Fiscal Cliff: Drink Some Eggnog and Deal With It
The Mayan apocalypse didn’t take out Earth today as doomsayers predicted, but House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) may have not wanted to get out of bed regardless.
The B-pocalypse — also known as the disastrous crash-and-burn plan of Boehner’s to force a compromise on the fiscal cliff — rippled through Washington today, raising questions not only about the deadline just 10 days away but whether Republicans can even find a foothold anymore in negotiations moving into the holidays.
Boehner told reporters the morning after that his bill couldn’t come to the floor last night because it lacked the votes for passage — not the outcome he wanted, but “the will of the House.”
“So unless the president and Congress take action, the tax rates will go up on every American taxpayer and devastating defense cuts will go into effect in 10 days,” he warned.
“I don’t want taxes to go up; Republicans don’t want taxes to go up. But we only run the House. Democrats continue to run Washington.”
As to what went wrong last night, Boehner blamed a “perception” that his Plan B — which raised the threshold for the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts from the president’s $250,000 to $1 million — amounted to a tax increase.
“Now, we had a number of our members who just really didn’t want to be perceived as having raised taxes. That was the real issue,” he said.
“I have told my colleagues this: If you do the right things every day for the right reasons, the right things will happen. And, while we may have not been able to get the votes last night to avert 99.81 percent of the tax increases, I don’t think — they weren’t taking that out on me. They — they were dealing with the perception that somebody might accuse them of raising taxes,” Boehner concluded, leaving the press with a curt “Merry Christmas, everyone.”
President Obama suggested that lawmakers could come to a place of reason — e.g., his proposal — by indulging in some Christmas cheer over the holiday break.
“During the course of these negotiations, I offered to compromise with Republicans in Congress. I met them halfway on taxes and I met them more than halfway on spending. In terms of actual dollar amounts, we’re not that far apart,” Obama said in an early evening statement in the press briefing room, after speaking with Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
The president again called on Congress to extend middle-class tax rates and then come back to upper incomes at another, undetermined time.
“At the very least, let’s agree right now on what we already agree on,” he said.
Obama claimed that with the last election, “the American people have determined that governing is a shared responsibility between both parties.”
“In this Congress, laws can only pass with support from Democrats and Republicans. And that means nobody gets 100 percent of what they want. Everybody’s gotta give a little bit in a sensible way. We move forward together, or we do not move forward at all,” he continued.
“So, as we leave town for a few days to be with our families for the holidays, I hope it gives everybody some perspective. Everybody can cool off. Everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing — sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones.”
He told lawmakers to think about their “obligations” while enjoying holiday merriment and about economic recovery.
“Now is not the time for more self-inflicted wounds, certainly not those coming from Washington.”
Obama didn’t take any questions before leaving for his Christmas vacation in Honolulu.
House Democratic leaders put on a similar news conference earlier in the day, saying the president had made concessions and Republicans weren’t being fair.
“Every time we are close to a solution, whether it was a year-and-a-half ago in the summer or right now, the Republicans walk away. And when we thought we were close this week, Republicans decided to follow another path — a path that led them over the cliff, a route in which they even did not have the votes,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said.
Republicans in the House of Representatives need to do their constitutional duty; write legislation, and send it over to the Senate, then reconcile the differences and send the bills to the President to be signed or veto’d.
The Congress is not a rubber stamp for the President’s ideology, it is an independent body. At least, it is when the democrats run it and there is a republican president.
problem is…
the pubes in the house have been doing this since ’10
and it has been sitting on dingy reid’s desk for years
Unfortunately, the republicans are not even remotely capable of carrying out what you suggest. Indeed, even GOP war horse Jennifer Rubin, Romney’s biggest cheerleader has figured this out: “This sort of display suggests Republicans are not capable of governing. What was an argument by Democrats (They are unreasonable! They only care for the rich!) is now a political reality.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2012/12/20/boehner-plan-b-house-republicans-humiliate-their-leader/
Also, Andrew Sullivan: Andrew Sullivan: “The Republican slide into total epistemic closure and political marginalization has now become a free-fall. This party, not to mince words, is unfit for government.”
