Mighty humorous watching the Democrats scurry around like little rodents for their show bills today. They did nothing for four years and now, NOW they want to try and explain that they really are for helping the “little people.” Of course helping the little people means you drive another nail into the already tax burdened small business owners:
Senate Republicans on Saturday voted against extending the Bush tax cuts to only the middle class in a pair of votes Democrats are seizing to paint the GOP as guardians of the rich.
The Senate voted 53-36 to extend all expiring tax cuts on individuals with incomes of less than $200,000 a year and married couples making less than $250,000 — seven shy of the required 60 to advance.
The other proposal, which drew opposition from White House officials, would have renewed them for all tax filers with incomes of $1 million or less. That also failed in a 53-36 vote.
The first plan would have raised taxes on those making over 250k a year. That was voted down by all Republicans and 5 Democrats. The Second plan would have raised taxes on those making over a million a year. Same breakdown in votes. Guess who introduced that second bill? Sen. Chuck Schumer. The same guy who not too long ago was against tax increases for hedge fund managers:
SCHUMER FUNDRAISER INVITATION: Sen. Schumer is “One Of The Few Members Of Congress That Has Consistently Supported The Hedge Fund Industry.” (“Goldman Suit Figure Touted, Fundraised For Ally Schumer,” Politico, 4/16/10)
NEW YORK MAGAZINE: “Fellow Senator (And Regular Guy) Chuck Schumer Took A Stand Against Raising Taxes On Hedge-Fund Billionaires.” (“Flip-Flop Weather,” New York Magazine, 8/13/07)
THE WASHINGTON POST: “By Late July, Schumer Was Off The Fence — And On The Side Of The Hedge Funds And Private-Equity Firms In Opposing The Democratic Legislation.”(“Democrats Split Over Bill Affecting Backers,” The Washington Post, 11/7/07)
THE WASHINGTON POST’s Al Kamen: “Sen. Charles ‘Hedgeman’ Schumer (D-N.Y.) — The Liberal Senator Who Defended Preferential Tax Rates For Hedge-Fund Gazillionaires.”“Cyndi Bauerly, legislative director for Sen. Charles “Hedgeman” Schumer (D-N.Y.) — the liberal senator who defended preferential tax rates for hedge-fund gazillionaires — is said to be the pick to be nominated for a Democratic seat on the dentally challenged Federal Election Commission.” (“Campaigning By The Book,” The Washington Post, 8/10/07)
But now he wants to stir up political class warfare. Nice.
Mitch McConnell said it best:
“According to the strange the logic of Democratic leaders in Congress, the best way to show middle class Americans that they care about creating jobs is to slam some of America’s top job creators with a massive tax hike,”
~~~“Today’s vote was an affront to the millions of Americans who are struggling to find work and a clear signal that Democrats in Congress still haven’t got the message from the November elections,”
~~~“Two years of out-of-control spending and big-government policies have led to record deficits and debt, chronic unemployment, and deep uncertainty about our nation’s fiscal future. Meaningless show-votes and anti-business rhetoric won’t do anything to make the situation better.”
No, they haven’t received the message. In fact one of the Democrats compared negotiating with Republicans with terrorists:
Republicans are doing the right thing and standing firm on keeping the tax reductions for ALL income levels. It’s insanity to think that ANY tax increase will do anything but destroy our economy further when it’s already in the tank. All the Democrats understand are the talking points they can use by these show votes but apparently don’t understand basic concepts like cause and effect….or care little about the effect these tax increases would have on the small business owners.
Small business owners drive this economy, they employ millions of people across this country, and the Democrats think that raising their taxes is a good thing?
Pure unadulterated idiocy.
And I’m thankful we are finally starting to see the Republicans show some backbone.
See author page
@ MataHarley, Billy Bob doesn’t care…it’s OPM from those “dirty cons”. What a buffoon!
The Debt is on Every American and Employers won’t hire, Banks don’t loan and Folks get layoffs because of the uncertainty created by the Economic Illiterates in Congress, Executive Branch and ‘all o them’ Socialist Czars that Obama appointed plus the Geithner/ Bernanke Team that is crashing the value of the dollar. What a Team of incompetents!!!
