Associated Press
As fiscal talks continue in Washington, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has pushed a plan in which Republicans accept no concessions whatsoever. Yesterday, the GOP leader put forward a new proposal that kinda sorta looks like a compromise.
In a phone call with Mr. Obama on Friday, the speaker, who had resolutely opposed allowing income tax rates to rise on anyone, instead spoke in terms of preventing taxes from rising on everyone with a yearly income below $1 million. He also said he could accept an agreement that would raise $1 trillion in new revenues over 10 years, up from $800 billion, if the president committed to significant savings from benefit programs like Medicare, according to people familiar with the talks.
Also, in a big concession, Mr. Boehner offered to extend the debt limit for a year rather than withhold Republican support for an increase to once again use the need to raise the nation's borrowing limit as leverage to force Mr. Obama's acceptance of additional spending cuts in coming months.
So, under this latest pitch, Democrats would get increased tax rates, but instead of affecting income over $250,000, only income above $1 million would be subject to the higher rate. Also, Boehner would extend the debt ceiling for a year, delaying the next crisis until early 2014.
In exchange, the Speaker would seek entitlement cuts. Which ones? That's unclear, which is part of the problem -- I've seen reports that Boehner expects, in exchange for his concessions, a change in Medicare's eligibility age and Social Security cuts in the form of a chained consumer price index, but the details have not been released publicly by either side.
I'll concede that for Boehner, this represents a subtle shift away from an inflexible, far-right line. After all, unlike the last fiscal offer, this one actually includes provisions Republicans don't like, which I suppose reflects a degree of progress.
But to call this approach "balanced" is absurd. Indeed, it's probably a good time for the political world to pause and appreciate what constitutes a concession -- and what doesn't.
Under Boehner's new offer, top marginal tax rates for millionaires and billionaires would go up, presumably to Clinton-era levels. That's nice, but there are a couple of problems. For one thing, Obama's poised to get this anyway. For another, by exempting income up to $999,999, the Speaker's offer makes debt reduction that much more difficult -- and debt reduction is the ostensible point of this entire endeavor.
But what about a one-year extension in the debt ceiling? That's nice, too, but it's not a concession -- as Boehner knows, he's going to have to raise the limit anyway. It's not optional, unless he's serious about crashing the global economy on purpose. Folks have to stop thinking about debt-ceiling increases as congressional favors to the Obama administration. We're talking about paying for money that's already been spent by Congress, in order to protect the full faith and credit of the United States. A congressional leader offering to do what he knows he has to do isn't much of a compromise.
In other words, the new Republican offer is less ridiculous than the last one, but only marginally. The GOP is still offering Democrats policies they're poised to get anyway, in exchange for cuts to social-insurance programs that have not yet been explained or identified.
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Stand pat, Mr. President. If it's not a better deal than the end of all the Bush tax cuts and sequestration, then don't take it.
As Steve points out, the fiscal cliff reduces the deficit and reduces spending, which is what the GOP claims to want. They have to have a better plan than the one they put in place last year, otherwise, no deal.
Does anyone else think this just feels somehow trite now...that somehow this tempest over money seem small and petty
Just perspective maybe. there are more important things to deal with Boehner needs to make the deal he knows he has to make and get this off the table...that is unless he is going to try and tie the Debt ceiling to gun control...which I wouldn't doubt has crossed his mind
Yes, it absolutely is small and petty. But small and petty are all the GOP have left. They can't just come right out and state their "grand" ideas, because they know that what they want is hideously unpopular with pretty much the entire country. Their only choice is to try to force the President to give them what they want so that he takes the bullet for it.
I don't think it's going to work. We've seen plenty of times that the President is far smarter than the GOP-ers are.
He's trying whatever way he can to get a shot at the one thing Republicans have wanted to do since 1932: overthrow the New Deal.
Let him go become a "good Republican", busy pushing up daisies. With the rest of the lying, cheating, thieving traitors.
Hey, Speaker Bonehead I get it, you're trying to hang onto your speaker-ship, but two things:
1) Be careful what you wish for - you people courted the tea-baggers thinking that you could corral them into going along with the program and YOU wanted the gavel!
