Democrats open door to letting taxes rise in 2013 to reset debate with GOP

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**Frazzled**

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! (let me get my popcorn)
What do they do if the Republicans come back with "sure, freeze spending at 2008 levels and cut $10 from that for every new $1 in tax receipts from this." They argue about how many $ cutting vs. tax income.
Anarchy, compromise, gnashing of teeth!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/16/democrats-open-door-to-letting-taxes-rise-in-2013-to-reset-debate-with-gop/

Democrats open door to letting taxes rise in 2013 to reset debate with GOP

Published July 16, 2012
FoxNews.com
April 4, 2012: Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., speaks at a field hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which she chairs, in Tacoma, Wash.AP
Senate Democrats appear willing to use your paycheck to play political hardball on taxes unless Republicans agree to President Obama's plan to raise taxes on America's top earners.

A top Senate Democrat warned Monday that, if Republicans don't relent, her caucus is willing to let all the Bush-era tax rates expire at the end of the year -- in effect threatening to let the country fall off what many in Washington call the "fiscal cliff."

That cliff is approaching at the start of 2013, when the Bush tax cuts are set to expire and billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts -- spawned by last summer's debt-ceiling debate -- are set to take effect. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are hoping to shift around those spending cuts to spare key areas like defense, and to temporarily extend the Bush tax rates for at least some Americans. Some have warned a failure to do so could send the nation back into recession.

But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., indicated Democrats are willing to let the deadline pass in order to better their negotiating position.

"So if we can't get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013 rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus," she said in prepared remarks for a speech she plans to give Monday afternoon at the Brookings Institution. Murray is head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Democrats.

In the remarks, Murray explained that if all the tax cuts expire, then that will diminish the GOP argument that the Democratic plan is tantamount to a tax hike -- because come 2013, any change to the tax code would be a tax cut.

"We will have a new fiscal and political reality," Murray said. "If the Bush tax cuts expire, every proposal will be a tax cut proposal and the pledge (to not raise taxes) will no longer keep Republicans boxed in and unable to compromise.

"If middle-class families start seeing more money coming out of their paychecks next year -- are Republicans really going to stand up and fight for new tax cuts for the rich? Are they going to continue opposing the Democrats' middle-class tax cut once the slate has been wiped clean? I think they know this would be an untenable political position. And I hope this pushes them to come to the table with real revenue now before being forced to the table if we don't get a deal before the New Year," she said in the remarks.

The political strategy underscores how heated the debate over the Bush tax cuts has become, and how risky it is for the American people. President Obama is pushing for an extension of the rates only for American households making less than $250,000, and a tax hike for those earning more than that.

Obama's Democratic allies in Congress only want to pass that partial, one-year extension. Republicans only want to pass an extension that continues those rates for everyone. Each side is accusing the other of threatening to trigger tax hikes in 2013.

Murray, while openly making that threat in her speech Monday, also preemptively argued that Republicans would be to blame if that happens. She also suggested that if Republicans don't negotiate to her party's liking on the automatic spending cuts -- known in Washington as the "sequestration" -- set to take effect at the start of next year, her party would let those cuts happen, too.

"So anyone who tells you sequestration is going to simply disappear because both sides want to avoid it is either fooling themselves, or trying to fool you. It is going to have to be replaced, and that replacement is going to have to be balanced," Murray said.

Republicans claim Democrats are the ones standing in the way of relief for millions of Americans. In Republicans' weekly radio address, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, accused Obama of pushing a tax hike that will hurt employment.

"Raising taxes on employers and the middle class, growing government at the expense of free enterprise, piling on new regulations that increase the cost of doing business -- these burdens make it harder, not easier, to create jobs in America," he said. "Today, instead of lifting the burden on job creators, the President is once again calling for a massive tax increase on nearly 1 million small businesses that employ tens of millions of Americans. I guess he still thinks the private sector is doing just fine. Well, the private sector is not fine. And raising taxes on job creators during a jobs shortage makes about as much sense as cutting off the water supply during a drought."

But Democratic Party leadership is apparently onboard with Murray's plan.

Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, told Fox Business Network that the majority leader has "always said that we're not changing anything until Republicans compromise and embrace a plan that includes revenues."

**Jihadin**

I see a massive turn over of people in congess in the coming future

**Frazzled**

one can hope.

**whitedragon**

The article says the quote came from April.....is it still current since the President already said the Tax Cuts will continue?

**Frazzled**

whitedragon wrote:The article says the quote came from April.....is it still current since the President already said the Tax Cuts will continue?

Er, when did he say that? Thats kind of the point of the article.

**Melissia**

whitedragon wrote:The article says the quote came from April.....is it still current since the President already said the Tax Cuts will continue?

Shh, Fraz is trying to score political points. Don't anger him, just nod your head and smile, then make a joke about short and long dogs.

**Frazzled**

How can the President say the tax cuts will continue again?

**Ahtman**

Frazzled wrote:How can the President say the tax cuts will continue again?

He open and close his mouth, vibrate his vocal chords, and moves his lips and tongue in such a way as to make noise that we hear as "Tax cuts will continue". It is the same way any of us say anything.

**Jihadin**

How can the President say the tax cuts will continue again?

Same way he said small business owners owe their success to gov't

**Ahtman**

Jihadin wrote:
How can the President say the tax cuts will continue again?

Same way he said small business owners owe their success to gov't

In many ways they do, but in many ways they don't.

**Melissia**

Not that I expect you to give a damn, but Obama didn't say that.

What he said was, and I quote:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn't — look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

IE, businesses cannot succeed on their own, they need a stable society to support them.

Which is true.

**Frazzled**

Ahtman wrote:
Frazzled wrote:How can the President say the tax cuts will continue again?

He open and close his mouth, vibrate his vocal chords, and moves his lips and tongue in such a way as to make noise that we hear as "Tax cuts will continue". It is the same way any of us say anything.

bedum dum! yes yes ladies and germs he's here all week.
Good one Ahtman.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
How can the President say the tax cuts will continue again?

Same way he said small business owners owe their success to gov't

In many ways they do, but in many ways they don't.

You sure you're not a lawyer, or maybe a candle stick maker?

**Testify**

Jihadin wrote:
How can the President say the tax cuts will continue again?

Same way he said small business owners owe their success to gov't

Unless you're advocating the complete dismantlement of civilisation, I don't see your point.

**whitedragon**

Ok here's the article I was thinking of. Obama asked congress to extend the tax cuts for one more year.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/09/politics/obama-bush-tax-cuts/index.html

**juraigamer**

Jihadin wrote:I see a massive turn over of people in congess in the coming future

That won't change a damn thing. Just the people dicking the country around.

**Jihadin**

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen," he said. "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

Obama

**Frazzled**

It takes a village, and I am its idiot.

**Jihadin**

It takes a village, and I am its idiot.

with a legion though...a legion of anklebiters

**Frazzled**

Just call me Frazzkul Thaka of the Brown Tide.

**Jihadin**

Just call me Frazzkul Thaka of the Brown Tide.

Getting my hip waders on....crap getting deep around here

**youbedead**

Jihadin wrote:If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen," he said. "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

Obama

Both of those are true, whats your issue

**Jihadin**

Not that I expect you to give a damn, but Obama didn't say that.

What he said was, and I quote:

From Melissia who brought up the below para

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn't — look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

IE, businesses cannot succeed on their own, they need a stable society to support them.

Which is true.

So I posted Obama

**Melissia**

So basically Jihadin objects to people posting the inconvenient truth.

**Testify**

Jihadin wrote:If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen," he said. "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

Obama

What's your point? I thought the US department of defence did invent the internet (though the world wide web was invented by a British dude fyi).
And I doubt ma and pa's bed and breakfast would stay open long if the government didn't repair the roads.
High tech engineering firms wouldn't be much use without schools to teach kids the skills they need.
etc.
Government is a part of living in a modern civilised country.

**Jihadin**

So all business owners owe their success to government. Might as well also say all individual success was due to the gov't. Roads, Internet etc etc etc are funded how. Taxes. So states also help us succed to..including counties...cities...we pay the taxes to support the infrastructure of logistics

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:
What do they do if the Republicans come back with "sure, freeze spending at 2008 levels and cut $10 from that for every new $1 in tax receipts from this."

