By a 51-48 vote the Senate passed President Obama’s plan cut taxes for the middle class and end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. An election year trap has now been set for House Republicans as they will have to kill tax cuts for the middle class.
Republican and Democratic Senate leaders set the stage for passage of the bill by waving the 60 vote rule, which allowed the legislation to pass with simple majority vote.
Republicans played their role perfectly by complaining that Democrats were voting to raise taxes on America’s “job creators.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “I mean, here’s the Democrat plan for the economy: we’ll get this thing going again by raising taxes. Let’s take more money out of a small business and send it to Washington that’s how we’ll create jobs. Let us create the jobs instead of the small business owners out there — they don’t create the jobs anyway, Washington does. If you’re looking for the legislative equivalent of the President’s now famous view that ‘You didn’t build that’, this is it.They don’t think you deserve to keep what you’ve earned because you’re not responsible for earning it. They are. That’s the message Democrats are sending with today’s votes, that you’re not responsible for your success, Washington is. So give us your money, and we’ll handle it for you. That’s their tax plan. That’s their plan for the economy and jobs.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “The majority of Americans, including a significant majority of Republicans, agree taxes should remain low for the middle class and the top 2 percent should pay their fair share to reduce the deficit. As I said, the majority of Republicans agree. The only place there is no agreement is with the Republicans in Congress.”
See how short and simple the Democratic argument is? McConnell had to weave an entire smokescreen of falsehoods centered around job creators and small businesses to justify his party’s opposition, whereas Reid was able to cut through the clutter with a simple argument about fairness. The traditional roles of the two parties have been reversed, and Democrats find themselves with the simple moral argument that is wildly popular with the American public.
The passage of the bill gave Senate Republicans a chance to play politics, which the Democrats happily traded for an opportunity to put Mitt Romney and House Republicans in an impossible position. Let’s be honest, Romney does not want to be out on the campaign trail defending tax cuts for himself and his fellow millionaires and billionaires. In fact, he wishes that the issue would just go away. Romney’s problem is that the tea fueled House Republicans are willing to fight to the death to keep all of the Bush tax cuts, and they are willing to take Romney down with them.
The House GOP desperately wants this showdown, and President Obama is happy to give it to them.
Obama and the Senate Democrats have set a trap for the Republicans. House Republicans are going to dig in on the Bush tax cuts, and everyday that this issue dominates the news will be a win for Obama. Voters agree with the president on this issue and the White House will be using using the House Republican opposition to talk about tax fairness, while Mitt Romney refuses to release his tax returns.
By using the tension and conflict within their own party against them, President Obama has set up the Republicans to fail. House Republicans have the choice of either passing the Democratic plan and helping their presidential candidate, or killing the Senate bill and potentially destroying their nominee. Since this is the dysfunctional Republican House we are talking about, everyone already knows what they are going to do.
The House Republicans will reject the Senate passed bill, and screw Mitt Romney.
Obama has the Republicans figured out. What the House Republicans don’t get is that by engaging in their predictable path of obstruction destruction, they are helping Barack Obama win a second term.
PoliticusUSA
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sachet
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 6:45 pm
WooHoo!
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Linda1961
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Great news!
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Terry King
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
bummer baggers be careful you don’t choke on the bitter nuts… just shut up and let it pass and we all can smile…
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1voice1vote
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Mr. Easley, sir, I see what you’ve done here; you’ve gone and informed the Republicans about the ol’ raising-of-taxes-on-the-middle-class trap. Now, surely the House will heed your fair warning and do the smart thing, the virtuous thing, the right thing…
ha, no, Speaker Boehner is defiant
for now
until the cheese stands alone
cue the Wilhelm scream – to the destruction of Republican obstruction.
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margie tackett
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Mr .President i knew you had it in you to finally stop letting them bully you .you have to be the most even tempered man i have ever seen i find that to be amazeing may God continue to bless you and your familey.and the united states of america.
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Michael Humphrey
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Jatson here’s the truth,Mitt Romney mash up eithter way you look at it because Barack Obama is right on the two key issues of taxation and the economy.You cannot bring in a substancial amount of revenue without making sure everyone is contributing to their fair share of the burden.
