 trillion we spend on mandatory spending per year. And on top of that, they want to spend even more than that on stimulus spending! (in the same bill that is supposed to be cutting expenses)
You see, that is the problem. Event he smallest pittance of a compromise by your side you find reasonable, but when the other side does a similar nigh-useless gesture, you recognize it for the horseshit that it is. Heck, even thinkprogress.org recognizes the proposal for the tripe that it is: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/10/26/354289/instead-of-cutting-billions-from-medicare-democrats-on-super-committee-should-modernize-the-system/
They get it: "Such reforms are vastly superior to misguided policies that do not actually reduce health care costs, but merely shift them. Unnecessary cuts to benefits and indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts to providers -- as the Super Committee is reportedly considering -- are blunt methods of reducing the federal deficit. Instead, the Super Committee should seize the opportunity to modernize the health care system -- and reduce total health care costs while improving the quality of care."