Other details include a temporary two percent reduction in payroll taxes to replace Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit from the 2009 stimulus bill, and a compromise on the estate tax, which will be set for two years at 35 percent, with a $5 million exemption amount.source:CBS
The stupid GOP are still tonight saying the American people stand with them on these extensions for the wealthy!! WTF! This is what makes me angry, the LIES coming from the moron GOPers...
This is the presidents compromise with Democrats and Republicans, but according to Bernie Sanders there might not be 60 votes. Bernie says he intends to work hard to make sure there are not 60 votes to pass this piece of legislation. What will happen then? Who will get the blame if the vote fails and taxes go up on the middle class, and more importantly what will happen if the unemployment benefits end for 2 million Americans? If the people are paying attention it is 100% positively on the shoulders of the GOP. Do Not Forget, the GOP stood in the way for middle class tax cuts and voted NO until and unless the wealthy got their tax cuts extended. They are hypocrites to cry about the deficit, they caused our huge debt and deficit problems in the first place but will fight to add to it while trying to pass the blame for it onto President Obama and Democrats.
I believe the American people are awake and paying attention to this tax cut debacle. The suffering and the unemployed have a stake in these decisions being made by Congress, these decisions are having an immediate and personal effect on the people. They are paying attention!
Make no mistake, the Republican Party is fucking the American people and in 2012 they will get theirs....
27 comments:
Did Obama cave, or did he compromise?
Did he have no other choice?
Or did he abandon the "professional left" once again.
This same debate will come about before the 2012 cycle.
Should Obama now come out and say that he will not run for his next term?
Who will challenge Obama on the democratic ticket for 2012?
When will Obama's apologists finally admit that he is a Corporatista?
I seriously don't know the answers RZ. He has protected the unemployed, BUT just for 13 months. What's gonna happen in 2 yrs when the extensions expire? What's gonna happen to him in 2012? How could he fight when his own party in Congress didn't stand with him? If the cuts expired who would have protected the unemployed?
I place 100% of the blame on the rethuglicans
Joe Madison just said it all... okay republicans you have 13 months to put Americans back to work, GROW THE JOBS. PUT UP OR SHUT UP!
The rich got the tax cut extension, now lets see the hiring begin. Will they do it? The GOP is dead in the water come 2012 if people are not working, it's ALL on their backs!! Obama running in 2012 is not even the question you should be asking. It's the GOP who are continuing to destroy America.
The repubs have proven they're expertise at spinning anything. When deficits rise another trillion. More jobs are created in Asia than here. We see our first group of trillionaires thanks to the ridiculous tax cuts, the republicans will convince just enough people to stay in power.
No pension is safe. No job is safe. If this deal goes through I have a decision to make. And sadly it will be because of the spineless jellyfish party leaders of mine.
101
This is a done deal.
IMO your decision has been made for you.
Time to act.
KORUS [Obama's NAFTA] will also pass.
Next year it will be Japan, and possibly even China.
Sue, Lawrence O'Donnell made a really good point on his show tonight. That $250,000 threshold is the same one that they had in 1993. Adjusted for inflation, that's only $164,000 in 1993 dollars. The Democrats (and to his credit, Chuck Schumer did do this) should have upped the threshold to get even more public support. As Mr. O'Donnell said, it's pretty ridiculous to tax people making $251,000 a year at the same rate as people making tens of millions a year.
Can I get odds on Corporations coming out tomorrow saying, "we can't create jobs now because they didn't make the tax cuts for the upper 2% permanent." It is all a BIG FAT LIE! They have no intention of hiring anyone...they found out they can live without the employees they fired to fatten their wallets.
Given the situation in the Senate, I find it difficult to be too critical. Extending the unemployment benefits has far more impact, for the individuals who were receiving them, than either keeping or extending the tax cuts would have had on anyone.
Obviously we would have preferred to keep the tax cuts for middle- and lower income levels and eliminate them for the wealthy, but under the current Senate rules, if the Republicans were unanimously willing to filibuster, it could not have been passed. Obama doesn't have unlimited power. He can't do things that the rules of the legislative system make impossible.
