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Obama’s (dumb) Line in the Sand
So both Boehner and Obama have done their post election photo ops. They have spelled out their positions on the looming fiscal cliff. No surprises at all. The Republicans are saying “No” to any increases in tax rates while Obama has said he will outright veto any bill that is presented to him that does not raise taxes on rich folks.
I was surprised by the reaction in the press to the positions set forth by these two. The headlines make it seem like B&O are ready to work together, and achieve the necessary compromises to avoid falling off a cliff. I think the press has it wrong. We’re headed into a bitter fight; in part, because the President has drawn a very dangerous line in the sand.
The President has said that the recent election has shown that the majority of American’s want the rich to pay more in taxes. What is the President insisting on? Is he pushing for something that would make a difference? I don’t think so. More importantly, the Congressional Budget Office does not agree with the President’s position.
The CBO put out a report on this topic last week. It spelled out the consequences of an increase in the tax rate for those making over $250,000 (versus reversing all of the Bush tax cuts). It does not add up to much.
The tax that Obama wants to increase will result in a lousy $42Bn in 2013 and $38Bn in 2014 according to the CBO. That’s peanuts to a government that spends $3.6T a year. The tax increase that Obama is insisting on comes to three days of spending.
No tax increase comes without a cost. The CBO evaluated the implications of raising the taxes on those making $250k and up. The consequences to both GDP and jobs:
Raising high end taxes will reduce GDP growth by .1% and will result in 200,000 less workers finding jobs. It will do these bad things by the 4th Q of 2013. Some context for these numbers:
The .1% drop in GDP translates to $16Bn less growth in 2013. On average, the government takes in about 20% of GDP, so the drop in GDP relating to the tax increase will translate into a shortfall in revenue of $3.2Bn.
The tax increase mandated by the President will translate into 200,000 less jobs for 2013. If the people who did not find work as a result were forced to stay on unemployment it would cost the government $4.6Bn.
So Obama’s “must have” tax increase will generate $42Bn in revenue, but it will cost ~$8Bn. The Obama's plan is to decrease the deficit by about $34Bn in 2012, and by less than that in future years. These numbers are beyond chump change. It comes to 0.9% of total spending and just 3.0% of the deficit. It does not move the needle at all.
My conclusion is that we are in for a fight. Talk of compromise and “coming together for the good of the country” is just noise. The President is insisting on a tax increase that will not achieve anything of substance. Obama has drawn a very visible line in the sand over this issue. I can’t imagine how the House Republicans will go along with it. The President’s opening position on how to work through the fiscal cliff is about politics, not economic substance.
Get ready for a failure in these negotiations. We are going to fall off of that cliff in 53 days!
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The Congressional Research Study that the Rs tried to bury showed that correlations between top tax rate and GDP are not strong:
"The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate
and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in
the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The
top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.
However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of
income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income
accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before
falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the
top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to
how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income
disparities."
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf
Yes, use the numbers from the absolute peak of 2007 to get 12.3%. Then use the numbers from 2009 when everyone is rolling their losses forward to get 25%. The retards usually buy it hook, line and sinker.
Remember the French Revolution... and "let them eat cake".
This is the antidote.
the antidote to cake in this carefree environment is ice cream.
Butter pecan...
problem is both King of Bums (socialists) and Queen Bozo here have already eaten America out of house and home ...when the Senate & Congress's credit card got maxed-out and froze and they refused to diet or budget King Bum showed his 'leadership qualities in a crisis' and disapeared to the golf course
while Queen Bozo flapped around the house like a headless chicken, and this turkey is 'leader of the house'
the Govt farce of politicians unable to steer around a fiscal 'iceberg ahead' followed by being dumb enough to hit it and seize up in fiscal farce, then a Super Committee mega-flop and finally the worst possible 'solution' raising the roof, the debt ceiling .....kick can ....kick can...
and 'surprise' here we are AGAIN
Dunno about solving the nations issues, the political class are actually creating their own problems. Look around the globe, it's one political-made fiscal farce after another. The bloated Jabba the Huts of Govts all over the planet eating their contries into poverty and still refusing to budget or diet.
If the Govt cannot lead the Govt how can these crash test dummies who make their own brick walls to hit lead a country???
Republitards don't understand political judo, much less practice it, so they will inevitably lose. Might as well shut it down and let the ponzi implode.
I think part of why the republitards get out-foxxed all the time is they are pushing uphill against nearly all media. Can you imagine what Benghazi could be if the media cared even a little? Or if they pointed fingers after hurricane Sandy the way they did after Katrina?
