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picture via Black Country Museums at flickr.com
…the tax benefits will flow most heavily to the highest earners, just as the original cuts did when they were passed in 2001 and 2003. At least a quarter of the tax savings will go to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.
Look who’s winning all that class warfare…but benefits for nearly all to a lesser extent of course, except, the actual lessers (i.e. “bad ‘muricans”):
In fact, the only groups likely to face a tax increase are those near the bottom of the income scale — individuals who make less than $20,000 and families with earnings below $40,000.
But hey, the two parties are getting together and compromising to make really bad policy, at least David Broder will be pleased.
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This time the 1% are really, really gonna create jobs! Right?
Waiting….
The Republican party owns the President. They just own him. Every move he makes is to their benefit.
This quite manifestly increases, beyond any reason, the gulf between the haves and have-nots.
That was my father’s favorite lecture. “The world is made of two groups of people,” he’d bellow, “The haves and the have-nots. And by God you don’t want to find yourself among the have-nots.”
Which group do you identify with? Personally, I’d rather be with the have-nots. I find them better company and altogether more honorable people than the others whose false humanity is as shallow as their consciences are weak.
Edit: Of course there are exceptions. Oprah. Um… Come on, come on… I know this…
Since 1981, that’s been the biggest lie of Reaganomics — give us tax cuts to make the jobs stay. Well, we gave them tax cuts. The jobs, they are gone. Voilà, it is magic.
First you win.
Then they fight.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they ignore you.
Voilà, it is magic, also.
Looks like the Rethuglicans are lovin’ them some Obama now that he has blown them good; ’tis a shame he will have to wait 2 years before they’ll give it to him in the ass.
Approved.
David Broder
“Individuals who make less than $20,000.”
Guess that means me. How lovely that I get to sacrifice and pay for the party the ultra wealthy are having/will have. Damn, do I feel patiotic now.
Must disagree with mysterycommentator @4. It’s the American people who have been and will continue to take it “in the ass.”
Looks like Obama has really stepped in it. :O
I just saw a comment at HuffPo in which a progressive pleaded with progressives to stop laughing at Obama.
Stop laughing! What an amazing downward trajectory for the Bammer. Two years ago, you could get thrown out of a forum for criticizing him in the slightest. Apparently, the people–like me–who said Obama was woefully unfit to be President were absolutely right. It would all be funnier if it weren’t destroying the country.
The Democrats Wail
Not only does Obama have the progressives hopping mad, just wait until the Republicans screw him over for the umpteenth time. Does Obama really think the Republicans have changed.
Sometime later today or tomorrow, there will be some self described Republican “deficit hawk” stirring the pot, about “paying” for the unemployment benefits, or the payroll tax break. How many times does Lucy have to take the ball away, for Obama to learn?
This is obama’s lame ass try to buy his way out of impeachment.
The republicans are going to show nancy how impeachment is done.
Look for a stellar appearance of the traitor roberts, with his gold stripped robe presiding over ” Governing while Black”.
When obama looks for support from those that supported him and you shit on them, well good luck with that.
Obama is a “bottom” who digs it when the right wing dominatrix makes him eat out of a dogfood bowl. When the session is over he returns to the office and terrorizes his secretary.
Oh, but we’re laughing through the tears…
Where’s the stinging rod of moderation when you need it?
I got an OFA email with a video for “us” and a link to express my opinion of this legislation.
What he doesn’t get is pretty straightforward. He could negotiate with the Iranians. He could negotiate with Putin. He could negotiate with Satan. But everyone on the planet knows the Republicans are criminals. Not just crooks. Cold-blooded criminals who will stop at nothing to get their way. Every time he negotiates with them – every compromise he makes – demeans him in the eyes of the people who were deceived into voting for a timid charlatan who raised the hopes of millions of people only to turn around and say, “Hey. I changed my mind. Bush and Cheney knew what they were doing all along and I’m with them. I won’t prosecute them. I won’t impeach them. But I will use the full force of the government to get an honest man for a trumped-up sex crime.”
People were crying, for God’s sake. And not only doesn’t he deliver on his campaign promises and sloganeering, he’s insulted his base repeatedly, giving them little or nothing in return.
He’s PROUD of the HCR? Did he read the damn thing before he signed it? Of course he did. That’s his idea of big change. He delivered a modest policy alteration that added people to the rolls of the insured while enriching insurance companies. I’m certain he doesn’t get why people are upset about the lack of a robust public option. People clearly wanted him to destroy the insurance companies, not give them a raise.
People hate the status quo and he played on that to get his ass elected. Now he turns around and champions the status quo, or what’s worse, one with even greater income disparity.