Let me get this straight, the Republicans are responsible for the deficits from ’02-’07 because they controlled the WH and Congress. No argument there. The Democrats controlled Congress for the ’08 and ’09 budgets both of which Obama voted for but they aren’t responsible for the deficits. Then the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for the record ’09 and ’10 deficits but they aren’t responsible for any of that either. Very interesting way of thinking. I guess putting your signature on government legislation doesn’t constitute ownership in every case.
@B-Rob:
This is where you err. The dems were never on the outside looking in, they were in grabbing hand over fist. To stop it Bush would have had to let the government shut down while trying to fight the WOT, instead he haggled with them. When they gained control of Congress in 07, he slowed them down, but not enough….he had a war to fight and people to protect, something lost on the democrats.
I’ve never said Republicans weren’t to blame for runaway spending, but since you insist on total blame on the other side, it’s necessary to point out to you how the games are played. Even though Bush had Congress for awhile, he didn’t have the numbers to accomplish what he wanted, again, he had to haggle with your side, always.
Your side had it all when Obama came to power, he and his Congress made Bush and his Congress look like Scrooge.
BTW, no breaks, your attitude stinks and you are behaving like a snot nosed bully, doesn’t go very far here.
@another vet:
Obama signed that FY 2009 budget, Pelosi and Reid never submitted it for Bush to sign. Obama signed it in March of 09, over five months after FY 2009 started. Remember Gates constantly having to plead for money or our forces and suppliers wouldn’t get paid. Congress operated on continuing resolutions and emergency funding until after Obama was inaugurated.
Missy,
I thought I remembered that being the case but couldn’t remember and therefore didn’t want to say so. Didn’t they keep passing bills to keep the government running kind of like what they did with the current budget that hasn’t been passed? A tad delinquent. Perhaps they didn’t want another one plus trillion dollar deficit spending bill coming out before the mid terms. But let’s not forget, it’s Bush’s fault.
@another vet:
Yep, that’s what happened, in addition, the Repubs couldn’t get FY 2007 done and that budget was also left for the dems and Bush to hammer out when they took control in Jan/07.
Should have read “approves budgets.”
@Wm T Sherman:
The con man also said:
The president proposes a budget.
Tip O’Neil and then later Tom Foley got a kick out of just declaring Reagan’s and then Bush 41’s budgets, DOA. Reagan was able to take it to the people, Bush 41 earnestly negotiated with the dems and got his throat slit. “Read my lips….”
Rostenkowski, I can’t remember if it was before or after his stint in prison, later cited Bush 41’s breaking of his campaign promise as “brave.” I’m from the Chicago area and he was being interviewed on the radio, WLS.
Bush 41 negotiated in good faith and was stabbed in the back. He was promised that spending would be cut if he agreed to the tax increase, the dems reneged and left Bush 41 flailing in the wind. That was around the time hubby and I changed parties, that led to it as well as what we were witnessing on C-SPAN that just came to our area.
We were able to witness the behavior of the democrats during Congressional committee meetings and were embarrassed by the party we were supporting.
Anyway, appreciate your input!
M
Apparently Obama just agreed to do as this thread’s title reads:
EXTEND TAX CUTS FOR EVERY AMERICAN NOT JUST A SELECT FEW.
He’s already twenty minutes late saying so, however.
Would Harry Truman have done this? I understand that there always, in the end, has to be a compromise, and that liberals are never, ever going to get all that they want. That’s the nature of politics. The problem is that Obama is not pulling out all the stops to get the most progressive final deal possible. He’s not out there on the stump giving the Republicans heat for their unpopular positions. I think that both Carter and Clinton, moderates though they were on domestic policy, would have fought harder for, and achieved, a more progressive final settlement had they been faced with a situation like this.
He caved in to the threat that they’d thow the long-term unemployed to the wolves if the rich didn’t get their d-mn tax cut.
The richest 3% will get even richer, proving that extortion pays.
The national debt will get even bigger, but that will be a problem for the remaining 97% to somehow deal with.
@Greg: Quite whining. I wonder, when the GOP reigns in spending and lowers the deficit, will you admit their plan works, or will you just give your boy all the credit?
