Damn Bush

[sirs]

November federal budget deficit highest on record

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer

WASHINGTON ? The federal budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion last month, the largest November gap on record. And the government's deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that's estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.

The Treasury Department says November's budget gap was 25 percent more than the deficit in November 2009. Much of last month's jump, though, was due to a quirk of the calendar determining when benefit checks are mailed.

For the first two months of the current budget year, which began Oct. 1, the deficit totals $290.8 billion. That's 2 percent less than for the same period a year ago. And economists had been estimating that the full-year deficit would decline after two years of record highs.

But analysts say the tax deal President Barack Obama reached with Republicans this week will give the 2011 budget year the largest deficit in history ? $1.5 trillion, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase. It would mark the third straight year of trillion-dollar-plus deficits.

Under the tax-cut plan, JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli said he expects a $1.5 trillion deficit this year to be followed by a $1.2 trillion gap in 2012.

The 2009 deficit is the current all-time high, at $1.42 trillion. The second-highest deficit ever is the $1.29 trillion deficit for the 2010 budget year, which ended Sept. 30.


Article

[Brassmask]

And the government's deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that's estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.

Article

But by all means, let's worry about how much money the government is "stealing" from the rich.

[sirs]

It's their ("the rich's") money

[Kramer]

And the government's deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that's estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.

Article

But by all means, let's worry about how much money the government is "stealing" from the rich.

you are such a little prick.

[Xavier_Onassis]

you are such a little prick.

=======================
Not everyone has what it takes to be a truly huge swinging dick, kramer.

[Plane]

November federal budget deficit highest on record

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer

WASHINGTON ? The federal budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion last month, the largest November gap on record. And the government's deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that's estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.

What if the "cost" is a negative number?
Sometimes a tax cut is stimulating to the economy and the resultant enlarged economy can give up greater revenue to the government at the lower percent.

Or is there really an advantage to gathering the money in the government and passing it around as a stimulant? To me, this being the same money , you could have simply left in the public sphere rather than taking and returning , there is little oppurtunity for any advantage to the public.

[sirs]

November federal budget deficit highest on record

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer

WASHINGTON ? The federal budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion last month, the largest November gap on record. And the government's deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that's estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.

What if the "cost" is a negative number?
Sometimes a tax cut is stimulating to the economy and the resultant enlarged economy can give up greater revenue to the government at the lower percent.

Which is such a great question/inquiry, and why I posed a couple of op-eds on the ongoing classwarfare debate of who's money is it?  The left, punctuated by liberal Democrats appear to believe that $$$ taken in taxes belong to the Government, and anything "given back" is the Government's $$$, and not the people who's tax dollars it is in the 1st place.  It's such a bogus arguement to rail that "tax cuts for the rich" is giving tax money to "the rich", and why we supposedly can't afford it.  It's "the rich" KEEPING more of THEIR OWN money, which in turn allows them to reinvest in more jobs, products, and purcahses, which in turn generates more income tax revenues and sales tax revenues to the Government.

Why is the left so petrified of success, without the Government's help?? 

[Plane]

November federal budget deficit highest on record

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer

WASHINGTON ? The federal budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion last month, the largest November gap on record. And the government's deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that's estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.

What if the "cost" is a negative number?
Sometimes a tax cut is stimulating to the economy and the resultant enlarged economy can give up greater revenue to the government at the lower percent.

Which is such a great question/inquiry, and why I posed a couple of op-eds on the ongoing classwarfare debate of who's money is it?  The left, punctuated by liberal Democrats appear to believe that $$$ taken in taxes belong to the Government, and anything "given back" is the Government's $$$, and not the people who's tax dollars it is in the 1st place.  It's such a bogus arguement to rail that "tax cuts for the rich" is giving tax money to "the rich", and why we supposedly can't afford it.  It's "the rich" KEEPING more of THEIR OWN money, which in turn allows them to reinvest in more jobs, products, and purcahses, which in turn generates more income tax revenues and sales tax revenues to the Government.

Why is the left so petrified of success, without the Government's help?? 

I think that the rich are the evil whiches of Liberal fairy tales , even the rich Liberals beleive .