The GOP in it’s current composition is not in any way qualified to protect and defend the Constitution. They are simply unfit for office.
Republicans are not in a “freefall” Mr. cynical. America is. Obama has managed to balkanize this country.
There are no winners and you liberals will soon realize the monster you have created, enjoy!
Keep drinking the rancid tea hun. It did your side a lot of good last November.
But we will continue to fight self-righteous apparatchiks like you until we die. Government has never been the answer; Always the problem. In a personally responsible society, there is only a need for limited government power.
You seem to embrace a nanny-state. Why?
Is it that you want to be “taken care of”?
How much of your paycheck goes to pay for things you don’t want to pay for? And of those things, which of them are not outlined in the Constitution that MUST be paid for?
You like so much of your pay going to the EPA, DOE, TSA?
Why is it that you believe higher taxes will solve any problems? Poverty continues, only they now say it’s ~ $11,000 per person. But with free cellphones, Food Stamps and Section 8 housing…all that money is expendable income. In other words, their “benefits” that you and I pay for, provide them with the lifestyle of a person making (EARNING) $50,000+ a year.
Tell me how that makes sense to you. And also tell me how raising taxes on “the rich” is going to cover any of the bills our government has to pay. When I say “our government” I mean you…and me. If the government confiscated ALL the money from ALL the people whose assets were valued at 1 million dollars or more, they could run the government for a week, maybe two.
Get some perspective CW. This nation is addicted to SPENDING. Poor people who have made their choices in life are NOT ENTITLED to the things I have to work for. PERIOD. It’s that simple. Yes…let them die. They are non-productive leeches on society. They EARNED their lot by screwing off in school, doing drugs, working as weekend prostitutes by spreading their legs for any loser male who has no foundation, etc.
Hope you find yourself with some Section 8 people as neighbors as I do. They are ALL obese. No, not just fat..OBESE. “Their-own-gavtitational-field” obese.
On EBT day, they bring home a pickup truck full of food. Food that you and I paid for.
Irresponsibility has been subsidized by the government with working, responsible peoples’ money. How is that right?
“The GOP in it’s (sic) current composition is not in any way qualified to protect and defend the Constitution. They are simply unfit for office.”
This may be largely true, but it is at least as true about the rest of Washington.
Just stop making The Be All And End All not raising taxes on those making over $250,000 a year and go after all the horrific out of control Obama binge and welfare and crony spending. The vast majority of Americans do not make over $250,000 a year, but at least a clear majority don’t benefit much from all the out of control Obama binge and welfare and crony spending. Republicans, play to your strengths, not your weaknesses.
How about fighting against something? Like all the welfare and Obama crony spending to welfare queens and kings and crony “capitalists”? Forget trying to protect the upper 1 or 2% from losing their tax cuts. No one ever successfully protected anything, certainly not something like this. Attack !
It will take a lot more than eggnog to make me think all is fine. Obama is an arrogant man who has such an inflated ego that he can’t imagine anyone not agreeing with him.
Yes! Spending bills also have to originate in the House. Pass good spending bills, with real spending cuts, and send ‘em out. If necessary, except for minimum operational spending, let the government close down until the Dems come back to reality. If necessary, fight it out on that front until the next election, then let the people decide.
Part of that is screaming the truth from every rooftop until people have at least heard it. After that, let ‘em vote. If they won’t believe the truth, then shame on them- though we’ll all suffer the consequences. We either trust in God and the people of these United States or we don’t. We’re rapidly getting to the point where compromise becomes impossible. We must choose between socialism-soft dictatorship- and freedom.
Assuming the GOP was interested in limited government I’d advise them to give the ‘rats an offer they can’t accept. A tax increase on the “rich” in exchange for meaningful spending cuts.
