Democrats open door to letting taxes rise in 2013 to reset debate with GOP
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash
A top Senate Democrat warned Monday that, if Republicans don’t relent, her caucus is willing to let all the Bush-era tax rates expire at the end of the year – in effect threatening to let the country fall off what many in Washington call the “fiscal cliff.”
That cliff is approaching at the start of 2013, when the Bush tax cuts are set to expire and billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts — spawned by last summer’s debt-ceiling debate — are set to take effect. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are hoping to shift around those spending cuts to spare key areas like defense, and to temporarily extend the Bush tax rates for at least some Americans. Some have warned a failure to do so could send the nation back into recession.
But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., indicated Democrats are willing to let the deadline pass in order to better their negotiating position.
“So if we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013 rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus,” she said in prepared remarks for a speech she plans to give Monday afternoon at the Brookings Institution. Murray is head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Democrats.
“….throws middle-class families under the bus.” That’s a fascinating choice of words. And, it is a demonstrable lie. Republicans are all in favor of keeping the middle class tax rates set by Bush. In fact, they’re for keeping the rates for everyone exactly the same. What Republicans understand is that it is spending that’s out of control. So much so, that no amount of tax increases for anyone would possibly do anything of any significance towards the deficit spending.
Here is what reasonable people should do. They should extend the tax rates to some time after the election. We should have a national discussion about what is reasonable and what is not reasonable for our taxes, what the purpose of taxes are, and how best to apply them. But, we’re not going to have that discussion during the election season. So, the best thing to do for our nation’s leader, be it the continuation of Obama’s presidency or Romney is to let them address it in the manner they wish, without the constraints of an election year cycle. If we make anything permanent now, it will be from sound bite punditry instead of thoughtful dialogue. Kick it to June of next year.
Still, if Murray thinks she can win this game, let her have at it. It would be cute watching the Dems go up in flames for raising taxes on the middle class.
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However, if anyone ever pays attention, I can’t say the Republicans have ever really lowered my tax rate meaningfully. And neither have the Democrats.
Right now I’d settle for them not raising them on us.
Disagreed. The Tax Cuts were set to expire 2 years ago. America knows this, the Republicans seem to have forgotten. As much as your wishful thinking might hope otherwise, Americans are all for letting the tax cuts on the wealthy expire. There is no reason not to, other than Republicans worrying about offending their cash cows. Let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire and after the election middle class Americans need to have a conversation about whether they want their own taxes to go up a little or whether they want to lose some of their social benefits.
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/italy-proves-laffer-curve/
Ph, my position is that we are not in a position to allow politics to create unintended harm to our economy. Let the politics of the election pass before making the move. We are in a precarious position and the potential gain from increasing the taxes on the wealthy is minimal. The risk is much greater.
Oh so you admit the Republicans are pigheaded, jacka$$es who signed their life away to Grover Norquist and thus would risk the economy rather than see taxes go up on the rich? This is not just about the money to be made from taxes, this is about the national mindset that everyone is going to have to chip in. We start with the people who can afford it and as the economy continues to stabilize everyone else is going to have to chip in in the form of tax increases and cuts to social programs.
Lol, no, I admit nothing of the sort. In fact, I’m putting my country over what would benefit me in the short term. Did you read the link I provided? Here, read this one…. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/the-fair-share/ Be sure to check out the second graphic. The thought that the rich are somehow not paying their fair share is a fallacious, disingenuous, and dishonest. The problem isn’t that people aren’t taxed enough, the problem is the government spends to much. It’s that simple.
Every body has to chip in? Half of the country doesn’t chip in!!! Ph, I’m not a rich guy. In fact, I’m barely middle class. But, here’s the brass tacks. I don’t want their shit. People can earn their stuff and I’m happy for them. I want everyone else to do the same. You don’t gain by defining down to the lowest common denominator. You raise people up!! You don’t bring people down and say we’re all equally miserable and that’s good. Again, look at the graphic. I’ve provided the numbers 15 ways from Sunday showing who is paying what.