It might make for a more "fair & balanced" fight, but I've seen opposition parties succeed in far more oppressive and corrupt environments. However, in this case I think their kinky fetish for handcuffing themselves before fighting will be their undoing. They will never the 53% electorate that won't pull the lever for them that they are serious about finding consensus and solving problems when their rhetoric reinforces the pledge they signed for Grover Norquist. If they want to beat Obama they need to put forth a proposal that actually is a compromise and addresses long term structural issues, and that punishes Obama's base in a way he could never agree to, and thereby forces him to walk away, at which point media bias would become both a relevant and immediate problem.
if the politicians are overestimating their tax revenue we are all in a lot of trouble because politicans will spend money they don't have.
overestimating their tax revenue
Look at the Libs in Californicate. They actually budgeted in taxes from the facebook IPO. It was hyped, in part, to boost the stock to get more taxes when employees sold their stock in that turd.
they really want that bullet train along the N/S corridor, which the voters approved by initiative. the initiative process is like filling your cart at the store and the politicians are the clerks. when you don't have enough money they help you take away a few things that you don't really need.
Even after their Farcebook windfall, they hiked Kali's top marginal rate to a crushing 13.3% this week (Prop 30).
John Galt's lookin' at the sunset over the Pacific in his rearview mirror ... headin' east on I-15.
NO amount of revenue is EVER ENOUGH to satisfy statists.
Even with a 100% tax rate, they would still cry, 'Our schools are woefully underfunded' (which of course they would be, after gov't predation destroys the economy).
Jerry Brown as guv -- back to the 1970s in reverse gear!
Wasn't Galt's Gulch in Colorado? I guess I know what their primary crop is now.
so what if the do? if the Dems who went negative early this year and never veered from it won because "Republicans will take your Social Security check from you"...then do Republicans lose because Democrats end up doing just that? I say NO. All the money is going into debt servicing costs...not benefit checks. Dems don't want to deal...execute on Obamacare and then see what happens from there. The lesson from this election is that the Bankers and the Right Wing Extremists got killed. And the solution is to be a Left Wing extremist? I don't agree with that at all...
Therre was massive vote fraud by Ob thugs.
I hope every professional athlete has constipation when they find out how much they are gonna be hit tax wise.
Well, at least they finally boxed themselves in as to what constitutes being "rich".
Its 250k.
Not the one percent...not even the .001%.
Its 250k?...lol...mmmkay.
If somehow we don't completely crash and we chug along with inflation from all the printing by the fed, in a few years 250K won't seem like much to the average person. That's how we become "rich".
Minimum wage will be fifty bucks an hour in ten years at this rate...lol.
NM - 10 years is a loooooooong time away, especially with what we've got to get through
I can see to Christmas and a few weeks after. That's long term planning in my book, almost star gazing :)
when Bumma and Biden say "rich" what they mean is anyone not on Govt subsidy earning their own living
Ok, now repeat after me: There is no such thing as bracket creep.
Say this at least a hundred times before you go to bed and you will see 'the change'.
Exactly right malkai.
There's not enough wealth there to even come close to what they're spending and "borrowing"...even if the government confiscated it ALL...and sold it to whom I have no idea...but anways...
It has always been about lowering that bar called "the wealthy".
I look "forward" to the negotiations on the "progressive taxation" levels between 250k and a million in the year to come...should be very revealing ;-)
If you live somewhere out in the great plains you can likely feel quite rich with $250k, in NYC, not so much. Guess they forgot about diversity.
Central planning always discounts diversity.
It comes from the simple fact of central planners not having the faintest idea about it, they don't live in it, can't understand it as they live outside it. They do, afterall, think themselves immune to any decisions they make regarding it or anything else.
I'm getting long rope...and I don't need a blue ribbon committie to inform me of the need for it ;-)
diversity and equality are vacuous jingoism... they're all moral banners just hiding grubby State power to oppress whoever they want
Govt policy is just sucking/stealing wealth, abuse of free markets and opression (Laws and regulations). All the moral shit and acedmic policy claptrap is just that, BS
A different point of view...
If memory serves, initially income tax was 3% on a certain level of income only, with many assurances that it would never increase.
Exactly, bracket creep. You have to earn $325,000 today, to earn the same income purchasing power that $250,000 had in 2001. So many more people today will be affected by that tax increase, then were affected by the tax cut in 2001.
There was no "mandate" given to the president, as he barely eked out a victory, in reality. He has no position to bully anyone on tax matters or any other domestic agenda he may have. But the dumb line in the sand you refer to will only exacerbate the division in the country and will get the back up of the Republican Congress, especially now that Petraeus has resigned amid much head-scratching and chin-rubbing.
