Should Republicans Vote Yes Now on the 98%

Originally posted by sasquatch672
2% does not begin to be decisive. House Republicans were reelected too, based on what they ran on. They also have a job to do and that job does not include rolling over.

Obama is not a serious President. He put that on display with his proposal to the House yesterday that included double the amount of his last proposed tax increase and $50 billion ...[text shortened]... the night. Going to finish packing, and I'm headed on vacation tomorrow. Florida sun. TTFN.

You obviously didn't even pay any attention to the proposal.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Where were those proposals yesterday?

The $4 trillion dollar debt reduction proposal is on the table, and has never left the table.

And +2% is decisive. President Obama actually got +3.55% in the popluar vote once all the votes were counted. Compare to others:

2000 Bush (-0.51% )
1968 Nixon (+0.68% )
1976 Carter (+2.06% )
2004 Bush (+2.46% )

Bill Clinton had nice margins but he also arguably had help from Perot.

Sure, while there have been bigger margins, a +3.55% is decisive in a divided country with few people on the fence. The Republican Party is definitely going down. Will likely never again get the popular vote. And if they nominate a far right candidate like Norm wants, the Repbulican Party will go down even further.

And more Americans voted for Democrat candidates than Republican candidates in the House. The Republicans retained control because of extreme gerrymandering, not because more Americans voted for House Republican candidates than House Democrat candidates.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
No. Insofar as House Republicans are serious about fixing this nation's problems, and Obama is willing to drop the hammer on the middle class to score political points - to say nothing of the damage he would inflict on his second-term agenda - Republicans have to stand their ground for real, and very large, spending cuts.

Obama has said he'll sign any bill that retains the current tax rates for the bottom 98%. Republicans and Democrats in Congress both agree that the current rates should remain unchanged for the bottom 98%. And yet, guess who is refusing to produce such a bill? If you guessed the House Republicans, you get a gold star.

So Obama is not the one who is "dropping the hammer" on the middle class. It's the wingnut Republicans still clinging to the House thanks to rampant gerrymandering in Republican-controlled states. (Democratic candidates for the House actually got more votes than Republican candidates in the last election.)

EDIT: I see Moon1969 has just mentioned the gerrymandering issue. Wow, it's like a cosmic convergence of truth!

Originally posted by Soothfast
Obama has said he'll sign any bill that retains the current tax rates for the bottom 98%. Republicans and Democrats in Congress both agree that the current rates should remain unchanged for the bottom 98%. And yet, guess who is refusing to produce such a bill? If you guessed the House Republicans, you get a gold star.

So Obama is not the one who is " ...[text shortened]... has just mentioned the gerrymandering issue. Wow, it's like a cosmic convergence of truth!

Yeah good points

Originally posted by Soothfast
Obama has said he'll sign any bill that retains the current tax rates for the bottom 98%. Republicans and Democrats in Congress both agree that the current rates should remain unchanged for the bottom 98%. And yet, guess who is refusing to produce such a bill? If you guessed the House Republicans, you get a gold star.

So Obama is not the one who is " ...[text shortened]... has just mentioned the gerrymandering issue. Wow, it's like a cosmic convergence of truth!

You're not even bothering to try to understand the Republican position. What you want is myopically short-sighted, without basis in fact, and bad for the country if it's not part of a much larger - by orders of magnitude - spending reduction package.

I'm not surprised you're wearing the grooves out on the "you are evil and stupid, we are all-knowing and good" track. It's also being played by your Dear Leader in Washington, and mouthpieced as nauseum by Rachel Maddow et al. We should scarcely expect better than you than we get from them.

I've posted my argument against a one-sided deal more times than I care to count. For now, I'm tired of repeating myself. Arguing with the four of you (no1, you're for the most part excluded, I'm talking to your less intelligent allies) is like teaching remedial first-grade math, with the exception: first-graders are able to absorb facts, whereas you're so ideologued that you simply discard facts that don't true up with your worldview.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
You're not even bothering to try to understand the Republican position. What you want is myopically short-sighted, without basis in fact, and bad for the country if it's not part of a much larger - by orders of magnitude - spending reduction package.

I'm not surprised you're wearing the grooves out on the "you are evil and stupid, we are all-knowi ...[text shortened]... so ideologued that you simply discard facts that don't true up with your worldview.

Are you talking about this plan?

I've got an idea. It took me all night to come up with this.

Stop spending money we don't have. Cut the size of government. Have fewer government workers. Move existing government workers under a certain age - and an age higher than most of them would be happy with - to a defined contributiion plan. Includes police and firefighters. Move the collection age for those pensions to 65. Scale back the mission of government to defense, police, fire, roads, ambulance, tax collection, and those departments that distribute services to the poor. And raise taxes. On everybody. Raise them on the rich (like me) more. Decide that we will do less on defense and cut the defense budget.

Less politically viable, but just as necessary: ban collective bargaining for public employees. Drastically scale back pensions and benefits for elected officials at all levels. Public service is an honor and a privilege, not a means of self-enrichment.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Obama has said he'll sign any bill that retains the current tax rates for the bottom 98%. Republicans and Democrats in Congress both agree that the current rates should remain unchanged for the bottom 98%. And yet, guess who is refusing to produce such a bill? If you guessed the House Republicans, you get a gold star.

So Obama is not the one who is " ...[text shortened]... has just mentioned the gerrymandering issue. Wow, it's like a cosmic convergence of truth!