2) As someone else says so well - you're bad at your job!
NEXT offer!
So let me get this straight...the leader of the party with no leverage makes demands?
This is a terrible deal cause it allows Boehner the chance to wave the debt ceiling as another potential thing. That needs to be eliminated entirely. The debt ceiling cannot be used as a bargaining chip. These people will gladly accept a collapse of the global economy if they can get their way.
The GOP is going to have a lot coming at them in the next couple months...Expiring Bush tax rates, sequestration, immigration, debt ceiling, and now a likely bill on gun control.
Boehner is going to have a hard time juggling all the things he wants to hold hostage. He will also have a hard time gaining much sympathy from the public - I think the media-induced ADD will prevent many of the subtler distractions, that the GOP would normally use, from filtering into the discourse.
Good points, largenose!
I wonder if in some perverse way the CT massacre will 'wake us up' to the need for action on many fronts, other than 'gun control'.
I hate to say that out loud, that the progressive agenda might profit from the events in CT - Of course, the Right is already framing the pro-gun-control arguments as the "politicization" of the process.
But in some ways it might represent a tipping point...There is so much backlog of unresolved issues because of GOP intransigence, this may help illustrate that intransigence. There are only so many times in a news cycle that the same voices can scream "Constitution! Tyranny! Fairness!" and have it actually mean something.
I have always been a cynic from the school of Diogenes...If it takes shock and horror to wake people up and make them see then it was not wasted. We cannot just keep fiddling while Rome burns.
Beating them over the head with anything available is a good idea. 31 of them wouldn't go on NBC Sunday to defend their gun b.s. - tie them to every bad thing in the country (since it's true) and then continue beating them over their heads with all of it.
The Republican Party; has self-destructed -- on the grounds of homophobia & religious corruption!
Republican party; religious extremists -- are willing to destroy the United States of America and its people -- at any cost and push the whole country over the cliff in the name of bogus hocus pocus religion!
www.BogusHocusPocus.com
Republicans ran up trillions of dollars in war costs.
This global financial downturn is all attributable to the one and only; Ben Bernanke … appointed by Bush! He wanted to slow down the buoyant economy while learning on the job -- and it cost the world economy upwards of $6Trillion.
www.HolyFaux.com
As far as I can see the Republican Party is utterly worthless.
It only exists as puppets for right wing multimillionaires. That's the long and the short of it.
I am SICK of hearing about the fiscal "talks". Boehner knows this has to get done despite the wing nuts in his party. But we always go thru the same stupid dance. Boehner has trampled on my last nerve. I can't take any more of this bulls#it.
Wierd how the Republicans hold out to harm seniors with changes to Medicare/Social Security, they are the only demographic they dominate. I guess they just assume seniors have enough disdain for others to simply go along with their "leaders".
I guess my hearing must be faulty. During the campaign, I could have sworn that I heard Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan saying that the Republicans were the folks who were going to "protect Social Security and Medicare."
Yeah, right. Republicans want to "protect" those programs right into oblivion.
I'm not sure this is as marginal as it first seems. While the movement from the right is not significant, they have made a move that was not prompted by something that the left has given up, nor did it come with a demand that the left give up more. So, while not huge in terms of content, it signals that the right is finally moving off of their starting line, which is not something they've done previously.
This is marginal specifically because it fails to specify the cuts. Still, even if the POTUS accepts, which I doubt he will in full, Boner cannot get this past his caucus. There is zero chance that they will vote on something that allows rates to go up, and therefore there is zero chance for a deal that doesn't include the POTUS folding until next year.
Iit's still worthless b.s. It shows what dickheads they are.
No negotiation with terrorists!
For every penny taken from Social Security/Medicare (or value thereof) I would like to see nickel's worth taken from the deductions taken by Fat Cats.
It could add up in the long run. Easier to just do away with their deductions.
For every penny taken from SS/Medicare, take a dollar in welfare from the red states and another dollar from the Pentagon.
