Found this on msn: The interim New Year's Eve tax deal negotiated by Biden and Senate Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky would raise income taxes on single earners with annual incomes above $400,000 and married couples with incomes above $450,000. It also blocks spending cuts for two months, extends unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, prevents a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients and prevents a spike in milk prices. As of mid-afternoon Monday, the sticking point involved the "sequester," the cuts to spending – about $100 billion to start in 2013 -- that were mandated by the Budget Control Act which President Barack Obama signed into law last year. Republicans have signaled they might let the sequester take effect unless it was offset by other spending cuts; the GOP has also said it might accept a delay, but only for a few months.
Tax increases with no spending cuts? Sounds like Obama got himself a new credit card. He'll just run it up to the max and want more. That assumes the House goes for it, which I doubt.
Don't get fooled by the headlines, the spending has only been deferred two months. There will be a real fight in February around debt extension and spending. From what I've read, this isn't as horrible as people are making it out to be. For one, the Bush tax cuts are now permanent (or at least not up for renewal). Looks like the 2% payroll tax cut is gone. January 15 Paychecks are dropping for everyone. Finally......Boehner will have to bring this to the floor for a vote and it will pass with all Ds and enough Rs. Boehner is toast, which is a good thing.
www.cnn.com/2013/01/01/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 very quick search found this. automatic spending cuts pushed 2 months so they will supposedly have time to work out a deal. nothing in the bill to address the debt ceiling which has already been reached. nothing in the bill regarding extending payroll tax cut. not good in the last 2 areas. get ready for the market to respond negatively.
The Deficit Dictatorship is upon us. And we are powerless to stop it at present. The trick now, will be to preserve our right to vote and freedom of speech for the next fifty years while we educate those who believe in centralized planning that their accumulated record of the past hundred years is inferior to that of what would have happened with limited centralized government. The first thing to teach is that healthcare rationing should be left to the individual, not the centralized deficit dictatotship. There are just some treatments a person cannot afford whether by cost or circumstance. Better the individual makes those choices. "You must always face the curtain with a bow", as the song goes.
If the dems are able to say "no deal unless taxes go up on the rich" the reps should have been able to say "no deal w/o spending cuts". They were able to keep taxes the same (non-payroll which needed to go up) but have left themselves one shot at getting spending cuts.
Obama with his own words has stated that "millionaires and billionaires" are now paying their fair share. In other words, he's defined their fair share as 39.6% (up 4.5%). If I'm in the targeted class, I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Spending is next up and taxes are off the table. I'm not really sure why conservatives are so up in arms about this.
I know. The EIC is both corporate welfare as well as a direct subsidy to the lowest of the low in our society. It is also abused terribly by people who claim more dependents than they really have and yet never fear for IRS repercussions.
when you hear people say loopholes I'm willing to bet that they aren't thinking EIC. People say close the loopholes are thinking that rich folks are still utilizing tax shelters from the 70s and early 80s to keep their income from being taxed. With the re-write of the tax code in 1984 most of this went away. What we have now in the tax code is a bunch of deductions and credits (such as the EIC) that Congress and the President have used over the years to legislate what they want people to do.
This would never pass in a million years. I just posted this to make the point that the real issue in this country is entrenched wealth. It is not income, but asset driven. I have never thought of how to actually do something like this. Off the top of my head, tax maybe .25% on assets from $5-10 million; .5% $10-25 million; and 1% over $25 million. You can have an exemption for publicly traded companies and also income tax is deductible. This will never ever happen.
Entrenched wealth is the problem? Wow. Let's just confiscate everything, hand it to the emperor and shout "all hail the King!" Or, you could encourage people to save money so that their kids could go to college and they would never have to solely rely upon the government to buy them everything. They would not have to worry about the long term insolvency of the ponzi scheme called social security. Socialism is great in other countries. Ever consider moving?
theiioftx, Paso is right in that entrenched wealth is the issue (I wouldn't call it a problem). However the question is do you find a way to tax directly or to give incentive to have it invested to create jobs/industries/etc... so that it you increase income taxes by more people working and earning more money. Personally I believe if you find a way to tax directly you will lose a lot of that money out of the market place and thus more harm to the economy will occur than any benefit of the taxes received.
Totally disagree. Do you think anyone would keep any assets in the US beyond what was absolutely necessary if an asset tax was imposed? What about farms, small businesses etc. that are valued high, but cash poor? I know, let's start the exemptions for "special" circumstances. The original post (Senate passing the deal) was about the fiscal cliff which is due to a spending problem. If anything, the governments out of control spending is resulting in more and more "entrenching wealth" to survive the pending financial depression that will occur. I know I will get the "it's the Pubs fault for starting wars" posts from the standard group, so save the keystrokes. It would be nice to hear, "yes we have a spending problem. If we cannot address it through significant cuts to entitlements, defense, etc., let's consider taxes."
absolutely I think taxing assets at any value is horrible "solution" as it will bring many more problems than it will solve. My opinion is that in order to utilize the "entrenched wealth" you should incentivize investment in our economy. However this won't happen because it will be called more corporate welfare or tax breaks for the rich.