Attacking the people who are stabilizing the economy has to be one of the dumbest advocacies I can think of . It will destabilize the economy. Of this, I have no doubt. Wealth is not created by taking from someone else. It has never been the case in the entire history of mankind where wealth was generated by subtracting from someone else. Never! I simply don’t understand why this is such a hard concept. There is no net gain. And even if we divided all of the rich peoples money amongst ourselves, we’re still going to be poor, but just without employers.
Hmm I think your argument smells a bit like your climate denial arguments. A set of one-sided facts. You left out the chart showing the rich are also paying the lowest effective tax rates in around 50 years. Take a look at your graphic and then trace it back 50 years and see what it looked like. What creates wealth in history is when everyone is benefitting, not when the top CEO makes 400 times more than the average floor worker. When social programs are cut so that capital gains taxes can be lowered does was never a recipe for economic growth…
Lol and buddy it’s far and away not the rich who stabilize the economy!!! Really Suyts stick to climate change because your lack of financial/economic knowledge is really showing. The middle class is what stabilizes the economy in the US and in every other country around the world. A small percentage increase in a tiny percent of people with essentially unlimited disposable income does not hurt the economy. What hurts the economy is tax increases on people who really feel the effects of 1-2 thousand dollars.
Sigh, I’ll respond to both of your comments. First of all, the social programs have not been cut. They’ve exponentially increased. I’ve several posts on the food stamp program and others demonstrating them quantitatively increasing. Our budget, every year since well before Obama has increased its social expenditures. As far as I can determine, my entire life this has happened.
You are almost right when you discuss the middle class. A strong middle class is, indeed, indicative of a robust economy. Now, all we have to do is figure out how we get a strong middle class. The government has never demonstrated an ability to mandate this.
But, your last comment is something which really throws me. There is no one proposing a tax increase on the middle class. No one. Except for the imbecile pictured above. The Repubs will fight tooth and nail to make sure that doesn’t happen.
pHD, the dimocrats had two years, when they controled both houses plus the executive branch, to raise taxes to whatever level their ideology deemed appropriate. Instead they waited until the republicans took congress, and then pleaded class warfare. Why? IMV, that was their plan all along.
BTW, to let the Bush tax cuts expire now would negatively impact the middle class more then those rich folk.
Obama at first held back on letting any of those rates expire during the height of the recession, saying in 2009 that would be “the last thing you want to do” because it would “take more demand out of the economy.”
Hmm, it seems your assessment is correct.
PHD says, ” A set of one-sided facts. You left out the chart showing the rich are also paying the lowest effective tax rates in around 50 years.”
pHD, you failed to look at the chart shwing how the proposed tax increase by Obama would do virtually nothing, nada, zip, to impact the trillion plus dollar spending hole we have every year. Beyond that, taxes are not so simplistic as the tax rate only. Really, you progressive statist claim to be so nuanced in your elitist perspective, but are in fact are simplistic, and unfortunately ignorant of human nature. Tax rates are a function deeply affected by write offs, many of which have been eliminated. Additionally of course their are state and local taxes,plus fees of every kind imaginable, all of which have gone up dramatically. All together, sooner or later, the Laffer affect kicks in.
The above being said I think the repuplicans are foolish to fight this with an absolute no.. Politically it does not work. Instead they should simply say we will be most pleased to accept this increase in the tax rate on those making more then 250,000.00 on one condition. All we demand is that spending levels be set at 2007 levels.
They floated that a couple of years ago…… it was rejected out of hand. And this is the absurdity of the discussion. I’d almost say, okay, fine lets do this. But, you know, I know, and any one else knows that nothing good would be accomplished by this act. Spending wouldn’t be curbed, people would only become less wealthy and no one would be the better for it. Likely, they’d be the worse for it.