I am thinking that the Republicans will smell blood in the water on the entire Benghazi affair and will force the president to back down on his boisterous attitude. There may be some deal whereby the Republicans get to kick the can further down the road by extending all tax cuts and raising the debt ceiling by not as much as the president would want. The quid pro quo would be to let the entire affair drop off the face of the earth.
The threat could be very real. While Feinstein says that Petraeus deosn't have to testify, that doesn't mean the the House won't call him on the carpet as it investigates impeachment proceedings against the president. So either President Obama goes along with what Boehner wants, or his next four years will be dragged through the mud, much like President Clinton's was.
I think the resignation of Petraeus was a game-changer; much more so than people realise.
:D
Vote for Obama...he make everythang better!
Good grief. The electoral vote was not close. Clinton balanced the budget. And the figures are wrong.
They can spend as much time on the Benghazi affair as Clinton's dallying and it won't change a fucking thing except maybe some minor players change workplaces.
Republicans can "soul search" and review till they are convinced of why they lost (which won't be the reasons) and that will waste about 18 months or so (maybe the whole 4 years).
In the meantime, warm up the money printing presses.
Petraeus's crap won't change a fucking thing.
Sorry Orly, they're only puppets...
You know, like Holograms, they're being projected by someone else to entertain and divert your attention from what's really going on
As Enslavethechild wrote, "Sorry Orly, they're only puppets..."
That is the most important point, the entire government of the USA is almost all puppets working for the international banksters, who have been able to almost totally take back control of the USA, for more than 100 years, and that trend has been increasing at an accelerating rate!
That fight between the banksters and the People has been the primary driver of everything that has happened in American history, with the tragedy being that the People have almost totally lost! All of the fake democracy that exists today, and the pathetic state of the majority of Americans being reduced to Zombie Sheeple, has been due to the history of the banksters winning control over their government, with the banksters becoming a shadow government, that ran the USA through the prolonged and systematic application of the methods of organized crime.
The last great victory was back in the 1830s, when President Andrew Jackson survived assassination attempts by the international banksters, in order to then be able to "kill the bank." After the assassination of President Lincoln, things more quickly went from bad to worse! The beginning of the end was during the years 1872 to 1874: Ernest Seyd was sent to America on a mission from the Bank of England. He was given $100,000 which he was to use to bribe as many Congressmen as necessary, for the purposes of getting silver de-monetized. Congress passed the "Coinage Act," which resulted in the minting of silver dollars being abruptly stopped. Representative Samuel Hooper, who introduced the bill in the house, even admitted that Ernest Seyd had actually drafted the legislation. Ernest Seyd himself admitted who was behind the demonetizing of silver in America, when he makes the following statement, "I went to America in the winter of 1872 - 1873, authorized to secure, if I could, the passage of a bill de-monetizing silver. It was in the interests of those I represented, the governors of the Bank Of England, to have it done. By 1873, gold coins were the only form of coin money."
As many people now know, the next two big steps were the creation of the Federal Reserve Board in 1913, and the complete end to the backing of money with gold in 1971, which created a runaway, privatized, fiat money-as-debt system. Since then, total American debts were on an exponential growth curve! Since those events, the USA has been inevitably headed to drive over a growing "fiscal cliff!" The puppet politicians, put on in the controlled opposition puppet shows by the mass media, have been consistently steering the ship of state towards shipwreck. All along the way, the international banksters have been making a killing, and after they finish using the USA up, then they will deliberately destroy that political system, which they have gained almost total control over in order to do so.
The American people have been forced to accept and adapt to a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, completely taking over their country. The American people keep on voting for puppets, because the whole system became so terminally corrupt that there is nobody else worth voting for. The dismal and bogus fake "democracy," with all of its superficial and silly "isms," promoted by different squabbling sides, has all taken place inside the context of a PLUTOCRACY, which is the result of the triumph of the application of organized crime taking control of the government, through deceit and destruction. All of the current political events take place inside of that overall historical context. The politicians that have survived and became successful inside that context were ones that adapted to accept that situation. The "debates" over the most recent "fiscal cliff" situation are between different puppets, mostly working for the international banksters' systems! The condition of the general American population today is the result of that going on and on, for generation after generation!!!!!
You are right about the puppet show ... This is where I think Bruce Krasting is a bit naive
Even a smart guy like BK is fooled by this pretend-game that there are 'two parties' in Congress ... who are both getting their funding from the exact same companies and people, ha!