At least now it is clear-cut what happened -- the Democrats were trying to do what most Americans want, but were prevented because Republicans held out for doing what most Americans do not want (keep the tax cuts for the wealthy).
If some Democrats now try to sabotage the compromise -- especially if it kills the unemployment benefits extension -- the waters will be muddied and the Republicans will be able to make a plausible claim that it was those Democrats who are responsible for the benefits stopping and everyone's taxes going up.
Some people think Obama can do anything he wants if he just shows enough machismo or whatever and refuses to compromise. That isn't the case. The system doesn't work that way. The President is not a dictator.
Democraps are fucking the American people just as hard as the repugs. That's what they are paid to do. Anyone think the results of this particular item was ever going to be something better is living a delusion. Say SS was on the table next. Think that will be made better meaning solvent without doing what the wingers want done done. Forget about it-never is that going to happen. The right is in control of all of it. Just wait till 012 and the aftermath of that election.
"Some people think Obama can do anything he wants if he just shows enough machismo or whatever and refuses to compromise. That isn't the case. The system doesn't work that way. The President is not a dictator."--Infidel753
This is what I try to tell my family and friends who expect Obama to work miracles. He can't act unilaterally, as Infidel so rightly pointed out. Even in the case of DADT--I read how an executive order was NOT the correct way to change that law--it HAS to be done legislatively.
I'm afraid we Americans have bought into a false idea of machismo and the idea that a president needs to swagger and play the cowboy--[see Reagan and Bush]--to show America that he's a strong guy. In fact both Reagan and Bush, despite the "tough guy" persona they offered to the world
, were not--see Iran-Contra and the fact that Reagan himself admitted that he didn't know what the hell was going on, and the now evident fact that Bush was so influenced by Cheney and the neocons that he elected to have a war against a country that did not attack us.
We Americans, who need a swaggering tough-guy punch 'em in the nose type president, don't understand compromise and what a president has to do to get what he and the American people want and to get those things when he faces an iron wall of negativity and sabotage from the opposing party.
We don't appreciate what Obama has done and how he's conducted himself during a time of unprecedented spiteful opposition from the GOP.
I do understand the process Obama was forced into and the compromises he had to make. I hope the people understand it all and punish the republicans in 2012 when job growth hasn't improved and the debt has ballooned because of their incompetence. I also want to hear the wingnuts apologize for calling Obama a socialist!!
I have to confess to feeling a little numb myself - as in shiiii-it. But I've been flip-flopping like a fish out of water for the last several months - or year. And like the dying fish I'm growing a bit weaker with every flip and flop.
But I must not be ready to follow hook, line and sinker the "Obama-is-a-one-term-president" school of thought. I hear what Infidel and Shaw are saying and find their comments much more realistic/reasonable than simply shooting the man a bird and writing him off - as some folks have done since Day One.
No, he is not a dictator or a magician. He can't just order "you will do it my way" or wave a magic wand in the air to change the political landscape. Maybe I don't like the whole package, but considering the bucket load of rotten fish we have in Congress, I guess I have to put up with some of the stink.
My concern with him is not that he doesn't swagger. He doesn't seem to "jawbone" with the Congress, both parties, but holds himself apart. There is no guarantee that jawboning will work his or our way on any given issue but it really seems not to have been given a chance. The presidents I recall that achieved much, made friends and opponents part of the process continuously or had overwhelming majorities (not many of those for very long). They built bridges with individuals of the other party if they couldn't work with the leadership. As I read the narrative, he doesn't even try to do this.
BJ emailed a link to the following NY Times article. It's worth a read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/us/politics/07cong.html?_r=1&hp
Yes, it would be nice if Obama would try to "jawbone" with individuals in the opposition party, but they are so obviously entrenched as a group in destroying his presidency - and in the process the country - that I sincerely doubt if such attempts would be successful. Some of the formerly "reasonable" Republicans have joined the ranks of the rabid. And then you have the switch hitters like Insane McCain who nobody in their right mind would trust - not even his fellow Goppers.