“pHD, you failed to look at the chart shwing how the proposed tax increase by Obama would do virtually nothing, nada, zip, to impact the trillion plus dollar spending hole we have every year.”
Unfortunately nor have the Republicans suggesting a 30 year plan to balance the budget. If I was American I would vote for Romney on the hope he will do something even though the evidence is lacking and the alternate has proven he won’t do anthing serious about spending.
That’s pretty much where we’re at.
What do we see here?
#1 – Democrats agree tax cuts work – otherwise why did they extend them and why are they talking about extending them? (seems PhD is the only clown that does not think so).
#2 – Increasing taxes on the rich does not work, nor is the democrat plan designed to raise revenue. How do we know? Obama said so (and of course your Italy example as well as the France and England one).
#3 – Democrats are playing chicken with the recovery for no other purpose than to punitatively penalize the rich. In so doing they are basically penalizing the poor and middle class (it was the Bush tax cuts that basically dropped a large number of people OFF the income tax rolls).
So let them. All of their other policies have failed. We know this because the 08 recession was not a very bad one by any objective measure, but the recovery has been the worst since WWII. Those are the facts. Democrats are just the insane trying the same thing and looking for different results.
Lol, Phil, at some point, I’d like a recovery to start happening. I think 6 years (2 Dems in control of both houses and 4 in oval office and at least one house) is plenty of time to demonstrate that the Dems have no clue.
No, it is not long enough. It never will be long enough. The 10 years of the 30s demonstrated that. You watch as phd comes in spitting on his monitor again, trying to refute facts by the force of his bluster.
I will believe that democrats have gotten smarter when he admits he is wrong. Everyone else saw that he is wrong. But you notice, he will never admit it.
I meant to write this a few days ago, but I’m busy fixing up a money pit.
First, I’m sorry that my state has sent Patty Murry to DC to torment the country. I remember when she first ran for the Senate. Her campaign slogan was “Mom in tennis shoes.” Only in a liberal Democrat’s mind would a mom in tennis shoes be more qualified for the Senate than somebody who happens to be qualified for the Senate.
After she won the race, I heard about a meeting in DC when she made some comments. A couple of individual asked, “Who was that person who made those incredibly stupid statements?” They were shocked to hear she was the junior (then) senator from Washington. She still wins awards for being the–well she’s always at the bottom of the periodic intellect poll.
All during the Clinton years she AWAYS voted for any Clinton proposal–even when such a vote would be harmful to states like Washington. I thought that she would rue the day she made those votes. Not so, because the voters keep sending her back to the Senate.
Democrats are a protect species in Washington, and Washington Republicans like to lose. For example, the first time Democrat Gregoire ran for governor against Republican Rossi, it was close, but Rossi won. Then they started a recount. Rossi won the recount, but it was closer. Then someone found some ballots stuffed in a cabinet or lectern. It was ruled those ballots were valid and should be counted (only in Washington State). Gregoire won the second recount, and Rossi lost. Four years later, there was a rematch, but this time the voter fraud wasn’t so obvious. Rossi lost again. (Hugh Hewitt wrote a book titled: “If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat.” Unfortunately, when it’s close, they can.)
Murry’s sister in crime and fellow Washington senator (we call her Maria-can’t-vote-well), often votes against Murry. There are some things that even most Democrats won’t vote for–but Murry will.
Jim
I recall the recounts. Washington st. has the same problem many states have. The urban areas are chock full of lunatics. The population distribution works in a poorly representative manner.
“recall the recounts”???
Bad pun! *Groan*
But like Suyts, I also remember the recounts. It was a primer for Franken’s fraud in Minnesota.
Lol, well……
If it’s any consolation, my state sent Dingy Harry (Reid) again. The only reason why we didn’t send a Republican is the one we had couldn’t get her foot out of her mouth.
Boy, bad spelling department. Sorry for all of my mistakes. I wish WordPress had an edit feature.
Jim
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Lol, if we counted off for spelling and grammar I’d never get a post out!