By this point I really shouldn't be surprised by how little change and hope Obama has delivered on. I mean yes, he is faced with a lot of hardships and a bill from the last 8 years of fucked up shit Bush has left behind for him, but it's pretty clear that a certain someone really wants to lose in 2012....
Bush Tax-Cut Deal With Jobless Aid Said to Be Near
Published: December 5, 2010
WASHINGTON — White House officials and Congressional Republicans said Sunday they were closing in on a deal to temporarily continue the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, while bitterly frustrated Democratic Congressional leaders began exploring whether they would have the votes for such a package.
A day after the Senate rejected President Obama’s preferred tax plan, officials said the broad contours of a compromise were in focus.
Rather than extending the tax rates only on income described by Democrats as middle class — up to $250,000 a year for couples and $200,000 for individuals — the deal would also keep the rates for higher earners, probably for two years. In return, Republicans said they would probably agree to extend jobless aid for the long-term unemployed.]
Senior Democrats on Sunday said that they were resigned to defeat in the highly charged tax debate, and they voiced dismay.
“We’re moving in that direction,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat said dejectedly when Bob Schieffer, host of “Face the Nation” on CBS, asked him if the 2001 and 2003 tax rates would be extended even for the wealthy. “And we’re only moving there against my judgment,” Mr. Durbin added.
In meetings with administration officials after the Senate votes, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and many other House and Senate Democrats voiced deep unhappiness at the prospect of extending all the tax cuts and also expressed their belief that the White House did not appear to be getting enough for such a big concession, officials said.
That sort of anger raised the likelihood that Republicans would have to generate large numbers of votes to advance any deal in Congress, much as they did to help approve the big financial system bailout at President George W. Bush’s request in 2008.
White House officials, meanwhile, expressed hope of sealing a deal swiftly, perhaps by midweek, and clearing the Congressional calendar for a long list of other priorities that they aim to accomplish by the end of the year, including ratification of the New Start arms treaty with Russia and the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gay service members as part of a wider Pentagon policy bill.
Administration officials said the negotiations were focused on the question of extending the tax rates for one or two years, with a three-year extension highly unlikely, even though that time frame would probably eliminate the tax fight as an urgent issue in the 2012 elections.
Well shit, who the fuck didn't see this ass fucking coming. I'm sorry for the harsh language but I mean, come on. He isn't even trying anymore. Yeah, I guess the silver lining in all this is that they're extending unemployment, so at least there's some positive....
Oh wait, the key word in talks was probably extending unemployment benefits.... That's the same way I'll probably win a million dollars tomorrow and then be able to take advantage of the republican tax cut.
I really worry that if the tax cut and unemployment extension aren't part of one bill, then they'll just take the tax cuts and when it comes time for the vote for the unemployment benefits... hee, yeah, the Dems will be in for a surprise.
Here's what I don't get - You trade in a few weeks of fiscal soundness for years to come of death and uncertainty. When it's time to renew the unemployment benefits we won't have anything to pay for it because we'll still be knees deep in a massive tax cut. It's not difficult to realize that the money needs to come from somewhere.
But hey, at least with these new massive tax cuts, they'll be able to hire more people... right? Right?! Ha, yeah... I'm sure once they get their tax cuts they will just bitch about how there's no money for any of that. Let's not forget that cutting taxes on the rich was found to be the worse method to stimulate the economy.
What a bunch of worthless cowards, they didn't try for one second to spin this against the republicans for holding the unemployment benefits/relief ransom in exchange for the tax cuts to be kept by the wealthy.
For someone who constantly said "We have some hard decisions to make", he sure as fuck finds every possible easy way out of everything without even pretending to think about doing anything remotely close to being unpopular.
The worse aspect of this is that 2% payroll tax. Isn't that going towards Social Security and Medicare? Man, I really think that those social services are in for some serious problems down the line. For a socialist, he sure doesn't like to do anything to help social services.
But back to the 2% payroll tax cut, which is really a 1/6 cut for social security. It really shouldn't go unnoticed in all this. Social security is about a 12% tax on your paycheck, up to a maximum or so. Yeah, it's a flat tax with extra regressive flavor. If you're employed, your employer pays half of that, so both you and the capitalist scum directly oppressing you pay a 6% of your paycheck.
So by cutting the social security tax by 2%, you're hacking out 16% of its income with literally no planning or reasoning or even anything close to a budgetary reason for doing so other than because the republicans said so. This really a big deal when you think that their defense for not doing the unemployment benefits was to not put a hardship on the deficit and not pass the bill to our future generations. But what you're doing by cutting this is making sure that social security doesn't have anything left in it down the line.