The debt ceiling should be off the table BEFORE any talks resume. Not as part of a "deal".
The MIllion dollar cut-off point for raising taxes is a joke.
These are not concessions - they don't even deserve a response other than - "Keep trying."
It is all well fine and good to plan your disasters well in advance. That would make the next crisis a better and more formally defined problem. How civilized, we can year after year schedule the next disaster, perhaps just after or before a long Congressional vacation. Just imagine, instead of the next budget compromise due from Congress we can have a planned crisis instead; if the arguments get heated we can call for a declaration of disaster (majority vote). We could end the uncertainty of how the economic system should function by making a new Holiday a National Economic Conundrum Day. It would be sort of like celebrating Labor Day to commemorate the need for Jobs. We have Labor Day to remind our over burden minds that the average workman's prosperity requires a job, doing some needed work, repairing, making things that we need, and can afford. A newly commissioned National Economic Conundrum Day would be in the Spring time just ahead of planting season, commemorating the bucolic past, but designed to recognize that investing in growth and health of the economy, of assigning capital for foundational investment, and if the market is booming for celebratory flapdoodles to distract us from economic idleness. The National Economic Conundrum Day would include a standard speech like the Pledged of Allegiance, informing is that cutting taxes closer and closer to zero means that eventually you will unable to cut further arriving in the land of 'can't get there from here'. The NEC Day's celebration would include a pageant, depicting how capital works; 1) a hundred participants would spread out evenly represent the 18th century farmers, 2) they would then gather half the participants concentrated together in enterprise producing more than what is needed and 3) finally how the whole group would gather in family circles, hold hands and share the prosperity together.
This wonderful Holiday idea would produce regularly scheduled and certain crises and disasters, reassuring all that the hard working and decisive politicians are up to leadership standards, and a secure reelection. The Holiday would inform business that all was well and normal, and that business should stay in businesses, stay focused on business and do business (not politics), and the working person can be kept aware that he/she can keep their nose to the wheel and their efforts and talents can be adapted to those businesses needs that are required.
Some might consider these criticisms harsh, judgmental, over bearing, and to politicians, lobbyists and campaign donors as 'unfair', but if you want to know what 'unfair' really is consider those children in Newtown and for that matter Everytown.
Standup and Take Action? Or make plans for celebrating your next National Economic Conundrum Day.
What we are seeing is a rear guard action by a losing
faction. The religious right, the aristocracy and the libertarians have banded
together in self-defense. They are done, they know it but they want to make it
as difficult as possible for the rest of us so they become more fanatical.
I look at it this way, it is at least a start. We know that niether side is not going to get everything they want. Compromise and some concessions are part of the negotiating tools to reaching any sound business resolution. I have felt from the begining that breakthough level would be $500,000. The one thing that a lot of people are unaware of is that even if you made a million dollars a year, you would only be paying the increased rate on income over $500,000 if you were to use my level.
There is nothing in the offer about a jobs bill and unemployment benefits so Obama is going to reject the offer. If Obama wants a little more room for maneuvering, then he can structure the deal so that there are incremental changes. For example, Obama can agree to a tax cut for everyone under $1M with the tax cut for those between 250k to 1M to expire next year. This would allow him to leverage the next debt ceiling in 2014. I am sure Obama can structure the whole package in the same way so that he can keep pressure on Congress and the issue will stay before the voters in 2014. But there is no point in negotiating away the leverage when the president can keep some of that leverage. That would also end hostage taking with Republicans because they would face the same situation next year.
There are probably ways to take the debt ceiling out of the hands of Congress without giving it to the POTUS, not that the Repugnons would unilaterally disarm. But if there is to be a deal on the debt ceiling, I would suppose that it would allow some manner of control by Congress.
Tax rates will solve themselves by next year unless the POTUS folds. Sure, a deal along the proposed lines is possible, but it should only come with some sort of stimulus or guarantee to pass the jobs bill....
Until we get the POTUS and his party linking the cuts to their impact on jobs, and calling for action on jobs, we are stuck on replay until a Repugnicon gets the Presidency. We need to deal with the underlying political dynamic that makes the debt ceiling deal unlikely.