I know this must feel like a constant tap-tap-tap on the same spot. But until you demonstrate to me that you absorb the lesson, I have no choice but to continue to make the point. It's for your own good.

By the end of Obama's second term, if nothing else is done, the total federal deficit will be $84 trillion. Eighty-four thousand billions. There is no tax rate -none, not 100% - that can pay that off. Spending must be cut, drastically.

Obama has shown no intent whatsoever to do what needs to be done - cut spending drastically. The only chip Republicans have to ensure that spending cuts are enacted is to tie them to middle-class tax cuts. It is time for liberals to come down out of the clouds and realize that politicians of both stripes made promises that cannot be kept. It is time for liberals to govern responsibly, and not do the thing they love to do - spend other people's money.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
I By the end of Obama's second term, if nothing else is done, the total federal deficit will be $84 trillion. Eighty-four thousand billions. There is no tax rate -none, not 100% - that can pay that off. Spending must be cut, drastically.

Didn't someone work out that it was going to be $143 trillion, not $84 trillion?

Originally posted by FMF
Didn't someone work out that it was going to be $143 trillion, not $84 trillion?

You're funning with me. I like you.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
I know this must feel like a constant tap-tap-tap on the same spot. But until you demonstrate to me that you absorb the lesson, I have no choice but to continue to make the point. It's for your own good.

By the end of Obama's second term, if nothing else is done, the total federal deficit will be $84 trillion. Eighty-four thousand billions. There ...[text shortened]... als to govern responsibly, and not do the thing they love to do - spend other people's money.

Some cuts are necessary. Cut the military budget in half, for starters. Modernize and streamline the way government functions. Lots of stuff.

Gradually over time (say 20 years) the age when one becomes eligible for full social security benefits should be increased to 72. Back when social security was set up 65 was the average life expectancy, but now people are living at least a decade past that. There must be exceptions, though. If someone really does become unable to work well due to age-related illnesses at 65, then that person should be granted full benefits immediately.

If the deficit is brought to zero, which occurred during the Clinton administration, that is minimally all that needs doing, since inflation will eat away a percentage of the debt each year from then onward. If a slight surplus could be realized, which was accomplished before Bush II stole the White House in a Supreme Court putsch, then the process would certainly be accelerated.

Originally posted by FMF
Didn't someone work out that it was going to be $143 trillion, not $84 trillion?

If the debt keeps growing at this rate, at some point it will reach $1 quadrillion. By then socialists will have realized their mistake.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Some cuts are necessary. Cut the military budget in half, for starters. Modernize and streamline the way government functions. Lots of stuff.

Gradually over time (say 20 years) the age when one becomes eligible for full social security benefits should be increased to 72. Back when social security was set up 65 was the average life expectancy, but ...[text shortened]... tole the White House in a Supreme Court putsch, then the process would certainly be accelerated.

Your posts have good clarity and effectively to the right points.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Some cuts are necessary. Cut the military budget in half, for starters. Modernize and streamline the way government functions. Lots of stuff.

Gradually over time (say 20 years) the age when one becomes eligible for full social security benefits should be increased to 72. Back when social security was set up 65 was the average life expectancy, but ...[text shortened]... tole the White House in a Supreme Court putsch, then the process would certainly be accelerated.

I'm opposed to raising the eligibility age for SS. 45 years of work is enough; if someone wants to subsist on the low amount of income that SS provides they should have that option when they reach 67.

SS was designed as a program to reduce elderly poverty (and has been extremely successful in doing so). I'd prefer some sort of means testing i.e. reducing benefits on a sliding scale dependent on the beneficiary's present non-SS income. And apply the tax to all types of income and/or raise or eliminate the ceiling on the tax. Those measures would easily make the system solvent without forcing 70 year old janitors to keep working if they don't want to.

Paul Krugman's article in opposition to raising the eligibility age for SS is lucid:

First of all, you need to understand that while life expectancy at birth has gone up a lot, that’s not relevant to this issue; what matters is life expectancy for those at or near retirement age. When, to take one example, Alan Simpson — the co-chairman of President Obama’s deficit commission — declared that Social Security was “never intended as a retirement program” because life expectancy when it was founded was only 63, he was displaying his ignorance. Even in 1940, Americans who made it to age 65 generally had many years left.

Now, life expectancy at age 65 has risen, too. But the rise has been very uneven since the 1970s, with only the relatively affluent and well-educated seeing large gains. Bear in mind, too, that the full retirement age has already gone up to 66 and is scheduled to rise to 67 under current law.

This means that any further rise in the retirement age would be a harsh blow to Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution, who aren’t living much longer, and who, in many cases, have jobs requiring physical effort that’s difficult even for healthy seniors. And these are precisely the people who depend most on Social Security.

So any rise in the Social Security retirement age would, as I said, be cruel, hurting the most vulnerable Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/opinion/life-death-and-deficits.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Originally posted by no1marauder
Paul Krugman's article in opposition to raising the eligibility age for SS is lucid:

First of all, you need to understand that while life expectancy at birth has gone up a lot, that’s not relevant to this issue; what matters is life expectancy for those at or near retirement age. When, to take one example, Alan Simpson — the co-chairman of ...[text shortened]... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/opinion/life-death-and-deficits.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Of course the raising of the retirement age should be accompanied by the introduction of a minumum federal income.