The wealthy have for a long time now enjoyed the benefits of a decreased tax burden and as a result the nation has suffered greatly in the form of less in public services and huge budget deficits.That’s why this is indeed a perfect trap as you have indicated,The Budget Control Act set this up beautifully and now the Republicans are in an impossible position in which case they lose in any event.
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Karen Ulvang
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
The very wealthy have been overcompensated in comparison to the working people. On the backs pf the working people. Tax them already.
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bill walker
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
The U.S. is grossly out of line with just about the entire world i9n the compensation of CEOs. Like 10 to 1.
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buckeyewill
Jul. 25th, 2012 at 10:25 pm
This guy is playing 3D chess with his opposition…
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robyn ryan
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 12:31 am
And they are playing Twister.
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Ian
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 12:42 am
How much chedda do you need to be considered high class?
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Lynda Harrison
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 11:43 am
Hi Ian, these specimens may have a lot of that “chedda” to which you refer but that does not necessarily indicate they are of high class!
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clarence swinney
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Burn Tax Book=1100 eliminates deficit
start anew-exemption must help common good not one wallet
Progressiuve Flat Tax–by Group
tax to pay off debt
14,000 we have the income to do it
cut defense and medicare biggies
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clarence swinney
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 11:11 am
Rich got richer off our debt
2000–revenue 20%–spend 18% of gdp==surplus
2009———-15%——–25% ====1400b deficit
in that period revenue dropped 30% and spend increased 33%
No wonder we added 6000 to debt
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John D
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 11:30 am
I’d like someone to explain how taking something that was earned with sweat and blood and giving it to people who aren’t as successful is anywhere near fair, or a level playing field. It’s not.
There’s a very simple way to cut CEO pay.
Quit buying their products.
Don’t like Tim Cook’s pay? Don’t buy Apple products. Don’t like Howard Schultz’s pay? Don’t buy Starbucks. Don’t like Vikram Shankar Pandit’s pay? Don’t use Citibank. It’s a very simple concept, and it’s not even hard to do. Yet millions of Americans are crying “it’s not fair” and “they should pay more!”
Well guess what. You’re handing them your money voluntarily. They already pay 94% of the nations taxes, yet scum have the audacity to ask them to pay more. SMFH.
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ShiverMeTimbers
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
“LET THEM EAT CAKE!!!” She exclaimed before they cut off her head.
You Not-Scums just don’t get it… sadly.
You would turn a hungry child away from your doorstep even though you have an abundance of bread that will mold shortly. “How dare that scum need help or be less fortunate!”.
Hard work is not always a reflection of how much money someone has. If you have worked that hard, and been that fortunate and blessed, then you should WANT to contribute more because you CAN. It’s the RIGHT things to do. It feels good and is good for the soul. It gives you power. It earns you respect. Those are the very things the greediest want anyways right??
True the government waste is tragic. It’s sad that there is corruption, lies, and stealing. But we need authority and that presence is our Constitution and our government. Without it, you couldn’t hoard your billions and feed your ego. We are at a precipice here in our country and the world. It’s about freedom. It’s about compassion, it’s a dark abyss we all will fall into if the most able humans don’t realize they can help this catastrophe.
Things will never be fair and just… because there is greed and stupidity, there is laziness and feelings of deserving. We aren’t a perfect specie, and the strong sometimes have to make a larger sacrifice because they are strong. Some men in history have made unfathomable sacrifices for the good of mankind and the world. I don’t think a couple percentage points will destroy the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Only the greedy have trouble seeing this. You probably didn’t share your toys when you were a child either. Wake up… it’s a new world. AND call people who don’t agree with you scum, leads me to believe you listen to Rush Limbaugh? Am I correct?
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B Durci
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
They pay a large portion of the total taxes because they have a large total of the nation’s wealth. NOT because we overtax them. If you make 99 times as much money as I do, then when we pay taxes, IF we pay the exact same tax rate, you would contribute 99% of the tax revenue. That’s simple math. All you did was point out how much richer they are than us. Not that they pay too much in taxes.