The wealthy do not create jobs because you give them the store. They create jobs because it makes them money to do so. He neither forces concessions from them nor generates enough government action to leave them in his wake.
I don’t think there’s a person on earth who wouldn’t expect him to order Assange’s torture to get their hands on the encryption key, or his assassination if the key is released. Just as Bush would have done. Just as Cheney would have done. Exactly as Alberto Gonzales would approve of the President doing.
He really wouldn’t like my opinion any more.
Good morning.
Another morning I wake up too disgusted for words.
Repost from another topic
We should be grateful that this son of a bitch didn’t compromise further.
Who knows what would have happened.
Maybe he would have reinstated slavery to get that sweet middle class tax cut. Wait we have wage and debt slavery which is close enough….
Or maybe he’d only make blacks 3/5ths of a person to get a month of unemployment insurance.
Nah there are rich black people….I know make all poor people 3/5ths of a decision, we know the supreme court that passed citizens united would LOVE that.
My ideal compromise? The rich get their tax cut but lose police protection, in exchange Obama (only Obama) becomes 3/5ths of a person.
Obama if you want to make the rich richer that badly, then put your own ass and livelihood on the line you freaking punk bitch.
What else can he give …. I mean “negotiate” HAHAHAH /cough away….
Maybe he can give ceos the right of prima nocti!
Cthulhu in 2012, Why bother with the LESSER of two evils?
You soundd like one of them there “sanctimonious” folks.
I celebrated when Nixon resigned and look forward to Obama’s impeachment. I never thought I’d say that I miss Richard Nixon.
I went to OFA last night and left my opinion. I doubt I’ll be asked again.
If you needed any more proof that Matt Bai is a smug, hippie-punching suck-up to the establishment:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/us/politics/08bai.html
It’s funny that he was confused with Matt Taibbi.
Matt Taibbi seems to have grown out of hippie punching. But he has not yet atoned for his sins.
Nixon was a liberal hippy that created the EPA.
Nixon by modern standards is a tree hugging long haired hippy.
Can someone shoot me before this world gets worse?
When the democratic president makes nixon look like a long haired hippy, you might as well just end the world because it can only get worse from here.
Good morning, pups. It’s Dowd and Friedman this morning. MoDo, in “Pass the Caribou Stew,” says a president and a caribou stray from their herds into the waiting sights of opportunistic Republicans. In “Still Digging” The Moustache of Wisdom says while Washington is arguing over who won the tax-cut war, the United States is getting out-hustled and out-educated.
Here they are.
The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got a variety of bagels with cream cheese. Gosh life is good… The cost of Medicare Part B goes up about $25 a month starting in January, but those folks on fixed incomes can just start to get used to eating cat food earlier than the rest of us… Have a grand day.
And Dwight Eisenhower was a raging socialist compared to today’s Democratic Party.
McCarthy was liberal compared to Glenn Beck…/drinks drano.
Don’t think I can top that one.
Washington Journal is asking if Obama is “alienating you”. This oughta jam up the phone lines.
Every month I pay that outrageous bloody bill I get effin’ furious. The medical
systembills in this country have me over a bloody barrel.My spouse’s insurance, for her and her company, went up about 37% this year, last year over 60% and the year previous over 30%. She does not want to have to charge her employees any more for “health” insurance than they are already paying so has to make yet more cutbacks (her salary for one). I have nothing but utter bloody disgust for Oh Bummah! and his InsurPharma employers.
What principles? What compromise? Complete and utter capitulation is Obama’s political MO. It’s difficult to imagine a President displaying weaker character or leadership. Apparently his confirmed alcoholic father taught him well.
Obama should come with a disclaimer that says “compensated spokesman and fall guy for the Republican Party”.
Barack Obama: best Republican ever elected by the Democrats
The quote that sent me over the edge in the first speech was, to paraphrase, “I’m not going to fight for the sake of fighting.” Well, guess what, Mr. President, fighting for principles that you believe in is not fighting for the sake of fighting. What a hopeless loser.
Axelrod is having a fucking ‘uuh uuh uuh best compromise uh uh uh and uh uh’ goddamn stutter spin attack on MJ right now
Is he on fucking drugs??
Seriously…
Is obama still going to freeze goverment workers pay?
I’ve been saying for months that the Bush tax cuts (2001 and 2003) always benefited the wealthy far more than anyone else. Wasn’t this common knowledge? I swear when those cuts were passed everyone looked at their paychecks and was like huh? Why hasn’t the NYTimes been telling people this all along? Makes you wonder. Well, so much for the Obama Fan Club claim that we have to pass these cuts because we can’t have taxes rise on the lower brackets.