So the way I read all this is a difference in revenues of $1.6 trillion over 10 years from the President versus Boehner's plan to bring in $1 Trillion, also over the next 10 years. So that comes out to $100 Billion per year versus $160 Billion per year. Considering that we have annual deficits over $ 1 Trillion per year, is this what all the bickering is over? About a 10% reduction in our annual deficits? We will still have deficits around $1 Trillion. All I can say is big effin deal on these "deficit reduction" talks. Yeah, they will really solve the problem. HA! And of course there may be comparable "savings" on the spending side - and again at huge (NOT) amounts of a 100 Billion a year. All a joke - a very big Trillion dollar joke. Our deficits will still be massive....massive.
Don't you get tired of regurgitating the same false talking points?
The Bush tax cuts represent nearly half of the present deficit. Of the remainder, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan represent nearly half of that with Medicare Part D being a major cause of the remaining deficit. Most of what's left of the deficit is due to trying to meet the effects of the recession.
We're all but out of Iraq; we're leaving Afghanistan in 2014. Republicans in Congress refuse to allow Medicare Part D to be re-negotiated. The economy is slowly improving and that, by decreasing Federal expenses and increasing Federal revenues, will close the deficit.
IF that increase in revenues still doesn't match spending, then, once the economy has recovered, we can re-institute all the tax rates in effect during the Clinton administrations. For now, we can start with the 1%-ers, as increasing their tax rates will have little or no impact on the recovery.
Of course, we'll also have to keep Republicans away from the nation's purse-strings as they seem to have absolutely no financial sense...
Doug, they are not talking points and they are not false. Raising taxes on people making over $250k will bring in the $1.6 Trillion I mentioned - and that amount is what the President says it will bring in over ten years. And these same "Bush tax cuts" as everyone still likes to call them - even though they have remained in place throughout President Obama's first term - will STILL remain in place for anyone making less than $250,000. So if say, the compromised settlement results in tax hikes for people making over 250k BUT keeps the "Bush rates" for everyone else are YOU going to keep using that talking point? I mean a lot of folks will still be getting these unfunded tax breaks. I do not believe that pulling out of Afganistan will result in many savings deficit wise. Congress is very good at spending and IF there are any actual "savings" or reduced spending from it (and of course there will be) they will find a way to spend it. I don't think you can single out the Republicans only for spending. Congress in general likes to spend. That is why we have such huge deficits over the past 10 years or so - with both parties in control at different times. And yes, there are always reasons why we had to spend so much. They will always have a reason, regardless of party affiliation or economic realities.
"I don't think you can single out the Republicans only for spending."
So we should blame both parties equally? As I recall, when Clinton left office there was a budget surplus and surpluses were projected well into the future. So between Clinton and Obama something and someone happened. And Dems did not control Congress until 2006. In fact, Dems did not have a supermajority. By 2006 our deficit and debt ballooned. Who should we blame?
Mike,
I have no argument with you on how we got here. Rather than continually place the blame on a problem does nothing to solve it. If it makes you and others feel better, yes the Republican administration carries most of the blame. We still have had Trillion dollar deficits for the last 6 years - when the Democrats controlled Congrss as well as the last 4 years under Obama, so it is not getting any better. And of course people here will point justifiable reasons for the record setting deficits for the past 4 years which is what I stated above:
They will always have a reason, regardless of party affiliation or economic realities.
Every time the debt and deficits come up at this blog, many here are quick to point out why we have the debt and deficits, but that really does not fix them. Blame all you want, but we are still doing the same thing NOW. And all this fixation on the fiscal cliff and/or any compromise is really focusing on fixing a relative small hole in the dam while the main gaping chasm is still gushing. It is a diversion at best and I am sure both sides will try to take credit at averting our fianancial crisis. In reality we a not fixing it in any meaningful way. Oh, but it is the Republicans fault. Cool....now we are still going to spend about $ 1 Trillion more than we take in after all the mini-fixes and continual finger-pointing. But at least we can take comfort in knowing who's fault it is.
