Republicans pulled the fiscal emergency brakeFollow

Well, something is better than nothing.

Edited, Jan 2nd 2013 12:08am by Jophiel

The whole social security withholding tax going up at least $1,000 for everyone thing still happens, which i find somewhat annoying. Sure its only what, $83 a month, but it was my $83 a month and I had plans for it. And they dragged it on long enough regardless that we're going to hit recession again, if not from this, but from anticipation of the debt ceiling negotiations happening in the next few weeks. Again. These idiots on both sides are playing nuclear brinksmanship with our economy and they should all be impeached for doing so.

I'm going to track the careers of the seventy some republicans that voted for this and see if Grover destroys them.

I figured they'd just let us go over the cliff. Deep spending cuts? Higher taxes? Both sides get what they want, and the American people...well, they don't really care about the people, so it's a win-win!

B-b-b-but Team America, Fuck Yeah!

In order to be a successful politician you must first be a successful idiot.

Wasn't there a big hollering about how the budget HAD to originate in the House according to the Constitution?

Honestly, while I understand the politics of the language choices surrounding this, the social security tax holiday ending was the one thing I didn't have a problem with (in terms of tax increases anyway). It should never have been reduced in the first place, really didn't help at all during the financial crisis, and created exactly the false sort of (but now my taxes are going up!) perception you mention. Payroll taxes are already not high enough to pay for SS and Medicare. While I'm not a huge fan of either program, especially as they are structured and funded, at least it's one tax that ensures that everyone has some skin in the game, and while it's still grossly tilted in terms of benefits versus dollars paid, it's at least less so than the rest of our tax/spend methodology.


IMO, the GOP basically won this round. By holding to a "no taxes at all" position, they got the Dems to agree to make the Bush taxes permanent (something they were not able to do back in 2001 when they controlled both houses) except for income over 400k. That's frankly a minor concession (and a hell of a lot better than the 200k level the Dems originally wanted), given the bigger gains. It's kinda like wanting a triple scoop ice cream cone with sprinkles on it, and getting a triple scoop ice cream cone, but with only 90% of the sprinkles you wanted.


The great thing is that they managed to do this while making the Dems think that they were putting one over on them, so a bunch of Republicans could vote against it in the house, still get the bill passed, and still keep their tax promises. It's like a double win really. Great job holding the line really.

So... they wanted "no taxes at all," got tax increases, and it's their victory? Well, as long as it makes you happy, keep saying that.

I would think a better analogy would be the GOP saying "We want free pizza!" and then being forced to pay for a salad and calling it a victory. Sure, it's still idiotic, but considering "conservatives" are crying that they are the losers of the deal and that Obama's supporters won, it's at least closer to the truth.

Not that I care. Stocks soared today

They want taxes to be as low as possible. You need to look at this from a larger historical perspective to understand what I'm talking about.

Back in 2001, the GOP was able to get the Bush tax cuts in place, but could only get it past a Dem filibuster by including a sunset provision. Which is what brought us to this point in the first place. Yesterday, the Dems basically allowed 99+% of the Bush tax cuts to become permanent (no more sunset). That's a massive victory. If the cost of getting that is to allow taxes to go up a tiny amount on income over $400k, that's an acceptable price to pay.

The point of holding the line is about negotiation. If the GOP told the Dems that they were willing to give that $400k concession 2 months ago, the Dems would have held out for something better. You always start with the absolute and then negotiate.



Only if you completely fail to grasp the fiscal objectives of the Right. And yes, there are a lot of stupid conservative pundits (radio talking heads really) who fail to grasp them as well. The broad objective is to minimize the tax burden on the people. That's the goal. The whole "rich vs poor" thing is really a Liberal issue. Obviously, in a perfect world, sanity would have won out and we would have made the Bush tax rates permanent for all income brackets, but in the big picture context, this was about the best win the GOP could have hoped for. And by making the whole thing about ********* over "taxes on the rich", the Left managed to become so obsessed over it that they failed to see that bigger picture. They fought so hard for those incredibly tiny tax increases that they were willing to basically give the GOP every thing else they wanted to get them. And "everything else" is stuff the Dems steadfastly opposed just a decade ago.

This was never about "taxes for the 98% versus taxes for the 2%" from the conservative perspective. But if letting the Left think that got us what we wanted, that's just peachy.



Yes. Because most of the people making decisions which affect those stock prices are fiscally conservative and they liked the deal. What part of "stocks plummet when Obama wins re-election" makes you think that markets respond favorably when liberals win?

This should be good.

Untrue.



And everything to do with one side's inability to work with the other to solve anything as "solving things" is a victory for Obama & a political liability amongst their constituents.



He sure stuck it to the Dems with all those spending cuts.

Oh, wait.