[sirs]

I think you're on to something there, Plane

[sirs]

Why is the left so petrified of success, without the Government's help??  

I can wager a few predominant answers, 1st and foremost being power......the less the Government "helps", the less power they are given to "help" in other ways......most often with serious, if not detrimental, fiscal repercussions

[sirs]

Language Problems

Even Rosetta Stone, the language-learning software that promises individuals they'll soon "dream in French," would be hard-pressed to translate the language of Washington. The etymology surrounding the tax debate would stymie someone with a Ph.D. in linguistics.

Just following the numbers, not to mention the assertions, is enough to produce blank stares of incomprehension. There is a debate about whether the estate tax should jump from zero to 35 percent, or 55 percent. Some liberal congressional Democrats claim they won't consider voting for the "compromise" unless it is 55 percent. As The Wall Street Journal noted last weekend, the estate tax was 55 percent in 2001, with a $675,000 exemption. In 2009, the top rate was 45 percent with a $3.5 million exemption. This year it has been zero percent with no exemption.

Republicans and Democrats have attached new spending for pork projects in the tax rate compromise bill. Pork IS the universal language of Congress.

This is fiscal irresponsibility.

The reason America has a debt approaching $14 trillion is that government will not live within the means provided to it by people who earn the money.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) exposed the motives of liberals about progressive taxation. During a mini-filibuster against the deal struck by President Obama and the congressional Republican leadership, Sanders said it is "greedy" to oppose a hike in the tax rates. "Greed is like an addiction," he said, comparing it to heroin and nicotine. Sanders wondered how anyone could be proud to call himself a "multimillionaire?" One might ask how any U.S. senator could be proud to call himself a socialist? Besides, what business is it of government how much anyone legally earns?

According to Sanders' reasoning, if people resist turning over increasing amounts of their paychecks to government, they are greedy. The left is obsessed with punishing the successful, but even if billionaires and multi-millionaires were taxed at a 100 percent rate, it wouldn't get close to eliminating the debt. Cutting spending would.

What word might best characterize a government that so misspends our money? Unconstitutional? Irresponsible? Outrageous?

The class warfare game played by the Left leads nowhere. It is foreign to the Constitution and to our history. Every poor person would like the opportunity to become rich, or at least better off. Liberty and opportunity, not government, offer that chance if right choices are made and one develops a moral center.

The Left's real concern is that too many people might become independent of government and have less "need" of politicians. Most politicians won't let that happen unless forced to do so by the voters. The November election was a step in the right direction.

President Obama's latest manipulation of language is his shameless theft of a Republican idea. Last Friday, according to the Washington Post and an official of the administration, President Barack Obama "directed his economic team to begin analyzing options for overhauling the U.S. tax code as part of an effort to trim the long-term deficit."

"The idea is simplifying the system, hopefully lowering rates, broadening the base," the president told NPR News.

Wait, I thought the lowered Bush tax rates were a threat to the country?

The tax code has become complicated because Congress uses it to reward or punish companies or causes, which it favors, or opposes, depending upon which way the political wind blows.

A simpler, more equitable code with lower rates would benefit taxpayers;
the treasury would see tax receipts increase because more people would be paying taxes;
there would be more capital available to the private sector for production of goods and services;
and businesses could hire more people, who would become taxpayers.

Congressional Republicans should scuttle the deal offered by the president and await reinforcements, arriving next month. They might then get a better deal. And maybe, just maybe, the new members will speak a language the public understands.

"I was against the Bush tax cuts, before I was for them"

[Plane]

When Obama proposes simplifacation of the tax rules I want to support him.

Especially since he will be working on it with a Republican team in the House.

[sirs]

Bush tax cuts: From bipartisan to 'evil'
Posted: December 16, 2010

A mere nine years ago, 12 Democratic senators voted for the current tax rates, as well as for a complete phaseout of the estate tax. Twelve! By contrast, Obamacare and the $800 billion "stimulus" package secured votes from zero Republican senators and zero Republican senators, respectively. The media call them the "Bush tax cuts" or the "Bush-era tax cuts" ? but never the "bipartisan" Bush-era tax cuts. Had President Barack Obama crossed the aisle to attract 12 Republican Senate votes, the Commission to Chisel Obama's Face on Mount Rushmore would be interviewing stonemasons.

