So, the fiscal cliff ‘crisis’ is now officially over. Congress has passed a last minute deal that raised taxes on a few wealthy people without cutting spending in any way. After President Obama and Speaker Boehner, in 2011, failed to reach agreement on the ‘Grand Bargain’, which would have raised taxes but also cut entitlements, and after the House last month failed to pass Plan B, we can now get ready for the next artificial crisis in a few months, when spending will be examined, and the debt ceiling fight, which will see if the House will actually demand some type of deficit reduction measures to raise the debt limit. So, after this two month debacle we have all witnessed, who won and who lost?
President Obama – As recently as this weekend, Obama conceded to a change in the method that the cost of living is adjusted for Social Security payments, which would have had some long term effects on federal spending. Somehow, this disappeared in the last two days. So, he gets credit for averting the ‘crisis’.
Joe Biden – The Vice President showed that he was able to negotiate a deal with the Republicans in the Senate. This should allow his Presidential aspirations to blossom, since he seems to be the person in the administration who can actually accomplish things in DC.
151 House Republicans – A basic rule in American politics is that it is smart to vote against bills that pass and vote for bills that fail. That way, you can’t be criticized. Well, these were the House members who stood their ground.
Eric Cantor/Kevin McCarthy – Likewise, these two GOP leaders maintained their solidarity with their members while making Boehner’s power more tenuous.
Deficit Hawks – I put this group first, since it includes myself, and apparently very few people in DC. We get few chances for there to be meaningful cuts in federal spending; now, one is gone. Those who believe that other opportunities will be more fruitful are much more optimistic than reality seems to warrant.
Mitch McConnell – McConnell made the deal with Biden. why then is he a loser? Simple…how is McConnell going to avoid a contentious primary fight now? His state is ground zero for Tea Party Republicans. It’s doubtful that he will be able to keep them in line next year.
John Boehner – Boehner’s Plan B loss apparently wasn’t humiliating enough for the Speaker. Now, to pass a much worse bill, he had to vote for it, while his lieutenants scrambled for political cover. As predicted last week, he will be allowed to hold onto his job, but has lost any semblance of power.
Paul Ryan – Et tu, Paul? Ryan, whose claim to fame is that he believes in deficit reduction, votes for a bill that does exactly the opposite. It’s hard to see how his Presidential aspirations will not be clobbered for 2016. I guess that he is trading long-term House power for a chance at the Presidency; we’ll see how that works out.
January 2nd, 2013 at 10:22 am
This is from an article by By Matthew Yglesias
Winners
Rich people: Raising the threshold for higher taxes from $250,000 to $450,000 is a big tax cut for all kinds of rich people, not just those with adjusted gross incomes between the two figures. That’s because taxes are assessed on marginal income, meaning that even if you make $600,000 or even $1 million a year you still have a very large share of your income that’s taxed at a lower rate thanks to this deal.
Red State Democrats: Democrats currently hold a majority of seats in the Senate thanks to senators from such not-so-liberal states such as Louisiana, Arkansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia. If we went over the cliff, this is the group that would be caught in the Obama-Boehner crossfire. A deal lets them duck partisan controversy, which is right where they want to be.
Unemployed people: The deal includes funding for a one-year extension of supplemental unemployment insurance benefits. It’s easy for liberals to dismiss this as a GOP concession on a temporary issue in exchange for permanent tax cuts, but it’ll make a big difference in the lives of the unemployed.
Doctors: Neither Democrats nor Republicans favored implementing the large cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians that were scheduled by law, but there was a partisan dispute about how to orchestrate a so-called “doc fix” for 2013 and cliff diving might have at least temporarily hit doctors in their wallets. This deal completely punts on all kinds of substantive issues related to the reimbursement rate issue, but it guarantees that the money will keep flowing for now.
The elderly: As recently as yesterday morning, it was taken for granted that one of the major provisions of an alternative to the fiscal cliff would be cuts in the federal retirement security programs that are the main long-term drivers of deficits. But ultimately Democrats cared more about avoiding spending cuts than securing tax revenues, and Republicans cared more about low taxes than cutting spending. Old people are the winners.
Losers
“Grand Bargaineers”: David Weigel has written about Pete Peterson’s decades-long failure to move the needle on deficit reduction, and this week Peterson has failed yet again. The “fiscal cliff” was his best chance yet to secure a grand bargain of big tax hikes and major spending cuts by creating an artificial political crisis that supposedly could only be defused with a huge deficit reduction package. But the win for the elderly was a catastrophic defeat for the grand bargain.