They pay the lowest tax rates they have ever paid (since the great depression happened), and yet our economy is in the shit-hole still. If cutting taxes for the rich was good for the economy, the economy wouldn’t have gotten consistently worse as their tax rates got consistently lower. The facts simply do not back up that conservative myth.
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“There’s a very simple way to cut CEO pay: Quit buying their products.”
Wrong. If you stop buying products, CEOs won’t cut their own pay, lol. That’s like saying if you want a farmer to starve, don’t buy his crops… he makes those crops. He’ll feed his family before he puts it on the market anyway. Likewise, a CEO will cut pay to workers before ever cutting his own pay. This has been proven time and again in the US economy, and the fact that you don’t seem to realize that only shows how little you pay attention to what’s actually going on.
If you stop buying Apple products, guess what will happen? Workers will get laid off. They won’t need the same production rates with the decreased demand, so they’ll trim back their operations. THAT IS HOW CAPITALISM WORKS. No pay cuts to the CEOs. Just job losses. And that’s a hell of a way to damage the economy there, chief. So please, take your financial expertise (or lack thereof) elsewhere, please.
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“I’d like someone to explain how taking something that was earned with sweat and blood and giving it to people who aren’t as successful is anywhere near fair, or a level playing field.”
Okay, three things wrong here:
1) Straw-man Logical Fallacy: You twisted the liberal argument into something it isn’t, and attacked that decoy instead of our stance. Smart people won’t fall for your deflection. We never said to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Last I checked, tax revenue isn’t taken from person A and given to person B. Instead, tax revenue is taken from all, but scales to match someone’s capable contribution, then that gathered money is spent on all. Not funneled from A to B, but pooled from A-Z and spent on things that A-Z need. (By “scales to match someone’s capable contribution, I mean that rich pay more because they are able to without damaging their livelihoods, and poor pay less because they would only become MORE poor if they didn’t pay less than rich people, which would damage the economy further.) As for the straw-man argument, we never said to redistribute wealth from rich to poor. That’s not at all what liberals want. So don’t attack us for it. We simply want our government to have the money to fund the things our nation needs in order to be successful and economically competitive. If you want ANYTHING good you have to pay for it. That’s a conservative view, but one they conveniently refuse to use regarding tax policies. In the private market, they say “if you want it, be ready to pay for it”. Government is no different. If you want quality government and quality programs/roads/police/military/R&D/etc, you have to pay for it. The problem is that the rich are paying less than ever before, and our nation doesn’t have the money to get shit done anymore. That’s why we have a deficit.
2) Earned with sweat and blood: The richest people in this country didn’t earn that money with their sweat and blood. It was earned by using the sweat and blood of their workers. A boss doesn’t make money because he does work. He makes money because he has employees that do work. He “manages” and “supervises” employees who do the work. I mean, it’s almost like we could call them… managers… or supervisors… If you want to get rich, the trick isn’t to work hard. The trick is to learn how to get others to work hard for your benefit.
3) You equate money with success. That is a very sad outlook on life, and I feel sorry for you. More specifically though, Former President Dubya was very rich. He was a higher-up in an oil company before getting into politics. He was TERRIBLE at his job. He got it because he had connections, but it’s no secret that he did very poorly in that position. The financial records of that company illustrate it quite well. He was horribly unsuccessful, and yet he was very wealthy. So don’t equate money with success. Not only is it untrue, but it’s also a very materialistic and pitiful way of looking at the world.
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Ashley
Jul. 27th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Great argument B. Durci. Thanks for posting!
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njnative
Jul. 28th, 2012 at 9:36 am
spot on!!!
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Achren
Jul. 27th, 2012 at 11:55 am
It will not hurt the CEO’s pay. It was hurt the thousands of people who will be laid off before the CEO even considers taking a cut in pay. Just look at the mass Lay offs of 2008. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, yet the CEOs continued to rake in hundreds on millions of dollars in salary.
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njnative
Jul. 28th, 2012 at 9:39 am
“There’s a very simple way to cut CEO pay.