O’s ploy is quite simple. Force the Republicans to go over the cliff, make everyone feel the pain for a month or so, and then propose a magnanimous “Obama tax cut for the middle class” together with a firm demand to raise the debt ceiling or just eliminate the proposition altogether. Anyone who hasn’t figured this out by now just doesn’t have much of a brain.
spinoneone, The One is seeking to push the economy off the cliff and that is that. And regardless what the Repubs agree to there will be economic devastation, one way or another.
The Pyromaniac-in-Chief intends to eviscerate America and that is that. The only question is – how long will it take before he does it….a yr, two…? http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/07/when-authentic-revolutionaries-hold-the-reins-of-american-power-centers-via-the-most-radical-regime-in-u-s-history-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/…and this is what happens when revolutionaries hold the reins of power. And if Americans think that Congress is relevant then they haven’t learned their lessons from Benghazigate under the Radical-in-Chief.
He managed to wage the BIGGEST, illegal gunrunning, weapon smuggling war in US history and Congress can’t seem to hold his feet to the fire, all the ‘investigations’ aside.
This is where I disagree with you. Both sides bear guilt in all of this.
The Republican’s DHS and TSA gave us a police state in all but name, while the Democrat’s policies and laws will give us a tyranny, in all but name. Both sides, liberal and conservative, have led us to this point in history.
Either way, freedom is at an end…and while conservatives certainly talk a tough game, they won’t revolt against either tyranny or a police state. If they were going to do so, it would’ve already happened. The provocations against freeom and liberty have certainly been great enough. The struggle both sides have fought have been about gaining power and control over the lives of others. These struggles, by both sides, have not involved the struggle for freedom or liberty.
So, in many respects, the title of this article makes a good point: The Russian nihilists in the old Soviet Union knew and recognised something about reality that we refuse to face.
“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain.”
It´s not a joke, it´s serious …. prezbo, his famdamily, MIL and other hangers-on just took off on AF1 for a vacation in Hawaii. prezbo had to borrow the flipping $$$$$$$$$$ to pay for the jet fuel …. because the USA is flatbutted broke! I am dreading the day when interest rates “necessarily must go up” and inflation takes over! $8 for a gallon of milk???? My family grew up with the mantra, “We ain´t beggin´, we´re buying!” We never went out if we did not have the money to pay our own way ….
More and more able bodied people of working age are signing up for disability payments because they have no other options! Most want work and dignity! They only want to live and feed their families! This whole obamamania administration is so terribly wrong …. And we are stuck for four more years ….
When the Government of Canada makes your Government look small and stupid stick a fork in it your done.
Yup.
This blame Boehner and the Repubs ploy only works if you are moronic enough to think the USA has a ‘Revenue Problem’ and not a ‘SPENDING problem’ just like the USURPER his Regime and all the Left Wing moonbats do including the despicable and blatantly partisan, in the tank for Obambi, Lame Stream EneMedia.
Since when have the Republicans stopped spending? When have Republicans ever decreased the size of government in any substantial fashion? They are no better in these things than the Democrats, and the Democrats are guilty of everything you believe.
Both sides bear equal guilt.
Until you face that reality – that fact – you will never be free.
“This concern with the basic condition of freedom — the absence of physical constraint — is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free — to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.”
Question everything. Think for yourself.
True. Good post.
If things get bad enough…have gun, will travel.
Have Teleprompter Will Travel reads the card of the man.
A cipher without a thought of his own in what he’s turning into a bankrupt land.
His ah, oh, umm, loose mouth heeds the calling of a Soros wind.
A man without a clue of his own is the cipher called Obamadin.
Obamadin, Obamadin, Where do you roam?
Obamadin, Obamadin, Just be sure to never leave your teleprompter at home.
He travels on to campaign whenever he feels he must
His yearning for power is his guiding lust
These are legends that themselves do spin
Of the Ventriloquist’s dummy
Of the cipher called Obamadin
Obamadin, Obamadin, Where do you roam?
Obamadin, Obamadin, Just be sure to never leave your teleprompter at home.
Brilliant, FeralCat! Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Sounds like a plan!
But I wouldn’t wait until the excrement reaches the rotary air circulation appliance. You’ll have a lot more options if you begin now to make your plans to emigrate.