When did lifting the top marginal income-tax rate paid by the rich ? currently at 35 percent ? become a matter of morality, justice and decency?

To the agenda items supposedly of concern to "the little guy," add another: maligning the rich as wicked, greedy and undeserving. Stick this on the left-wing list-of-grave-issues, along with
- global warming/climate change,
- cap and trade,
- union card check,
- "investing in green jobs of the future,"
- renewable biofuels,
- overturning "don't ask, don't tell,"
- gay marriage,
- the Dream Act,
- suing Arizona for doing something about the problem of illegal aliens,
- and the first lady's war on fat kids.

The tax-rate deal worked out between President Obama and the Republican leadership keeps ? not lowers ? the current income-tax rates for two years. It exempts from taxes estates worth less than $5 million ? after which a 35 percent tax kicks in. Horrors! Republicans didn't even consider lower tax rates or pushing for a deal to dramatically lower spending. Ending, or at least suspending, Obamacare wasn't even an afterthought.

Obama, in exchange, gets extensions of unemployment compensation and a payroll tax "holiday" for employees. He also gets a slew of what he slickly calls "tax cuts" ? tax credits, actually, or welfare money for those who pay nothing in federal income taxes.

And what of the "cost" of keeping the same rate for the rich? Before and immediately after the November GOP takeover of the House and pickups in the Senate, Obama railed about the alleged unaffordability of giving the rich a "$700 billion" tax break. But this is over 10 years. That comes out to $70 billion per year, or about 5 percent of the estimated $1.3 trillion annual deficit.

All this end-of-year tax-dealing has the left-left of the left acting like prisoners drumming their tin cups on the cafeteria tables and yelling, "Attica! Attica! Attica!"

"Odious," read a New York Times editorial on the tax deal. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., joined those calling Obama the compromiser-in-chief: He went "from zero to compromise in 3.5 seconds." MSNBC's Keith Olbermann said the deal makes Obama not only unelectable but un-nominatable. He pleaded with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to challenge Obama in 2012.

Self-described socialist and quasi-Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont took to the floor, where he spent eight and a half hours berating the deal. Sanders slammed greed, billionaires and income inequality. One of his greatest concerns was that of children who grow up poor. What does this have to do with a 35 percent income tax rate? In eight and a half hours, Sanders said nothing about personal responsibility, choices or the degree to which government subsidizes harmful behavior. Not one word.

Child poverty is almost exclusively a function of young ? late teens and 20s ? mostly uneducated, disproportionately minority women having children out of wedlock, as well as the young, mostly uneducated, disproportionately minority men who impregnate them. To avoid poverty, as UCLA public policy professor James Q. Wilson explained, do three things:
- Graduate from high school;
- don't have a child before the age of 20;
- and get married before having children.

Sanders' soliloquy served as yet another teachable moment for Democrats' most dependable constituents: black voters. Is the biggest issue facing "the black community" that of the rich getting richer, or the widespread damage done by irresponsible breeding?

Rattled by the intra-party uprising, Obama trotted out former President Bill Clinton during a press session to remind his party how to tack toward the center when voters send leftists a message. Clinton effectively said: "If you don't like this deal, wait till the GOP becomes the House majority next month. Then you'll really be unhappy." Clinton noted approvingly that conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer, "a brilliant man," thinks the GOP got hoodwinked. It wound up supporting another large wealth redistributionist "stimulus" ? despite the pledge to the tea party-minded that it would not.

The whole Obama-to-Clinton handoff was freakish. Obama even left the room, allowing Clinton to fly solo and take questions for 30 minutes. Imagine what would have been said had President George H.W. Bush, during a time of political difficulty, pulled a pupil/teacher and brought out Ronald Reagan ? and then dashed off. "Wimp." "Not ready for prime time." "Who's your daddy?"

But Clinton got it right. This deal ? or much of it ? will survive. Obama is the political winner. What about the nation?


From bipartisan to 'evil'