For a member of Congress, there’s nothing like a trip to the White House — except, perhaps, another trip to the White House. And another. Eventually, it starts to look a lot like the holidays: You look forward to them, but deep down you hope things will be a little better than last year. Much of the experience boils down to repetition — that’s how traditions are made, after all. And like any tradition — visiting certain relatives, attending the same Christmas parties, or listening to the president carry on — it can start to wear you down after awhile.
As Capitol Hill’s would-be dealmakers try to avoid a Thelma and Louise moment over the fiscal cliff, that’s where things sit right now. They have made a pilgrimage to the White House, produced cautiously worded public statements, and over the next few weeks they can look forward to the prospect of doing it all again and again. They all want to succeed. But that will require much more than a few picturesque moments at a conference table.
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The House either agrees to let taxes go up on high income earners or taxes will go up for everyone. It's a simple formula. It shows just how dedicated the Right is to the 1% that we are even having this conversation. Now we get to find out just how much the Republicans really care about deficits.
My guess is that the Republicans will cave on raising taxes. It will give the President a fleeting symbolic victory, but as the economy slogs into its 5th year of Obama economic stewardship, we will quickly see that the promised revenues never appear. The deficit will once agaon be over 1 Trillion dollars, the GDP will limp forward at about 1.5% rate of growth, and unemployment will stay in the 7-8% range. NEW PARAGRAPH: This will be a redux of 1990, when the top marginal rate was raised from 28% to 31%. This was similar, in that the Democrats were dying to find a way to force a tax increase on President Bush, whose "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge was ripe for political attack. Tax revenues then barely moved, but the political victory helped defeat the President in 1992. The economy was moving slowly then, and raising tax rates did not help it. The revenues then did not appear. The same will be the case in 2013.
Mr. Sununu's description of this process says more about his side than the president's. Mr. Boehner can bring meaningful conversation to the table any time he wants, but obviously he is a slow learner and is eager to demonstate his side is only interested in playing spoiler. I think he should know by now that the American people are on to him.
Why would anyone listen to a total loser dh like sununnu. What has he ever been right about?
Raising the cutoff for Bush-era tax rates to $1 million would bring in only marginally less revenue than the Democrats’ preferred $250,000 threshold, according to a nonpartisan analysis.
The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that extending Bush-era tax rates for family income up to $250,000 a year, as President Obama has long advocated, would raise around $14 billion more over a decade than a $1 million threshold.
source: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/269147-tax-policy-center-adds-fuel-to-rate-debate
The top 5% ealth has been going down yet the tax bill has been going up. Please tell me why this is fair and why they do not pay there "fair share"?
Fair is subjective. You may be right to think that people in the upper brackets are getting soaked. But there are plenty of people like me who think we need a correction. Upper earners have been making a bundle on the backs of the poor and middle class for about twenty years now. And the jobs that were supposed to have been created by the Bush tax cuts never materialized. So, in other words, it didn't work. One major flaw in your "this is so unfair" argument is that the rich only pay about half of what they would (should) because their income is the result of investments, not labor or (earned income). For the guy who does little more than play golf or tennis in his back yard while he watches things grow - the grass, his children, his portfolio - you've going to have a rough time convincing me that his rate should be 13-15%. Especially when he inherited the money in the first place.
Just like the holidays, I was hoping to avoid getting stuck in a conversation with cranky old Uncle Sununu, drowning his Romney sorrows by sipping whisky and waxing poetic about his glory days in Washington. But, like usual, you get sucked in wondering what kinda story the old guy will tell you this time...
The writer is the son, not the father.