Quite obviously, for some decades now, they can get Congress to vote overwhelmingly - even 530 to 5 - on things they want, like support for TARP or Israel, when those things are clearly not wanted by huge numbers of US citizens
The interesting question is what are they trying to pursue / hide / protect by this game ...
Or perhaps they just want an excuse to do zero for the common people of America while Ben Bernanke props up the oligarchs with his endless 'liquidity'
Maybe they want to spook the markets, a mini-crash, give Benny-boy an excuse to really fire up the printing presses?
Otherwise, I believe it really is just political bravado by Obama. Marxist wants his pound of rich boys' flesh.
correct. even unconsciously so, and yet we return to singular agenda.
Can anyone name a program or even war that was discontinued after the election of a new president? Even though they rail against such policies in the campaign, no one changes a thing. The agenda is on.
The only thing that changes is the people doing the lever-pulling. They all want the power, the perks, to hand out goodies to their monkeyshpere. Boehner is no different. Obama is no different and I don't imagine Petraeus is that different. But the NWO is not some monolithic thing. There must be factions and back-biting and shivving.
When there is an opportunity like this for one faction or another to take advantage, the chances are they will.
Competitive pyscopaths.
You cannot attain Petraeus's rank,in any army, without being a consumate politician.
We will never learn what is the real quid pro quo here.
I do see impeachment in Obummer's future.
The House may impeach, but the Senate will not convict. Party platform trumps justice in all cases.
This election simply endorsed the status quo -- no change in partisan control; a shift of barely five seats.
Therefore, kicking the can on the budget didn't work -- they only kicked it downfield back to themselves!
Same shit, different day -- thus supporting BK's contention that it's gonna get ugly, since the election changed nothing.
you're on a roll. Keep going...
An interesting analysis could be done about the Lewinsky Affair and the timeline for the bombing in the Balkans. He didn't want to do it, they opened the can of worms, complete with cigar :(~ They bring him up on charges of lying under oath. He says okay but no boots on the ground.
The bombing starts and he's acquitted. Things that make you go hmmmm. Brother Lindsey Graham. Gotta love that guy. Next president of the United States?
Orly
With full respect for your intelligence and capacity to articulate your thoughts,
please tell me just how relevant you believe the president of the us is. We go over and over this theater day after day, year after year to what end, may I ask?
Looking at the 'long road' I see very little that has change since I was born in 1941.
Sorry to be so silly, but I don't see that we have gained a thing om
oldman, I appreciate your kind words and while I am able to express my thoughts better than most, I suppose, it is not with intelligence that I arrived at these ideas. I was fortunate enough to become suspicious of the world around me after the 11 September 2001 events and, through hours of research and weeding out the silliness, I have been able to grasp more of an essence of what is really happening.
Before I ramble on, I would like to answer your question directly by saying that the president of the United States is a mere figurehead in the giant scheme of things, though he is a very important front-man for the machine. He must speak to ease the minds of the people of the world, yet carry on behind his back, the workings of what put him in place.
You're correct. It is mere theatre, though it is a show that is most important. It is incumbent upon the president to carry on the idea that there is an actual divide, or an actual choice in the proceedings of government, though in reality, there is no such thing.
______________
It can be said that most of the money in the world originates from the Bank of England and we all know that money is what makes the world go 'round. Please see the various histories of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States and come to understand how the bank was formed. Especially read, The Creature From Jekyll Island, a book written about the formation of the Fed. It can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal/dp/0912986212, though excerpts are available online if you'd rather not spend the money. Suffice it to say that European bankers, heavily influenced by the Bank of England have owned the bank since its inception.
That having been said, the political influence of the bankers was not enough for them. They didn't want to just bribe Congressmen all day because it would be much more secure installing a figurehead fully within their control and fully understanding the agenda. They needed to install a president into the White House who could do their bidding directly.
About the time of your birth, Prescott Bush http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush, a partner at Brown Brothers, Harriman, an investment bank in New York, was running money, steel and shipping for Fritz Thyssen, a German steel magnate and holding gold in reserve for German bankers during the Second World War. He was a Yalie and a member of the Skull and Bones Society. His son, George Herbert Walker Bush and his grandson, George Bush were also Skull and Bones.
Having made a killing in the war by catering to both sides, he must have been approached by representatives of the Bank of England, including Lord Montagu Norman http://www.whale.to/b/m_ch11.html about the possibility of installing their special candidates into high office in the US. I have no direct proof of this but I am sure it is out there somewhere. Either way, it seems his proteges have a long lineage with becoming president, so one is only left to conclude that the financing for the operations would come from an unlimited source.