Fighting Democrats: The Obama administration has gotten a lot done since Inauguration Day 2009, but what it’s never done is give strong partisan Democrats the kind of to-the-mattresses battle against the GOP that they crave. Many liberals think that had they simply gone over the cliff and had Obama simply insisted on a new tax cut bill with a $250,000 threshold, he ultimately would have won. But success was by no means guaranteed, and ultimately the White House chose not to risk further re-enforcing a sense that the president is a weak poker player.
Grover Norquist: The leader of Americans for Tax Reform is hardly the key to anti-tax thinking on the right. But his particular gimmick, a “pledge” to never cast an affirmative vote for higher taxes, had become influential on its own terms. The White House and other pro-deal Democrats see breaking this taboo as an important precedent-setter in its own right.
The economy: The deal is being characterized as one aimed at “stopping taxes from going up on middle class families,” but in fact the expiration of the payroll tax holiday means that taxes will go up on working people. Obama started the fiscal cliff talks aiming to extend the holiday or replace it with some other new stimulus ideas. That’s all fallen by the wayside now and for the next two months, the markets will have the shadow of a debt ceiling standoff lurking over its head.
January 2nd, 2013 at 12:39 pm
Losers: 300 million Americans.
January 2nd, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Don’t hold your breath as the debt ceiling is right around the corner and the House Republicans will try to trade elements of the sequester, such as military spending cuts for anti-poverty programs.
Because whenever you can trade tanks for food you always do it, right?
After all we have to defend ourselves against…ummm…whom?
We need a monstrous military to defend attacks on our shores against, let’s see, Russia? No. China? Probably not. Uh, anyone else? Oh, that’s right, some cave dwellers in Yemen.
It looks like under the proposed reductions the United States will have to somehow get by on just $600 billion next year (and these numbers are from the Heritage Foundation that interprets defense as a more “proactive” and business-oriented element of the government).
Considering we are no longer in Iraq and are scheduled to somehow get out of our nation’s longest conflict in Afghanistan (longer than both World Wars combined?), you would think that they could survive with more than a half a trillion a year.
Entitlements? Cut them. Disaster relief (even in a state controlled by a Republican, albeit a turncoat)? Ummm.. not right now. Health care? Not important. Education? Nope. Infrastructure? Not at this time.
But defense spending? Yes, because we are under Imminent threat of attack at all times. You know the Germans could bomb Pearl Harbor again at any time.
January 2nd, 2013 at 2:53 pm
Well there is one good thing:
Help out NASCAR – Sec 312 extends the “seven year recovery period for motorsports entertainment complex property”, which is to say it allows anyone who builds a racetrack and associated facilities to get tax breaks on it. This one was projected to cost $43 million over two years.
So at least we have protected the great sport of cars driving in circles.
January 2nd, 2013 at 3:25 pm
Well the stock market won today with a rise of over 300.
However, the market always overreacts and is around its 52 week high.
My guess?
Play a “put” (betting on a precipitous drop) over the next 30 and/or 60 days and you will probably make 10 to 1 on your money.
Even better, tie it to the upcoming debt ceiling fiasco and you will realize an immense profit.
Just my 2 cents (which could end up being 8).
Ah, the stock market, gambling with clues.
January 2nd, 2013 at 6:50 pm
Feel better Buzz ?
If running off bullsht makes one happy then you must be delirious by now.
January 2nd, 2013 at 9:39 pm
“Feel better Buzz ?
If running off bullsht makes one happy then you must be delirious by now.”
You have got to be kidding me.
Hello pot?
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:04 am
The .7% that will see the Bush tax cut expire may feel like losers.
The 77% that are hit by the 2% tax increase in the payroll tax certainly aren’t winners.
The 2 million depending on unemployment insurance are big winners as well as the merchants that depend on those customers.
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:07 am
Losers: Middle Class Americans, 77% have had their federal taxes increased thanks to Obama and Biden.
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:16 am
Andy @ #9, while you have a point, where were the GOP in that fight? They never once that I know of fought for it, argued for it, or supported it in any way. We saw the GOP fight tooth and nail, using any and every tool available to protect their wealthy donors. But when it came to the commoners, those that really don’t have the wealth to offer them, they didn’t give any consideration to.
So in your blind and partisan blame to Obama and Biden, where were Republicans when the very victims you mentioned needed them?
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:29 am
“You have got to be kidding me.
Hello pot?”
You’re kidding yourself buddy.
You say you come here for entertainment and then act like some wussy traumatized heckler who doth protest too much over certain words.
You run off all this crap that insults the simplest intelligence, expect people to believe your garbage, say the most unfounded crap, and have the fcking nerve to address my vocabulary ?
Au contraire my little grasshopper,… tis you whos doing the entertaining and has only one act on open mic night.
“So at least we have protected the great sport of cars driving in circles.”
