DeMint has announced his resignation, not sure what his status is at this point (or when Scott will be sworn to replace him, beginning of next session I presume).

Kirk is expected to return to Congress later this week, nearly a year after suffering a severe stroke.

The 88 y/o Lautenberg has been out for several days, under doctor's orders to avoid the Capitol while recovering from the flu. Given the severity of the flu this year, I can buy that advice given the vote tally.

Thanks Mauchow for that-knew Rand Paul would be a no, and some of the others are no surprise either. DeMint wanted absolutely nothing to do with the vote so not surprised he didn't show up for it. Kirk is coming back next week to the Senate after a year away recovering from a stroke. The very interesting no vote here is Rubio-it most certainly will be used against him in any potential presidential bid.

I was thinking it makes him the most declared candidate for the GOP nomination.

And that too :)

The problem I have with this is that the top earners are going to get their taxes increased regardless of the deal. ObamaCare has a tax on the top earners (on all income), so the "Bush tax cuts" are expiring indirectly.

So if the taxes go up, you'll see total taxes go up to a total from anywhere of 7.8% to 8.8% depending on the classification of the income earned on the top income earners. That's a lot of money being given to the government from the top earners. I think it's now a 50/50 chance that we go back into a double dip recession.

Not to mention the payroll tax cuts weren't extended.


My whole problem with the Dems. SS is a lot easier to fix, but Medicare is the snake that no one wants to pick up.

If the deal is done as described, it's going to change the political scene. The class warfare card cannot be played the Dems anymore, now they have the deliver on their budget reform and moving to reduce the debt. The GOP will face a lot of challenges in their home districts over raising the taxes.

Dems, GOP and AARP. I've not been a watcher of AARP but it'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next 2 months.

AARP releases 2012 voter guide - POLITICO.com

The big give in this is that it makes a lot of the Bush tax cuts permanent. That is why a lot of Republicans can vote yes on this. Grover considers this a tax cut, and that's how they'll run on it.

Thanks, Jon.

y/w

FWIW, I had no idea what the story was one way or the other until I looked it up. I just figured I'd see what I could find & that's what turned up.

Those tax increases are relatively small, and the top earners pay a lower tax rate than most of us here. If top earners are paying 23.8%, is it really bad? Most of us here are indirectly paying over 25%.

Then again, I am someone who supports a more flat tax structure.

Tea party is going to sabotage this again. If they do, maybe the President actually grows a back-bone and move that tax line back down to 250,000.

They'll have enough Republicans to pass it I'm guessing. Just a few who need attention in front of the cameras for the next 24 hours.

I don't think it is going up for a vote. With Cantor against it, Boner isn't going to allow a vote or it will be the end of his speakership. They may try to pass something with amendments, but that will never pass the Senate. This is all going to get punted to the next congress, and who knows what comes out then (not to mention what the markets are going to do when this all falls apart).

Agreed. I understand why they want to do this but it's not the right time. Do it in February and put it all on the table. Hold the country hostage then. As it is, you're going to screw over the people who already hate you even more and lose that many more moderate voters.

I guess I don't understand the system when things can be held from going up for vote. Isn't that sort of the point of a democratic government?

Been that way since the beginning.

esp. since we don't have a democratic government but a government of representatives of local jurisdictions, as varied as they have been and still are. A House representative that includes Boston would/should be very different than one from, say, Tulsa.

CNN just reported that House will vote on the Senate version, not the amended version.

Yeah, they aren't that dumb.

Done.

The past 3 days have been almost as exciting as the Presidential elections.

If you don't think that a 8.8% reduction in private income and out of the economy isn't going to have an impact-especially from the group who are the key investors, entrepreneurs, and money managers-I would disagree. Not to mention the deal doesn't extend the payroll tax cuts-which makes hiring and now more expensive-and ObamaCare fully coming online in terms of all of it's taxes and regulations, I worry. The deal and politics have been built on class warfare and ideology, not smart management and reality.

But the CBO estimates that this done deal will ADD $4 TRILLION to the debt. Yay! Go USA! Those politicians did it, and they're going to tell us how this deal will "save" the country.

I support a full flat structure. No deductions, everyone pays their "fair" share.

What a train wreck.

Just a little nuance, but the deal adds 4T from not passing anything, which would have taxes go up for all. Because it expired, it is a tax cut and adds to the deficit, but it raises money (I think 500B) from where it was.

Just trying to clarify, get back to talking about how much this hurts the benevolent job creators.

"Job Creators" have had it easy the last decade. Companies are making record profits and haven't done a damn thing with it, leading the economy to stagnate,

Well, some companies have done things with the record profits. They've bought out competitors and stripped them for parts.

While giving us products that we all thoroughly enjoy (I'm thinking of Apple and others)?

I've read two articles on this. CBO: 'Fiscal cliff' deal carries $4 trillion price tag over next decade - The Hill's On The Money


Easy doing what? They created products and services that people pay for. Why is this "easy?" Also, why is it a requirement for companies to do a "damn thing with it?" Companies and businesses aren't charity-it's about allocating their assets to generate returns for their shareholders (which includes your 401ks, pension funds, institutional investors, ect.).

If it makes you feel better, you can lower the taxes of the middle class to make up that 8.8%. My point was that the income tax system becomes regressive at a point and the middle class pay the large percent of their income to taxes. I'm not shedding tears for wealthier individuals who may need to pay 23% when most of us are paying 25-30%.