Quit buying their products.”
all this does is send more jobs overseas. Exactly what they want! Simple supply and demand..
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Lynda Harrison
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 11:39 am
How very sweet that a bunch of pathetic racist morons who are willing to destroy the middle class to cosset their rich friends have been outfoxed by a BLACK President! Go Obama!!!
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Brian
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Lynda – Obama is just as much white as he is black. In fact I would argue he’s even more white considering he was raised by his white mother and went to school on his white grandparents dime. I’m not sure there’s any need to pull a race card here.
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Roxamme
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
The initiative to build a business may be the idea of one person or a group of people, but the potential success of that business lies solely on all contributors that made that possible Whether it was help from government, parents, friends, teachers, consumers, etc. Without any of those contributions, you will never have been able to see your business to fruition. That was in essence Obama’s statement. It came from an intelligent, gracious, fair minded person, our President. Not only people who own businesses, corporations or companies of any size work, with as one comment here put it with sweat and blood, the janitor, the waitress, the construction worker, the nanny and countless of other people work just as hard with sweat and blood. So your inference is insulting and hateful. It is also known and, of course, we have acknowledged and witnessed that throughout the years, that many businesses have achieved success through unethical and sometimes illegal means. Business success does not necessarily equate intelligence because people of all races, religions and culture, whatever their economical status have intelligence. Unfortunately, we tend to equate success and intelligence with wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. We all know more bloviated ignoramous wealthy people, and we know, full well, that wealth is no more a criteria of intelligence than the lack of it is. The Republicans have a presidential nominee that is a disgrace and they are shivering in their boots, and rightfully so. Our Republican congress people are the most destructive and hateful people in the history of our country. For the first time in our history, a Republican candidate has the worse negative rating than that of any Republican nominee before him. Never again will we allow the other countries to say as they did when Bush was re-elected “how can so many American people be so stupid.” Never again can we allow this to happen or be said about us. It will not, because we never will allow Romney and his family to step even one foot into our White House,
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Lisa
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Roxamme, you just blew my mind! Intelligent, thoughtful, concise and 100% on the mark. If its ok with you id like to post this to my Facebook page?? Thank you most sincerely!
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Harry Black
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Excellent. I’ve always thought that underhanded covert sneaky people stood out like were predictable. Way to go Mr. President. But they are still squirming so let’s not make the decent generous mistake of helping them up.
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Diane
Jul. 26th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
The only folks who have set the Republicans up to fail is the Republicans themselves. They had and still have the opportunity to do what’s right by the American people but they adamantly refuse. They would rather cowtow to the likes of Grover Nordquist and other lobbyists and the Teabaggers. They are a disgrace to this country with their vehement twists and spins at every corner regardless as long as their pockets are being lined. Barack Obama is the best president this country has seen since Kennedy. If the republicans would get their stonewalling arrogance and ignorance out of they way and work with the Democrats and the President, they could be the best Congress this country has ever seen. But, nooooo….the republicans only want to protect their rich base. How anti-American can you get?
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Kim
Jul. 27th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
I wonder if Senator McConnell ever remembers that Millionaires and Billionaires are NOT Small Business. Yes, some small business owners are millionaires but most are struggling middle class people trying to get ahead; so NO, the Bush Tax Cuts were never meant to protect these people anyway. They were meant to protect uber-rich CORPORATIONS and the people that own and run said corporations and their money – no one else’s. It also seems to skip Republican minds that if the middle class is broke; they do not shop (even for needs) unless they must-so again, small business loses. If no one buys, jobs are lost. Taxing the middle class and not taxing the wealthy only helps the big box companies. So Senator McConnell should quit the rhetoric. We’ve seen the light and their Trickle down baloney…well that’s more myth than fairy tale but it certainly is not true.
Well played Mr. Obama and Democratic Senators.
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Duncan
Jul. 28th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Don’t count your boobies before they’re hatched. I have faith in President Obama’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as he has so often done before.
By the way, that’s waiving the 60 vote rule, not waving it. Still, I kinda like the image of McConnell standing on the Senate Floor and waving the rule around: “This will not stand!”
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