@Name: Mark: You said:
First of all, you are expecting too much out of Obama. He has no experience in governing. Zip, zero, zilch.
Secondly, what positions exactly are the Republicans taking that are so unpopular?
@ anticsrocks, #66:
When do you think they’re going to start doing that?
So far, they haven’t even hinted at the details of the cuts that would be necessary to substantially reduce spending. Instead, they’ve just seen to the extension of tax cuts to 3% of the population that were doing remarkably well already, adding another $700 billion to projected revenue shortfalls in the process.
Clearly the GOP has no intention that the richest 3% will make any part of the sacrifices required to attain fiscal responsibility. Their detailed list of cuts should be of great interest to the remaining 97%.
I suspect that they’ll just keep talking, ramping up the rhetoric with an eye to the 2012 elections. They’ll make some token cuts of no real consequence, and probably roll out a proposal or two that they know won’t actually fly, but they won’t even consider the sort of compromises required to actually take on the problem.
Of course, Obama might not let them off the hook so easily. The bipartisan Debt Commission wasn’t set up for nothing.
The Teaparty is also out there. I’m not entirely certain that tax cuts for the richest 3% of Americans at the cost of increased national debt was exactly what most of them had in mind.
Name: Mark and Greg —
Name: Mark, you seem to be operating from the proposition that Obama was a progressive. He is not and never has been. He is a Rockefeller/Eisenhower Republican. That is why he had us buy a cash stock position in Citibank (sold today for a net profit of $12 billion) and did not nationalize it. It is why GM and Chrysler were bailed out via investment, not nationalizing it. It is why he keeps using tax cuts to advance certain goals as opposed to cash handouts. It is why the health care bill revolves around the private sector insurance companies and not a single payer government system. The “Obama is a socialist” meme was one of the dumbest, most factually bereft statements describing a politician in the last 40 years, since “Martin Luther King is a Communist” or “Bill Clinton is a murderer.”
@Greg: You said:
Let me edumacate you.
First of all, our Government doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Secondly, how can the present tax rates cost us MORE money when no one is talking about a tax cut. This is about not RAISING TAXES.
Now to your holy grail in this issue: Those tax rates for the “97%” of working Americans that you cling to like a drowning rat to a piece of flotsam actually cost MORE than the rates to those folks making more than $250,000.00 a year.
Yes, that’s right. The tax rates you want cost MORE.
Your class warfare rhetoric is getting old… You just keep coming back, not with facts, but with the same old tired out Democratic talking points. But then I guess for someone who cannot think on their own, you gotta get your arguments from somewhere.
@Silly Bobbye: You said:
Really?
Seriously? You ACTUALLY believe that load of crap?
ROFLMAO!!
Mr. President,
There is a right-wing conpiracy-propaganda machinery in sheep’s clothings fully greased by big business…. is rolling at calculated speed.
Stay on track. They wanted to distract you. As I would say, ” Hungry bellies ” and the millions of unemployed Americans, care less whether it’s socialism or capitalism that creates jobs and put food on the table and send kids to school and pay the medical bills.
The American people is hursting and bring it to them and question the wisdom of the Republicans. If the Republicans care so much about lowering the deficit, why do they want to increase it by extending tax cuts to 2% of wealthy Amercicans who as Warren Buffet says, could easily walk into any banks and “borrow money’ at negotiated rates? Bring the case to the people. Average Americans cannot do that without massive collaterals.
Since you have taken Office, you have done many good things for the American people : Health Care, Bank Regulations, Handling of infamous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico……The Republicans have a master plan and you need to stand-up.
Don’t be too modest; say it and say it loud and clear.
God Bless you! God Bless America!
Jack Lachman
Jack Lachman: I think you got the conspiracy at the wrong end, dont worry about the REPUBLICANS, they are on the AMERICANS SIDE, you should worry about catching cold this winter it will be chilling,
@Jack Lachman: Give us ONE concrete example of ANY of Obama’s policies helping America.
And BTW, he didn’t extend any tax cuts, he just agreed to an extension of the current tax rates. Get your terminology straight.
I am waiting for you to answer my question.
@ilovebees – You said –
Well said, my friend! 😀