The first was Richard Nixon, who lost the election in 1960 because Joe Kennedy paid off the Chicago mob to make sure his boy Jack won the race. Prescott never forgot that and made it his life-long business to right that perceived wrong. By this time, George HW Bush was out of college and began a career in the CIA.
John Kennedy was assassinated just days after my own birth in November of 1963. That was the seminal event that planted the Bushes in the White House to this very day. Johnson refused to run for re-election and Nixon won. Nixon appointed GHWBush ambassador to China and Director of the CIA.
Later, GHWBush became president of the United States. Initially, he lost his bid to Jimmy Carter but came back the next time and put up a good fight. Unfortunately, Reagan was more popular and he won the nomination but ended up making GHWBush his vice-president. A couple of months later, Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr. http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/HinckleyAndBush.htm and nearly died. Either way, it didn't matter because GHWBush was in firm control of the wheels of government by that time.
One of the things GHWBush did was master-mind the running of guns, drugs and money into Central America, see the Iran-Contra Affair. I am sure his father's experience in the war, as well as his CIA connections helped him do it. It used to be that Bush ran his operation off of offshore oil rigs, Zapata Oil Corporation http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/4540 but that was getting too risky. He wanted to try it in Texas but decided against it because that might come back to haunt his son George W. Bush when he were to run for president. Instead, GHWBush struck a deal with the then-governor of Arkansas to run drugs, guns and money through an airfield out in the sticks, called Mena http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/mena.php .
The deal was that Clinton would become president of the US in exchange for keeping quiet about Bush's operation. Unfortunately for WJClinton, his past caught up with him and there were press trying to make a name for themselves even in those days. Gennifer Flowers! Oops! GHWBush called up his old friend, from...Dallas, H. Ross Perot, to come in and split the vote, thus assuring a Clinton victory.
The rest you can pretty much sum up for yourself, except to say that Barack Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, is a completely manufactured CIA operation (not operative...operation...), with no birth certificate, no medical or education records or any traceable history http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=168455.0 . His mother was a low-level CIA agent in Hawaii and he was but one of many possible candidates to fill the possibility of becoming president under the guidance of the CIA.
_________________
I am not telling you what to believe. All I am asking is that you keep an open mind to the possibility that not only does the president of the United States not mean anything really but he is completely manufactured out of whole cloth and the electoral process is rigged to prevent anyone who challenges the system to prevail.
In the last election, Governor Romney (probably not one of them...) lost under what many would consider to be shady circumstances. But it doesn't really matter anyway. The only way to kill this cancer is to acknowledge it and pull it out by the roots. If the American people found out what has been going on for the last forty years, they would be shocked and outraged. I hope I live to see the day when the truth finally comes out.
Sorry so long...but I think it is the truth.
:D
Orly:
I have heard and read the details of the story any times as individuals have told part or all of what you wrote above and do keep an open mind.
But I want very much to congratulate you for laying out the most wonderfully succinct timeline that I can imagine, in so few words. Thank you for your brilliant summary of my question; as well as the evidence that indicates the relevence of the 'presidency of the us'.
I get lost on all of this stuff because I do not always exist in the purely human context but rather pass through it a couple of times each week like the wind passes through the forest, and I forget how different it is be in this context always. I used to live there, too.
I was in the human context on the Sunday, prior to the election, when I had dinner with an old friend---a political actiist of 60 years or so. I don't know why, but during dinner I said something to the effect that "I intuit a coup of the US by I don't know who or why---just an instinct" It had come to me as we were eating---out of nowhere.
In reading the long thread of comments after GW's article on Petraeus a few hours ago, however, I got pretty excited by the idea of a coup that is still in process and that the administration is still trying to strangle it with some damned dramatic/panicked actions before a junta can be formed; which will only push it undeground temporarily, if successful.
I have been waiting since 1983 for the public to at least notice that there was an earlier coup as evidenced by Col. North's testimony during the Congressional hearings; he threw down the gauntlet of the coup leaders and the american public said not a word!
My friend's take on all of this that the coup was 'a few days after' your birth when JFK was taken out of the game.
Sorry, Orly----I'm beginning to wander in my thoughts and the brain waves are weakening; I am losing it, in other words.
Thanks Again, so much om
It may be stating the obvious but i'm getting the feeling you are saying that all this was orcheastrated on Bush's watch because TPTB knew that he was such a fuckwit. And it would be easy to get away with it.
How depressing - the fool has given the USA a mountain to climb now in so many things.
Great chat btw.
Not a personal insult in sight.
:o
Ermmm. No. Not what I am saying at all.