Obama Taking Us Over the Fiscal Cliff As He Proposes MORE Spending

Reagan and Bush both had massive give-a-ways to the rich. The so called "trickle down" economics that was a monumental disaster. It took a solid democrat with Clinton to finally get the nation back into fiscal sanity.

It's been proven over and over again that GOP fiscal plans do not work, but the brainwashed sheep are programmed to think we can spend ourselves out of debt and giving everything we can to the richest of the rich will create jobs.

 

The democrats are not serious about tackling the deficit and debt problem.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/12/03/democrats-not-serious-about-cuts.html

 

WRONG! Besides, WWII WAS massive spending!!!!

 

you mean he is not gonna give republicans 90% of what they want like he did during the debt ceiling deal


.

 

Your are correct in saying Obama doesn't know how to negotiate. He gave Boehner 98% of what he wanted! So what the **** do Republicans have to complain about?

 

I think Obama is starting to learn that trying to protect America from republicans by giving into republican demands is not working, it only means they take America hostage on every issue, time for Obama to call them on their bluffs

 

Well, yes, it DOES change what you said more than one iota. Again.........money was coming in to pay back the Stimulus loan that Bush made....and it was coming in with interest. Obama was counting that money AGAINST his spending. Of course, his spending was going to look better. BUT it had nothing to do with him cutting anything. He did NOT.

 

So raygun spending was great, bush the failure spending and not putting on the books was even better, but President Obamas spending is the worst thing in the world, even though most of it is bush the failures in the light of day and spending has gone down?

How does so many people disconnect from reality this way?

 

Baloney. I agree with you that 2009 was Bush's budget. BTW, Obama had input in what was going on with the Stimulus, etc in November of 2008 after he got elected....as part of the "transition." That budget BALLOONED....as stated in the article right as Obama was taking over. So, he started from a huge number as the article points out. Bush's stimulus money loaned out started coming in rather quickly, with interest and in fact, much of his stimulus was paid back early. Here's what I don't think you were understanding:
OBAMA GOT TO COUNT THAT STIMULUS MONEY AND INTEREST THAT WAS BEING PAID BACK AGAINST HIS SPENDING! Of course it's going to look as if his spending was moving downward. And if you believe you can prove differently......that Obama was in fact, CUTTING spending as soon as he got in.....then please go back to his first couple of budgets and SHOW us what programs he cut and how much did he cut from them.

 

Exactly. Obama was all too happy to spend the Bush Tarp money that did not go against him. Although he did end up doing another one of his own....to help out his donor union buddies. IF they are claiming that Obama did, in fact, CUT something in his budget....then they need to prove to us by name which program(s) he cut and how much he cut. I don't recall his running that campaign on saying he would come in and start cutting programs.

 

If we exclude the partisan rants then this is what we're basically left with that somehow managed to leave out the proposed reductions of $400 billion in welfare and Medicare expendatures to be worked out next year.

I have to disagree with Obama's proposal as well but instead of a rant I'll address specific problems.

First and foremost increasing tax revenues by $1.6 trillion over ten years isn't nearly enough when we're looking at a trillion dollar deficit for 2013 alone.

Treasury Secretary Geithner, in interviews over the weekend did point out correctly that only the very wealthy can afford to pay more in taxes but I disagree with the Obama proposal that this revenue should come from higher earned income tax rates on the top earners because those are mostly small business owners that actually create most of the jobs in America. Where the wealthy predominately make their money is through investments that don't actually create any jobs. Purchasing shares in a corporation overwhelmlingly relates to buying ownership from the previous stockholder and not a dime of of that money goes to funding the enterprise. It makes no sense whatsoever why these investments are taxed at less than half the tax rates imposed on business owners that pay up to 35% on their net earned income plus an additional 15.3% in FICA/Payroll taxes basically taking their tax burden up to 50%!

I would propose ending the Capital Gains tax loophole completely and treating all income identically as "earned" income which would increase federal revenues by roughly $1 trillion in both income and FICA/Payroll taxes and that would allow a reduction in the "earned" income tax rates of at least 5% at all levels stimulating business and consumer spending which is what the economy really needs.

At the same time, except for some minor immediate proposed cuts in spending such as the farm subsidies, Obama's proposed future cuts are as mythical as the Romney/Ryan increased tax revenues based upon expanding the economy at over 4% of GDP growth. They simply won't happen. In fact, Medicare/Medicaid both require more funding and not less. Currently both of these programs are grossly underfunded and don't even pay the costs of the medical services provided. This causes private insurance and individuals paying cash for services to be over-charged to make up for the financial losses generated by the Medicare/Medicaid underpayments.