So if some plan had gotten passed everyone would be happy? Cutting $160B per year when we’re running a $1T deficit? It’s all lipstick. Going over the cliff is a good first step. Maybe it’ll wake people up a bit. We need fundamental change in this country. The Fed Govt needs to be reined back within their constitutional boundaries. The citizens needs to become responsible for their own situations. This will never happen however without a powerdown restart.
Well, John Boehner, lose some, lose some. Actually, I think it’s great news. The Democrats and Obama SIGNED this deal back in 2011, now they can live with it AND its results. Let them take the heat for once. If America voted for a European-style government last November, then they can start paying European-style taxes to help pay for it. Let them see how it feels when it starts hitting them in the pocket. Then maybe next time they will vote for a conservative or someone who actually wants to REDUCE the size of government.
The vast majority of Americans are not going to feel any heat in the way of increased taxes. If the Bush tax cuts expire, the Obama tax cuts will soon replace them.
Stranger than fiction.
It is time for the “takers” to begin to feel some real pain. Follow the money, it isn’t the Section 8 renter that gets the money, it’s the landlord. It isn’t the student that gets the grant it’s the school. It isn’t the EBT card carrier that gets the money it’s the stores and the vendors. The new unemployed and so-called disabled are laughing at the rest of us for paying their way. The employers have to pay the U/C tax and the Workman’s Comp Insurance not the employees. In every instance the government gets the credit for providing the money or the service but the evil taxpayers and the employers are the villains. The unions are for More Pay, More People, doing Less Work. What could possibly go wrong? CUT SPENDING!
If it’s ok with the Preezy, my drink of choice is beer, not eggnog. While others are struggling, he’s zipping off on a $4M tax payer funded vacation. I’m paying more than my fair share if HIS lifestyle. For the ongoing handout to him and the angry Mrs., any chance he’ll back off on the Marxist rhetoric? Unlikely.
Clueless, you are. President Obama has not taken any more “vacations” than any other president, most notably your buddy G.W. Bush (who took way more). The fact of the matter is, and I know that this is very hard for you to accept, President Obama, being the President has taxpayer funded security as one of the perks (if you even want to call it that) that the office requires. I don’t doubt that all these things are OK when a republicans holds the office but not when a Democrat does.
You know what? Tough …
Why are you lefties always so unpleasant? And so emotional?
Did it cost $4M each time Bush went home to Crawford? Did the taxpayers fund spring break for the Bush twins? What does it cost to go to Camp David vs. Hawaii? How many vacations did the taxpayers fund for Laura?
Someone here probably has the answers.
The taxpayers fund all that is necessary for the first family wherever they go. I’m not sure what part of a vacation the first family picks up as their own expense but the presidential entourage follows the president and their family no matter what and those expenses are picked up by the taxpayer. That is reality regardless of who sits in the WH and whether or not you like them. Quit your petty whining or I’ll have to send you some cheese to go with it …
And beneath all the hatred what gnaws at any informed voter/citizen is the knowledge that this President in no way has proved his legitimacy for the office. Yet conservatives rush blindly forward, playing the game, playing defense, raising Obama’s profile, power and prestige.
True American conservatives need to get busy forming a new party as Terry/Israel wrote last week, or simply let Obama finish bankrupting the country. The current path is nearly guaranteeing more and more Obama power, then Clinton in ’16.
Take a look at all that is exempt from sequestration:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/905
Here’s a prediction … Since the feds are spending without having passed a budget since Obama came into office CONTRARY to law, the next step for Obama is to ignore the debt ceiling and keep spending CONTRARY to law while telling the public he had no choice because of the opposition party. Think of it as just another step in the march toward President as holding all the power, issuing dictats by Executive Order, and Congress holding having no power, sort of like what Chavez did in Venezuela and other dictators have done to take over free societies. By successfully convincing the masses of Obamanistas that their pain is the fault of those who oppose Obama (and they (Obama supporters) should get in our faces), coupled with stuffing the Supreme and other courts with his supporters, before you know it we become the new Democratic Peoples Republic of the USA with a President with dictatorial powers and a rubber stamp judicial and legislative branch. Of course Obama is smiling , going to Hawaii and telling everyone not to worry .. he truly is getting everything he wants while all of us who oppose him and his policies continue to argue over how to respond and demand a purging of our ranks when in truth we will need everyone we can get to stop the impending disaster. We are Israel in the times of Isaiah.