NASCAR is Americas largest spectator sport employing millions in all facets of automotive industries and is responsible for the many performance and safety mechanisms and features we see in all automobiles today.
The car you’re driving right now owes a lot to NASCAR.
Other than the Olympics NASCAR and all competitive Motorsports generate more tax revenues than any other spectator sport.
To say they’re a worthy enterprise would be a severe understatement.
Attempts to marginalize it as “driving in circles” shows complete ignorance based on ideological hatred.
NASCAR feeds Americas economy like no other industry.
Solyndra should be the target of your hatred as its failed and expensive technology forced upon us costs us billions in supplements with no result but to go belly up.
If theres any consolation for leftys like you, you can take comfort in knowing that the circles these cars drive in are in fact left circles.
“Uh, anyone else? Oh, that’s right, some cave dwellers in Yemen.”
Wise up.
The proposed cuts to the military will cost 500,000 jobs in public and private sectors.
Those “cave dwellars” are in the hundreds of thousands with support and sympathies from 10% of the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims.
The Clinton administration shrinking our military and turning a blind eye to radical Islam is a lesson idiots like you are forgetting all too soon.
“Entitlements? Cut them. Disaster relief (even in a state controlled by a Republican, albeit a turncoat)?”
Yeah Einstein, I guess you like all the other moonbats forgot the day your messiah stood in front of Jersey and said “all calls had to be returned in 15 minutes or less”, “I will not tolerate bureaucracy”, “I will not tolerate red tape”.
So far everyone in Jersey effected by Sandy is still living in shelters or freezing their asses off.
So please, spare us the bullsht that this has anything to do with Cristy or as if you really give a flying fck about the victims.
“Health care? Not important.”
You’re stupid.
Need someone show you how fcking much money this countrys government puts into healthcare ?
ARE YOU OUTTA YOUR FCKING MIND ?
” Education? Nope.”
Yeah, our public schools are the best bang for buck investment weve ever made held hostage by teachers unions.
” Infrastructure?”
If I remember correctly those were “shovel ready jobs” that cost almost half a trillion tax payer bucks and never showed up.
So fck it ! Right Buzz ?
Lets just do the same fcking retarded thing all over again, right ?
January 3rd, 2013 at 7:56 am
Forget NASCAR, how about the $400+ Million in pork for Hollywood film makers? Or the $53 Million for algae growers? LOL!
Ronald, if you bothered to recall, you would know that House Republicans passed several bills earlier last year that would have extended all of the Bush Tax Cuts and more, but those bills were permanently tabled in the Senate by Harry Reid. This last-minute compromise bill is a bad one and is just the first of many more that Obama and the Democrats will shove down our throats in their thirst for more revenue to spend.
January 3rd, 2013 at 11:58 am
Andy I agree that “House Republicans passed several bills earlier last year that would have extended all of the Bush Tax Cuts and more”. I’m not disputing that. As long as the GOP can protect their ultra rich donors, that’s all that matters to them. Period. And with this bill, they used every resource, every tool, and every bargaining chip to protect them. But they offered nothing for the middle class. Nothing. So again, where were the GOP when it came to preventing this 2% tax hike on American workers? They were nowhere to be found. They offered nothing. They didn’t care. That’s not who they represent.
January 3rd, 2013 at 1:32 pm
“As long as the GOP can protect their ultra rich donors, that’s all that matters to them. Period.
But they offered nothing for the middle class. Nothing.”
Thats bullsht Ron.
The GOP had little problem with across the board tax increases in exchange for serious spending cuts that arent slated to happen for 8-10 years.
With Obamacare being declared a tax you have no right whatsoever in asking where the GOP was in these negotiations to help the middle class.
You morons cant have it both ways.
The moronic left b!tched about the Bush tax cuts when they came to life in 2001-3 and now all of a sudden ya’ll are b!tchin about loosing them.
Damned if we dont and damned if we do.
The right has consistently promoted or tried to promote legislation benefiting the middle class in many forms other than simply giving them freebees.
By not supporting a rise in taxation of the top percenters it can be said quite confidently the right is simply trying to protect those that employ the middle class.
January 4th, 2013 at 5:42 am
Ronald,
The GOP should be standing up to keep taxes low for all, including the successful job creators. Its called being principled when you do not cave in for some arbitrary reason. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of principles in general in Washington. I am saddened that Paul Ryan joined the Cave-Ins. He just lost any chance at winning the 2016 presidential nomination.
January 4th, 2013 at 9:07 am
Rons idiocy is becoming more and more predictable every day.
The guys a joke.
His posts are all so full of crap its hard to decide where to start.
At this point any idiot pretending to be a Marxist suffering from cognitive dissonance could post under his name and leave no doubt it was Ronald Wards post.