Labels: Bernie Sanders, elites, filibuster, super-rich, tax cuts, US Senate
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posted by profmarcus at
12/10/2010
Testy Obama fires back at Democrats over tax deal
A testy President Barack Obama on Tuesday expressed frustration at his own Democrats for attacking him over his tax-cut deal with Republicans, who he called uncompromising "hostage takers."
Obama found himself in an unusual position a day after sealing a major tax-cut agreement -- praised by Republican opponents and denounced by liberal Democrats who felt he violated a pledge that helped get him elected in 2008.
Labels: Barack Obama, Democrats, job cuts, liberals, Republicans, tax cuts, unemployment
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
12/08/2010
The President met with Republican leaders at the White House this morning to talk about whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended to top taxpayers, at Republicans want.
No decision has been reached, but this is the first test of the President's resolve with the new Congress - and he should be tough as nails. The economics and politics both dictate it.
Taxpayers in the top 1 percent don't need it (they are now getting almost a quarter of all national income, the highest percent since 1928).
They don't deserve it (they got the lion's share of the benefits of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and have had no reason to expect a continuation of their windfall).
They won't spend it to stimulate the economy (top earners save a much higher proportion of their income than the middle class).
And giving it to them blows a giant hole in the budget (the Joint Tax Committee estimates the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent to be $61 billion in 2011 alone.)
In political terms, a strong stand enables the President to clearly demonstrate who's side he's on (the working and middle class that's still bearing the brunt of this lousy economy) and who's side the Republicans are on (the powerful and privileged who brought much of this on, and who are now doing just fine).
The only compromise he should be prepared to make is to extend the Bush tax cuts to the bottom 99 percent (rather than the bottom 98 percent), and for two years rather than ten.
Labels: Barack Obama, elites, middle class, Republicans, Robert Reich, super-rich, tax cuts, working poor
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
12/01/2010
Labels: millionaires, national debt, state and local fiscal problems, tax cuts, tax loopholes
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
11/19/2010
The Hijacked Commission
[...]
It will take time to crunch the numbers here, but this proposal clearly represents a major transfer of income upward, from the middle class to a small minority of wealthy Americans. And what does any of this have to do with deficit reduction?
[...]
It’s no mystery what has happened on the deficit commission: as so often happens in modern Washington, a process meant to deal with real problems has been hijacked on behalf of an ideological agenda. Under the guise of facing our fiscal problems, Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson are trying to smuggle in the same old, same old — tax cuts for the rich and erosion of the social safety net.
David Axelrod’s Quaint Idea of Middle Class “Security”There’s a lot to despise about David Axelrod’s announcement of Obama’s capitulation to the oligarchs on tax cuts, not least that he made this announcement on the same day Obama’s Catfood Commission Chairs started the process of stealing from seniors to “fix” our deficit.
Let yesterday be marked as the day when a nominally Democratic President began to dismantle Democrats’ signature policy achievement, social security, so he could shovel $700 billion to the very rich.
[...]
[T] worst thing that could happen to this economy may well be passing legislation that continues to hollow out of the middle class and with it increasing the massive income inequality that continues to subject the American people to the craven demands of a few very rich people. That is, precisely what Axe and Obama have now agreed to do.
These men either don’t know or don’t give a damn about the security of the middle class.
You know, it is not just that the arrogant and cluelessly detached President Pangloss is steaming toward a one and done Presidency, it is that he is literally destroying the Democratic Party and liberal ideology in the process and leaving them in his wake.
UPDATE: I guess Obama couldn’t even sell
crackfree trade toCharlie Sheenthe Koreans.
Labels: Barack Obama, Catfood Commission, elites, emptywheel, Marcy Wheeler, Paul Krugman, super-rich, tax cuts
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
11/12/2010
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