We need real cuts to government expendature and not mythical future reductions in spending. Social Security and Medicare are not where we can find any fat to trim because both are grossly underfunded today. Even welfare entitlements are were we can look for reductions because to reduce welfare spending we need to reduce the need for that spending. Simply cutting funding, which seems to be the Republican proposal, so that children and retirees go hungry or that they get thrown out onto the streets is not how the government should be saving money. We need to cut where we can so that it doesn't adversely affact Americans and the elephant in the living room is defense spending.

Currently the US spends four-times as much on our military than the next largest spending nation (China) and roughly equal to the next ten nations combined. Not a single one of those nations threatens to attack of invade the United States, not one. For those that advocate the US having the finest, the best trained, and the most technologically advanced weapons, such as myself, we can accomplish this by only spending twice as much as any other nation. That means we could realistically reduce Defense Spending by 50% and still have the best armed, best trained, and finest military in the entire world.

So I don't agree with the Obama proposal but at the same time the Obama adminstration is correct. We need a lot more revenue and we do need to make cuts. Here I've provided my "proposals" but I'm not in Congress.

It's time now for the Republicans to offer their proposals because the ball is in their court.

So when is that going to happen?

 

Maybe it's time to prevent future Obamas? http://www.examiner.com/article/time-for-the-electoral-college-to-go-again-2

 

THANK YOU! It's good to know I'm not totally alone after all. These Libocrat morons chant away, night and day: "Tax the rich! Tax the rich! Tax the rich!" -- and they completely fail to understand that "the rich" pay little or nothing in taxes anyway, thanks to all the loopholes and shelters in the U. S. Tax Code! And, these myopic, hyperlib simpletons completely miss the fact that the huge majority of American small businesses file as INDIVIDUALS!

People read your posts, Shiva, but I'm on the "ignore" list of all of Obama's fan club and most of the Obamanite "Praetorian Guard". So, thanks again for bringing up this vitally important point about taxation. Now that they've seen it in one of your posts, maybe the more retarded libs will pull their heads out and begin to pay some attention to economic reality!

 

Here's a Republican suggestion. Before starting with raising taxes on others, why not start collecting taxes from your own staff Obama? Geithner seems to be running a tab, or something. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/18/AR2009011802070.html)

 

I think the left insists on eating the class of small business owners. They are the backbone of the conservative movement.

 

Obama will push us over the cliff.

http://www.examiner.com/article/edging-closer-to-the-fiscal-cliff

Enough said.

 

Obama and the dems have the chainsaw out to bring massive cuts, the GOP trash as usual could care less and only want to defend the rich at all costs.

 

Before extending any of the Bush Era Tax Cuts we need offsetting increases in tax revenues and that can only be accomplished by treating all income identically under the tax codes. That means closing the Capital Gains tax loophole that DOESN'T CREATE JOBS. Ending the Capital Gains tax loophole does not adversely affect the economy because it doesn't apply to small business owners that create jobs. It would also increase federal revenues by about $1 TRILLION PER YEAR (not over a decade) in both general tax revenues (helping with the general budget) and FICA/Payroll taxes (helping Social Security and Medicare).

Rep Boenher's "counter proposal" yesterday was about as irrational as the White House proposal so it deserves comment.

We cannot cut Medicare/Medicaid expendatures as both are underfunded already. Every year Congress has to add over $100 billion to supplement Medicare/Medicaid spending just to pay for doctors because under current Medicare/Medicaid law it doesn't provide enough compensation. Historically Medicare/Medicaid, even with the additional funding for doctors, underpays for medical services by about 10%. That is 10% less than the services cost and that causes an increase in the costs to private insurance and individuals. Just to break even the expendtures on Medicare/Medicaid need to go up about 15% over what is currently being paid today. Both Boenher and Obama are wrong to propose that any savings can be made to Medicare/Medicaid.

Boenher, on behalf of the House, proposes cutting future benefits to seniors on Social Security by changing the COLA calculations. Social Security only averages annual payments of $13K/yr and about 1/2 of seniors are already collecting welfare such as food assistance from SNAP or housing assistance in addition to Social Security because Social Security is a poverty level welfare program. If anything the Social Security benefits should be raised so that the average payment at least equals what a person would earn on the federal minimum wage. A person on Social Security should not have to collect welfare in addition to Social Security. Cutting poverty level Social Security which only increases the need for food and shelter welfare assistance so that wealthy investors can pay less in taxes than small business owners makes no sense at all.

Boenher's proposal does call for future tax reform but doesn't provide any of those tax reforms. This is the "pig in the poke" type of BS we're used to by Republicans. Paul Ryan proposed the same thing with his last federal budget. They believe that new revenues at unprecedented levels will magically appear out of nowhere. Magical mythical increases in revenue and magically mythical reductions in expendatures never happen and have never happened.