It is a false equivalency that both parties are to blame and that we should ignore assigning blame. The Dems did not rack up the debt or deficit. It was a reckless Republican president and a compliant Republican Congress that did that. In addition, it was the same Republican president and a succession of Republican Congress' that created the economic disaster. Don't keep saying both sides are to blame or that we should ignore blame because it doesn't solve the problem. The Dems have a far better record on managing the economy and the deficit. It may take spending more money now to get the economy growing. Your idea that cutting the budget is going to fix the economy is totally wrong. To impose cuts and austerity measures will make us like Europe--double dip recession. Stop trying to sound reasonable when you are really trying to obfuscate the issues.
OK Mike,
Stick to you points. The Democrats are very fically responsible apparently, and have no responsiblity whatsoever with the continual Trillion dollar deficits - which will continue even after the fiscal cliff or agreed upon "fixes". And of course the Democrats are fighting to keep the still unfunded "Bush tax cuts" for most people (anyone under $250k). Like you said, there is a reason for the current massive deficits - there always is. Thanks for the input. No worth any more comments on my part.
As congress try's to fine a solution to our financial crisis there has been some entitlements that have not been mentioned, as talk progresses about SS what about congressional pensions, as medicare and medicaid are discussed what about congressional health care why are we paying for them for life, why do we pay for limousines I would rather pay for drivers ed if needed. I am sure there are other entitlements that could be part of this discussion
The Republicans and the Department of Defense just need to get out of the way. We spend so much money on wasted military and on corporate welfare that it's disgusting. Corn syrup subsidies are killing us. The oil companies don't need billions of support at our expense. The idea of screwing a bunch of seniors to protect millionaires is obscene. You can talk about compromise until the cows come home; we need to be talking about economic justice. It's time.
Social Security and Medicare funds is money that I and millions of others have deposited. Don't mess with our money.
So media w....hore Corry Booker is AGAIN on national television?, while the crime rate in Newark remains one of the highest in the nation ?...
Am I the only one who thinks maybe it's time for Cory Booker, to walk around the streets of Newark New Jersey and New york with his own television camera crew ?...
I'm just saying...
Am I the only one who thinks we are going to get SCREWED AGAIN by president Obama?.. Offering John "Orange Glow" Boehner today his original offer of $1.2 trillion in revenues while AGAIN including Social Security in this manufactured "Fiscal Cliff" catastrophe ?...After he signaled that Social Security was OFF the table ?..
CHAINED C.P.I. Mr.president ?... Really ?..
Last time I looked Social Security does not contribute a dime to the national deficit ?..
Is this a case of "Fool me once shame on you, Fool me twice shame on me" ?..
Or is it just that we are dealing with a president who wants to leave a legacy as a "Pragmatist" while at the sametime being responsible for destroying the pillars of the democratic party and the "New Deal" ?...
Or is it just what I have been saying all along, that this president lacks a pair of steel balls ?.. And has the moral compass of a RICHARD NIXON ?..
I mean let me give you an example...
HSBC BRITISH BANK ... found to have been involved in MONEY LAUNDERING for mexican drug dealers... found to have been colluding with the country of IRAN in order to bypass Middle East sanctions.. And the treasury secretary of the United States and the IMBECILE that is ERIC HOLDER the chief Attorney General in the Justice department and both members of the Obama administration, recommend $1.6 billion in fines and no criminal prosecution ?, in order to avoid a "Collapse" of the bank and the world economy ?.. Seriously ?.. are you fking kidding me ?..
So I guess the term "Rule Of Law" applies only to the poor and the middle class of America ?.. While the rich and the super rich with their "Golden Parachutes" get a free get out of jail card ?.. That's a hell of a legacy you are leaving behind Mr. president !...
If you are in the club of "The powers that be, or part of the 2%" you can get away with torture , fraud , collapsing the U.S. Economy, and aiding and abetting the enemy... and thats all fine and good with the Obama administration and specially our disgraceful head of the Department of Justice.. the "Honorable" , Mr. Eric Holder...
I'm just saying..