I am sick and tired of hearing about the “fiscal cliff”. Whether you are a CEO or a dishwasher, your taxes are going to go up in January. And you are going to see more money pinched out of your paycheck. And Obamacare will hit you with even more taxes. Deal with it, because the Dems plan to wage economic war on every American who still has a private-sector job. It’s time to gear up and go into survival mode.
“…devastating defense cuts will go into effect in 10 days,” he warned.
It is hard to take these people seroiusly when they are allowed to tell outright lies rigth in front of the American people.
The problem with the sequestration cuts is not the magnitude but the way the law was written. It says take an equal percentage from every individual account, or in fedspeak each program element (pe). What this means is there is no way to select which programs to kill or make reductions based on priority or need, they all get whacked about 20% (percentage to be determined by OMB). For DOD this means every program exists still spending money but nothing is being produced and 20% of the entire work force is cut, again not by any priority based on need but equally based on percentage. Basically idiots wrote this law. If you had to cut your household budget 20%, would you just cut every item back 20% as opposed to making selective cuts of things less important to your survival or for DOD its core missions? Of course not, but we’re dealing with the idiots running our federal government here. God help us all.
Back to the finger-pointing….business as usual in the government. Here is an independent point of view. Obama and democrats only want the middle class down cuts, so they keep saying let’s sign on that and come back to the rich later. The republicans know that if they sign that, then the “coming back to the rich”, which they were asking for those up to $1 million rather than $250,000, part will never happen because the democrats will have all they want and with no “hostages” to hold over the democrats, they will have no bargaining power to get the 250,000-1 mil legislation through.
We need to grab them all and put them under “house arrest” with open, on camera, public talks/negotiations so we can point our own fingers rather than hearsay. We were supposedly going to get these under this president since the first time around, and you know how many I have seen….one. The health care bill talks, that didn’t go anywhere and then got signed behind a closed door anyway because at the time it was a filibuster-proof in favor of the democrats congress. And my favorite line that repeatedly showed up from Obama’s mouth was, “The are republican ideas in this bill.” Yes…I read it….unlike anyone else in that room. 15 pages out of an almost 2,500 page bill were republican. That is .6%. That is like saying, “We get this $100,000 job done together, and you get $600. That’s fair, right? What do you mean you don’t want to do it?”
This all meaningless political blather. When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. Better to go over the fiscal cliff now then later. That cliff is just getting higher and going over it is inevitable. Do it now when it is only several trillion instead of a few years from now when it is thousands of trillions. Is 1,000 trillion a Gazillion?
I know my allowance won’t cover it.
The key here is making sure the voters understand that they voted for it. The GOP has to avoid anything that allows the media to spin it as their fault.
Grabbing the silver cloud, rubbing the voters face into their vote will cause enough of them to vote different next time. Maybe………
I hope the two parties will finally reach an agreement as far as the fiscal cliff is concerned. It worries me a lot even though I don’t live in the US now. As a Canadian investor working in real estate I’ve been analyzing the possible risks in this particular sector and the outlook for 2013 is quite optimistic as far as the real estate market in Canada is concerned. However, there are certain threats that could put a halt to that positive development, one of them being inflation pressures out of the US. The mutual interconnection between the two countries is very strong so I hope the US government will do its utmost to prevent the worst from happening.
F A Hayek – Arbitrary Wealth Redistribution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDuPjK_HupY&feature=player_embedded
It’s Not a “Fiscal Cliff” … It’s a Descent Into Lawlessness By Washington’s Blog Global Research, December 26, 2012
http://www.globalresearch.ca/its-not-a-fiscal-cliff-its-a-descent-into-lawlessness/5316922