Simple fix - End the Capital Gains Tax Loophole! It provides $1 trillion in additional ANNUAL revenue without adversely affecting the ecomony and treats all income fairly by taxing it under the current progressive income tax tables for earned income. This belief that "unearned" income has some magical properties is pure BS.

 

The Obama budget cuts nothing. Medicare/Medicaid expendatures need to go up to pay for doctors as well as paying for the actual costs of services being provided which Medicare/Medicaid don't do today. This is the same mythical reduction in expendatures for Medicare/Medicaid also being proposed by Republicans in the house and it isn't financially feasible. They can't take a program that isn't paying out enough currently and cut spending on it further. That's like saying I'm not paying enough to meet my mortgate payment and so I'm going to pay less to save money.

 

The reality is that our "fiscal cliff" is a fantasy. Taxes will go back to the way they were for years. I think mine will change by about $20 a month if I remember. There will be actual spending cuts by the government. What everyone in government is concerned about is that they won't be able to tell the difference after they cut the programs. I remember the looming "GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN" a couple of years back. They figured things out real quick when nobody noticed all the government workers were gone.

 

It's hard for me to believe that any elected official does not know what capital gains are or why they should be taxed at a different rate. Are our elected officials really that ignorant? Do they really believe that capital gains do not stimulate the economy? No. They can't be that stupid. Even pbama said that raising cap-gains rates would hurt the middle class and REDUCE revenues. He said it was a matter of fairness. Even pbama is not that stupid.

 

Lower Capital gains taxation is abused by the wealthy and they should be exempt from it, many of them trade stocks like Warren Buffet says, and that does not stimulate anything because it transfers ownership of shares.

Now if someone is selling a house, or starting a business, then that is what the President and Romney advocated, because that is a middle class benefit.

Aside from that, I fear what spending cuts the Democrats will be blackmailed into conceding to for a pittance of revenue the Republicans will allow from the wealthy.

Bill Clinton was known to gutting welfare for the poor to appease them, hope this new generation of Democrats are not like that.

 

Yes, historically we can show that our elected officials aren't the sharpest pencil in the box. Want an example? In 1985 the Congress established that a one ounce gold American Eagle (legal tender lawful money in the United States) was worth $50 but a $10 American Eagle would contain 1/4 ounce of gold. Any elementary school student that can add knows that five times 1/4 ounce equals 1 1/4 ounces of gold so five $10 American Gold Eagles (i.e. $50) are worth more than one $50 American Gold Eagle. Congress can't even do simply math!

Every American knows that purchasing stock on the NYSE is the purchase of ownership of the corporation from the current owner (stockholder) in the corporation and that not a single dollar of these transactions goes to the corporation. Only IPO's that are a very small percentage of transactions on the NYSE actually provide money to a corporation for expansion. Investments don't typically create jobs and never have. Only IPO's, a very small percentage of investments, create jobs by funding the corporation. Small business owners paying FICA/Payroll taxes and earned income taxes create jobs, not investors that are taxes under the Capital Gains tax laws.

Every American knows that the normal FICA/Payroll tax is 15.3% and that it is collected on gross income (below $110K) and that the highest possible tax for Capital Gains is 15% (where no FICA/Payroll taxes are collected) and that 15.3% is more than 15%.

A minimum wage earner basically pays a higher tax rate than a multi-millionaire pays if their income is from investments.

We also know that a small business owner (that creates 70%-80% of the jobs in America) pays FICA\/Payroll taxes plus earned income taxes on their net income and that a wealthy person can base their investments on a paper corporation in the Cayman Islands and pay no taxes to any government. They are exempted from paying taxes to the British government because they're Americans and they are excempted from paying US taxes because they are capital gains excluded from taxation by treaty with Britian.

So yes, we can conclude that members of Congress are either very stupid or they are nefarious in their actions pandering to the wealthy that fund their campaigns by making BS statements that they must know are completely false and that cause unfair taxation in America where the wealthy, under the Capital Gains tax loophole, pay a much lower tax rate than average Americans, small business owners that create jobs, and that the wealthy even pay a lower tax rate than someone working at minimum wage.

 

You don't really believe what you are saying.

Treating all income equally would mean raising federal income taxes on the poor who pay a lower rate than the rich.

And ending tax loopholes such as the un-Earned Income Tax Credit for the poor.

Something you are unwilling to do.

 

Extending those "temporary" Bush tax cuts for 98% of Americans is now the major boehner of contention featured in the public theatre.

Stubbornly holding out for the elite 2% is political suicide for an already gobsmacked GOP.

Unfortunately, the duopoly will likely collude in throwing more money at a Pentagon that has not requested it. That ever-reconciliatory porkfest.