I don't know what was the worst cave in......the Jets vs Patriots in Foxboro 45-3 last night (OUCH!) or what POTUS did in Washington yesterday.
At least the Jets get a chance to get back on track on Sunday, the President won't.
I think we should be angry with the GOPers who held all this hostage and forced the negotiations and compromise we now have. But why not be mad at the Dems who didn't vote on this earlier in the year when the President asked them too. When they had the power to push it through and the votes, why did they wait until after the election to do this when they were weaker politically?
As Infidel and Shaw stated, the President can't do it all by himself and he has hardly had the full support of our Democratic majority... they didn't vote as he wanted them to over 6 months ago.
As to him reaching out.... that is the media narrative... he has reached out more than any other president ever has... He works the phones with the Dems constantly and why should he reach out to the GOPers anymore than he has.. they just slap his hand... but what is worse, the Dems are slapping it too.
Given that most of the Senators earn over $250,000 per year, their agreement to extend all Bush tax cuts shouldn't come as a great surprise. We tend to vote for our own self-interests first, and for the interests of the majority of the American people second.
Obama squandered away the last two years, trying to be diplomatic, trying to reach a concession with the Republicans, walking away from all the promises he made when he ran for office. He never intended to fight for them in the first place; he just needed to get the Left to vote for him. I won't be fooled again. It's time to break with the Democrats! Join the Green Party!
I am mad first and foremost at the GOP. The dems never had 60 votes even a year ago, so Obama did what he had to do to save the unemployed and the people making what little they are to stay afloat. Our country is fucking the middle and the poor and NOBODY is reaching out to save us. Another reason why the conservatives are ignorant brainless morons when they criticize the president. He has done everything they could possibly want him to do for the past 2 years, now this. It is very obvious how deceitful and scummy the GOP are, they had Obama backed in a corner and they knew it. If he had said let all the extensions expire he would be looking at a country heading to a depression, and the blame in 2012 would all be on the democrats.
I am afraid that this latest capitulation to GOP ideas only confirms the Republican charge during the campaign that Obama did not have the executive or legislative experience to be President.
While not having 60 firm votes in the Senate, he has backed away from many of his signature campaign issues.
Transparency in government?
No bills signed laden with earmarks?
Single payer health care?
Closing GITMO?
Bringing the troops home from Iraq?
And now, ending the system whereby we are too poor to help struggling families, but can give tax breaks to people "earning" over a million a year?
Please!
I walked precincts for Obama. I went to his rallies. I put aside my worries about his inexperience and defended him against the countless idiotic right wingers.
But for me, enough is enough.
President Obama has shown his unwillingness to engage the GOP in any meaningful way and is seemingly unable to stand up for the very principles that brought many of us to his side in the election.
the cost of the package could add $900 billion or more to the deficit over two years by extending tax cuts from the Bush era that are due to expire at year's end, renewing jobless benefits through the end of 2011 and granting a one-year cut in Social Security taxes.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, normally one of Obama's staunchest allies, made plain her unhappiness with a statement that contained no commitment to help pass the plan. "We will continue discussions with the president and our caucus in the days ahead," said the statement, issued 18 hours after the president made his announcement.
All I have left is Nancy Pelosi, will she come through for the liberals?
I feel your pain Dave....I think we're all pretty numb today
Congratulations the title of your blog is quoted after Rick Santelli,the man who started the Tea Party Movement!
What's the matter you can't see past this as a win for Rush Limbaugh?
See here.
I don't know how this concept of Obama as a hard fighter for the left ever got started. That was Hillary. It seemed to me Obama always campaigned as a pragmatist. And in politics, being a pragmatist means constatnt compromise.
so he compromised? Big effin deal.
Do you not compromise in every day relationships?
Hmmm. I'm still trying to figure out how one quotes "after" someone else.
I need a translator - someone proficient in English and in right-wing-speak.
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