Let the Republicans make that argument in order to win some seats, and then either obstruct, or watch as the Republicans don't do it; eventually retaking the seats that were lost.

Rinse, repeat.

**Frazzled**

dogma wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
What do they do if the Republicans come back with "sure, freeze spending at 2008 levels and cut $10 from that for every new $1 in tax receipts from this."

Let the Republicans make that argument in order to win some seats, and then either obstruct, or watch as the Republicans don't do it; eventually retaking the seats that were lost.

Rinse, repeat.

buzzkill...

**Jihadin**

I say change the game up. Elect individuals into congress who do not want to be there. Hinge all their financial asset on how well they do...or not. That be a good motivator right there.

"My fellow senators...we need to come to a compromise. If not then we literally won't have a home to go to after our term"

**sebster**

If Republicans don't want to lose the Bush tax cut the middle class enjoys, they can always vote with Democrats to keep it. Instead the Republicans are playing a bluffing game, hoping the Democrats will blink first and vote to keep the tax cut on the very rich, in order to keep the tax cut for the middle class.

This isn't an unreasonable game the Republicans are playing, after all it worked once before - the Democrats blinked agreed to extend all the tax cuts. But the article fraz posted is about as contrived and ridiculous as most things coming from FOX, pretending that there is no option for the Republicans to agree to the middle class tax cut, and have tax raised only on the very rich. At this point we could probably wonder how silly someone would have to be to consider the FOX news summary half way accurate, except it's pretty clear Fraz and the rest of the audience doesn't really think about this stuff when they read. This isn't about accuracy, honesty, or about how the world really is for them, it's about repeating the lies their side tells in order to 'win' the game.

Jihadin wrote:So all business owners owe their success to government. Might as well also say all individual success was due to the gov't. Roads, Internet etc etc etc are funded how. Taxes. So states also help us succed to..including counties...cities...we pay the taxes to support the infrastructure of logistics

No, might as well say exactly what is true - that society, including government, played an integral part in a businessman's individual success, and pretending that he did it alone is fantasy.

Exactly where that leads us is up for debate, but pretending it isn't true, or somehow outrageous to say it is to be disingenuous.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jihadin wrote:I say change the game up. Elect individuals into congress who do not want to be there. Hinge all their financial asset on how well they do...or not. That be a good motivator right there.

If you worked in business you'd know about salary incentive schemes, and how difficult it is to tie them to anything more than the most basic of automated processes. That is, a scheme which said 'you get 1% pay bonus for every % you increase widget manufacture by, provided you keep the unit cost below $x, and the quality standard above y%' is a great system. Tying that same kind of automation to anything with a very vague measure of quality, on the other hand, is pretty much always doomed to failure. Consider Harvey Weinstein, who's contract with Disney paid him a hefty bonus for the profit films his Weinstein company put to market every year - except Weinstein would hold back the release of films he realised would tank commercially, dumping a lot of them in a single year (so no bonus that year, but no harm to all the other years he put profitable movies into the market).

Then there's the problem with assuming a profit motive will always work, so that if the results aren't what you like it isn't because the job is harder to do than you realise, it's because the person involved isn't motivated enough by their incentive scheme. It assumes people will never work out of professional pride, or commitment to the project, but only out of what they personally will get out of the job. As if a person enters political life to get paid $200k, and not the 10 times that they could get in a similar position of responsibility in the private sector. As if a soldier jumps on a grenade because he's really motivated by the personal incentive of a coloured ribbon.

**d-usa**

Rightwing talking heads would like us to believe that a successful business is only successful because a guy somewhere made it so, free from any government influence whatsoever.

Leftwing talking heads would like us to believe that basically anybody could have a sucessful business by plugging into the "government supply line" and instant success just flows out.

Truth is that the government (from city to federal) plays an integral part in putting the resources in place that allow a motivated and driven person to be successful. Without a motivated person utilizing it the government resources are wasted and useless. Without the government resources a motivated person is very likely to fail and will have a hard time succeeding. Both need each other.