I would like to see the Bush tax rates repealed. But when you argue that the wealthy are getting most of the benefit, that is becasue the the top 50% of earners are virtually the only individuals paying individual income tax. So any change in the individual income tax rate affects disporportionately the wealthy in this country.
Low income people do pay fica payroll taxes, sales taxes, the hidden sales tax of corporate income tax, some state taxes, city taxes, but for the most part (less than 10% of federal income tax) they do not pay individual federal income tax.
You can argue that the tax rates are not high enough on upper income earners (I agree), but you must understand in the US individual income tax system any change will affect the wealthy more than it affects anybody else.
Did you see “The Last Word?” I wish Jane had pounded him more for his tax bracket porn, making a big case for how — if the Dems let the Bush cuts lapse rather than accept this crap deal — the bottom bracket would rise from 10% to 15%! Outrageous, until one realizes that this applies to the first 10K of taxable income.
Which isn’t good, and the lower “Bush” brackets should be preserved. But to say, “people will get a 50% hike in taxes!” is a bit much.
Also, wouldn’t it be possible to pass a tax credit for lower bracket earners as a separate measure? He made it seem as if letting the Bush cuts automatically meant trying to fix things after January, when in fact targeted tax relief for low income earners could have been passed long before the deadline passed.
Right? Or am I smoking crack.
Thanks for letting us know. Obama’s getting a well-deserved spanking.
Exception: One woman on now saying that, when Obama said “change,” it also meant that Democrats have to change… into Republicans? And this was an Obama voter who supports him 150%.
That’s Axe to the letter and uuh uuh uuh.
When I see what is happening to State & Local property taxes due to decreased revenues, I can’t help but think that here at a local level, all of the homeowners are being asked to pick up the tab of a taxless society. In addition, when I watch the Treasury bond yield kick up in response to the Obama No Tax Society plan offered yesterday, I think maybe the “bond vigilantes” could be renamed as “there are natural consequences for bad decisions”. Also, I can see that the deficit hawks plan to go after the low hanging fruit of State and Local Pension funds. These funds are guaranteed by the States who have no place to go but to borrow money and that this will create a new rich investor class of holders of tax free bonds. So all in all, this looks like a big F U for Harriet the Homeowner who can look forward to high property taxes, expensive mortgage costs due to high interest rates, and sending more State revenues to pay for the mansions of rich tax free bond holders.
Yep, that’s true. Even if the tax cuts were just extended to the first 250k in income, the biggest benefit, in dollar terms, would go to the wealthiest Americans. As one who would not mind seeing all the tax cuts expire, it is annoying to hear the media and the pols talk about not extending the tax cuts only to the middle class, and not wealthy Americans, as if that were possible given we pay marginal tax rates.
Yes, it’s a bogus argument.
To Obama all “compromise” is good. Guess he forget about the compromise that said a black American was 3/5′s of a person. The only principle Obama believes in is compromise and bipartisanship. Truly pathetic!
I covered that :D
If Obama was in President Lincolns shoes, slaves would not only not be emancipated but they’d be forced into double shifts at half rations for the rest of their lives…but Obama would get a tax cut for plantation owners…that would have helped with americas deficit….so in the end the liberals take a hit and he scores a win on the big board of who gives a flying ****.
He’s already given the green light to Israel to continue their construction of settlements. I guess the Israelis told him it was non-negotiable and he caved. Heard he is also directing Holder to side with big polluters who are being challenged by several states who want more control over air quality.
BARACK OBAMA, Tavis Smiley Show, Oct. 23, 2006
The turn around at HP has been stunning! The curtain has been pulled back exposing him for the fraud and failure he is.
Why would the Republicans ever want to impeach Mr. Bipartisan? He’s the best thing that’s happened to the Republican Party since, well, Rush Limbaugh.
Wow, thanks for that quote, ezpz!
–
As for HP, the number of Obama apologists there even after the public option was dropped has been nothing short of stunning.
dude is without a doubt a replicant trojan horse programmed to enslave millions and burn the earth but plenty of good people have survived and are good people despite having an alcoholic parent.
There are still a shocking number of them even after this.
Yeah, Obama sums himself up pretty well in the last part of that last sentence:
“…until you find out you don’t stand for anything, you just keep on compromising….”
And that was 4 years ago!
As for HP, I can only take it in tiny doses – IF that.
And after this latest Obama disaster, the fact that there are ANY apologists left is stunning, and that there are still SO many is beyond all comprehension except that they are either paid by OFA to spew the talking points, or the damage from koolaid overdose is irreversible.
Actually they will, but the jobs will be in So. Pacific where they’ll be vacationing.
I wonder what Obama will call his book when he leaves the Presidency in 2012 after losing to Sister Sarah.
“The Audacity of Compromise”