As for the payroll tax, that is a pass-through cost to employees. It won't have any impact on employers and hiring. It'll hurt salaries for employees.

Maybe this will at least remove any doubts about Paul Ryan as a pseudocon. He was about as useless as Malleable Mitt, except he seemed to have this weird Teflon coating about it.

And we still haven't touched out-of-control spending...

Oh no they are going to tackle that in the next Congress. :banghead:

On to the debt limit nonsense in a couple of months. Maybe we will increase it another 4 trillion and make 100-150 million really "tough" cuts.

Plus we need the evil corporations to maintain profits and growth so their stocks perform well for the various teachers pensions, universities endowment funds, non-profits charitable trust funds and ordinary citizens like you and me that have some shares or funds.

Yes, and I'm sure both articles said what the one you linked said:


So, yeah. Cost more than it would have if we went off the cliff. Duh.

They next big fight will be the sequester and the debt ceiling. What gets cut and how much gets decided in the next two months. Will there be a deal? Another minor bill and punt?

And who will be speaker? The word is now the far right has enough people that want Boner out that they might just block him. Will Cantor take that poison pill? Someone else?

Just need to make massive cuts to defense spending.

I'm for going to a chained CPI and looking at other such entitlement cuts, IF the deal is big enough. But it has to come from both sides. And of course, neither side will do anything more then posture until the last moment and beyond, because you ahve to please the adherents.

Dola: Wow, strong comments about the House refusing to pass Hurricane Sandy relief:

"These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they're out raising millions of dollars, they come to New York all the time filling their pockets with money from New Yorkers," he said. "I'm saying right now: anyone from New York and New Jersey who contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their mind because what they did last night to put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans was an absolute disgrace."

This person goes on to say:

"The Republican Party has this bias against New York, this bias against New Jersey, this bias against the Northeast,"

What makes these comments so strong? It's from the Republican congressman from New York, Peter King. The fault lines are showing right now....

An economist on NPR this morning stated that debt as a percentage of GDP has dropped over the past three years from about 10.8% to 5.5%, which seems like pretty good progress. I believe he said getting it to around 4% would make it quite manageable, so still work to be done to be sure, but to say it hasn't been touched seems inaccurate.

Yup. There needs to be large phased cuts in Defense, along with adjustments to entitlements (adjustments to the CPI for Social Security and fixes to Medicare). But the GOP wants everything to come from entitlements, and there are few adjustments to entitlements that the Dems are willing to make that Republicans are for. On top, I'm pretty sure that the President wants more revenue adjustments (updating the tax code) included in any spending cuts bill. Republicans are totally not going to want to do that now.

Then there is one other philosophical problem: The GOP is still more than willing to sabotage the good faith and credit of the United States by holding the debt ceiling hostage to get what they want. Obama is saying that he is not dealing on the debt ceiling any longer, and holding it hostage hurts the markets and the credit rating of the country.

Have you seen any pictures of Hillary lately? I hadn't really until over Christmas and both my wife and I said the same thing: "She looks like she has some sort of bad illness". My wife works at a hospital and she went so far as to suggest Clinton looked like she had cancer (wife's not a doctor or nurse, tho, so purely anecdotal). Whatever she's got, it doesn't look good and, frankly, any speculation I had at her running for President in 2016 ended when I saw those pictures.

SI

If you cut out defense spending completely, every last cent, you will have cut the deficit in half. Just $800 billion left to go!

Debt per year or total debt? We have to start paying this off eventually, or we'll be spending all our taxes on interest...

But that is not happening (baring some miraculous financial boom) in the next ten years. What we have to do now is start narrowing the deficit, by both increasing revenues and decreasing spending. I think the Simpson-Bowles 3 to 1 cuts to revenue is a good idea (though the plan itself was pretty bad). Reducing all spending across the board slowly over time, while increasing revenues also slowly, is the only responsible way to do it. Will it ever happen? Probably not.

Thank you DC, crisis averted. Pretty much solved!

Christie will be right behind him.

If so I hope King doesn't have food in his pockets, he could end up as collateral damage.

For those of you who want drastic cuts, where do you think they should come from? Because the three areas you have to cut would be SS, Medicare, and Defense. Areas that no one really wants to touch because the public oppose it.

I know there is a lot of "cut spending!" cheerleading, but no one can actually do it without ending their political career.

But herein lies the problem. Yes, there are 'fault lines showing' as you describe it. And there should be fault lines. But the fault lines are visible on both sides of the aisle, not just Republicans. Mr. King (or any other politician) need look no further than their spending and revenue decisions over the past 15-20 years as to why everyone didn't get what they wanted (including the Hurricane Sandy relief). Had they made the hard choices long ago, this wouldn't be an issue. Mr. Obama was the one who stood there and promised that all red tape would be removed and that everyone would get aid immediately. Before he (or any other politician) makes those kinds of promises on a public stage, maybe they should ensure that money is actually there to pay for those promises.

I'm amused (or saddened) by some of these articles stating who the political 'winners' and 'losers' were in this latest standoff. They're all buffoons and continue to show an utter lack of any form of leadership.

Reds hate the North, Blues hate the south. Thought that was pretty basic stuff.