I'm sure many of you are already operating on the assumption that you wont ever see a dime of what you're paying into social security, so fuck it, right? You also shouldn't forget that you're also allowing businesses to write off all their capital investments for tax purposes during 2011.
But also this quick band-aid on the problem does nothing to help the issue of who gets coverage on this unemployment benefits. This deal only extends the 99 week window for unemployment. It doesn't actually increase it beyond that initial 99 weeks. So if you were going to run out of unemployment benefits, you're still faced with that harsh reality under this new deal.
Why would you need to be on unemployment for 99 weeks? You know, the time span of two years? Well, you could be an American living in 2010. While there would be people who just label those without a job for two years as bums, there's a harsh reality mixed in there.
The inability to find a job in your field and at an income level equal to or promising to soon be equal to what you were getting on unemployment is a real motivator. You really can't blame people for refusing to get a shit job for a shitty hourly wage when they are well qualified professionals with lots of lie expenses and experience. You shouldn't expect them to take a job at McDonalds that will pay the same, if not a little less than unemployment benefits.
These jobs don't even remotely pay a living wage. It's not even a matter of "not paying the same" factoring into it. Most of these places don't even offer that many hours. And have you've worked retail lately? They'll do anything possible to make sure you don't go over the hours that would require them giving you any sort of benefits.
They want to make sure you're under 34 hours a week so you can avoid ever being a "full-time employee". In much of the rural south and mid-south, Walmart gets away with paying new hires minimum wage and leaving them there until they quit or die. How else do you think you're goods are so cheap? There are literally no other jobs around, so you take it or you starve.
With federal min. being $7.25, after social security and medicare withholding, you will be taking home $428.52 every two weeks... or a grand total of $11k a year. There's really no reason why you should lower yourself to doing this work if unemployment is willing to give you close to that without having to deal with stupid Walmart customers.
Let's not forget, these people already put into the unemployment insurance, you saying they shouldn't take advantage of them is like telling someone who got into a car accident that they shouldn't use the insurance they pay monthly to fix the car.
At least one person isn't laying down as easy as the President. Bernie Sanders is threatening to bust out the filibuster.
I really can't stress how much I want to see Bernie up there holding the floor all day and night like a democrat during the civil rights struggle. Of course, we haven't had a democrat like that for a long time and I find it hard to dig up enough hope to ever see something like that again.
In my view, it is a moral outrage that at a time when this country has a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else that the Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to 2 million workers who are desperately struggling to pay their bills and maintain their dignity. It is also beyond comprehension that the Republicans would hold hostage the entire middle class of this country so that millionaires and billionaires would receive huge tax breaks. In my view, that is not what this country is about and it is not what the American people want to see. Our job is to save the disappearing middle class, not lower taxes for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and increase the national debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay.It's pretty sad when "middle class" is used instead of pointing out that there's people literally starving because of the gap between the rich and those even considered "middle class".
Still, even with this lone spark in an otherwise dark room, I'm all done getting my hopes up for any sort of logic or common sense... or anything but corruption in our government. Maybe a few of you haven't had your heart blackened all the way yet.
I'm sure many of you are thinking that everyone should be in favor of this tax cut. After all, who in America likes to pay taxes? There shouldn't be a reason to give your money to the U.S. Government, am I right, guys?
Only, that's not the point nor is it how money works. I'd much rather have some new roads, maintained pot holes and unemployment for the poor than our capital overlords seeing an extra 9 figure bonus in their paycheck because they re-invested their tax breaks into some untouchable bond.
You know, Nixon was considering the guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. He was seriously the most socialist president we would ever have. Just looking at that Obama clip has me mad. He keeps on talking about all the many campaign promises, how about mentioning the ones he already broken?
Maybe I'm too hard on him. I don't realize how hard it must have been for him to give in to the thieves on the GOP side who would prefer to protect the upper 2% with a bailout instead of delivering $700 billion over ten years to pay for the deficit that the GOP constantly brings up as the reason we can't afford social services.
Did you know that the US treasury lost out on $16 billion from simply 4 people dying during a year with a 0% estate tax? One of those fuckers was Steinbrenner. How about the reminder that last quarter American businesses recorded the highest ever profits since records have been kept. Seven consecutive quarters at some of the highest growth rates in history and yet they can't create jobs without some tax breaks and more subsidies.
Yup, fuck this gay world.
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