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Republicans Need to Read It and Weep: The Grand Bargain They Turned Down Last Year
President Obama knows a mandate when he gets one. He’s not taking the Republicans’ obstruction laying down and now they’re going to pay. The President started off the Grand Bargain “negotiations” this time around by doubling the tax revenue he wants, from $800 billion to $1.6 trillion.
This might be a prudent time for Republicans to review the Grand Bargain they turned their noses up at in the summer of 2011, because chances are, they’re not going to see such broad offers anytime soon from this President.
Last year, Obama was willing to play loophole and tax deductions name games (aka: “tax reform”) with Republicans who signed a pledge not to raise taxes, while keeping the Bush tax cuts in place. Not so much this time around. The Bush tax cuts on the rich must go and Obama will not allow Republicans to hide letting them expire in fancy loophole language about “tax reform.”
The President is going to hold on till he gets tax increases on the wealthiest Americans, promising that the Bush tax cuts on the richest 2% will expire. The White House called this “non-negotiable” yesterday. The President has said over and over again that tax cuts for the middle class are something everyone agrees on, so there’s no reason for them to be linked to tax cuts for the rich. In other words, Republicans need to stop holding tax cuts for the middle class hostage in order to protect the über rich.
On Meet the Press Sunday, Bob Woodward described the last offer the President made to Speaker Boehner last year:
“This is a confidential document, last offer the president — the White House made last year to Speaker Boehner to try to reach this $4 trillion grand bargain. And it’s long and it’s tedious and it’s got budget jargon in it. But what it shows is a willingness to cut all kinds of things, like TRICARE, which is the sacred health insurance program for the military, for military retirees; to cut Social Security; to cut Medicare. And there are some lines in there about, “We want to get tax rates down, not only for individuals but for businesses.” So Obama and the White House were willing to go quite far.”
The CBO report agrees that we need to keep taxes low on the middle class while raising revenue on the wealthy who will continue to spend even if they are taxed a bit more. So there’s no logical argument left for Republicans. Nothing but their naked ambition to destroy this President and reveal themselves as the empty, craven puppets of the 1%.
Are Republicans smart enough to regret their obstructionism? How will they wipe the egg off of their faces/records now, given what was on the table in 2011, before Obama got a mandate from the people to raise taxes on the rich?
Read it and weep, Republicans:
Click to enlarge details of the Grand Bargain from 2011 (via NBC Press Pass):
What’s most ironic about this is math. Once again, Republicans refuse to do what is necessary to deal with that deficit they kept telling us was the reason babies needed to starve in America. Turns out, just as Dick Cheney told us during Bush’s administration, Republicans don’t care about deficits. They don’t care about the math.
Republicans only care about giving the rich their tax cuts and cutting regulation for their corporate masters. So much for Republicans taking refuge in being “conservatives.”
Maybe John Boehner and Mitch McConnell should have taken the President’s phone call after he won re-election with a mandate, instead of playing petulant by claiming to be “asleep.” But then, if they were capable acting like grown ups, they wouldn’t be longingly looking at what their “ideology” (aka: Norquist pledges and Tea Party craziness) forced them to reject.
If Republicans can’t get it together, everyone’s tax rates will go up because this President means what he says. The President is not interested in “tax reform” only, because the math doesn’t work. The White House wants the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire.
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16 Responses to Republicans Need to Read It and Weep: The Grand Bargain They Turned Down Last Year
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clarence swinney
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 7:32 am
WHO PAYS EXCISE TAXES?
Middle 20%=18%
Top 10%=21%
Top 5%=13%
Top 1%=5%
Prez wants 1600B tax cuts over ten years
160B year–380B Budget–projects 900B Deficit in 2013. He must be planning big cuts somewhere.
sic em Tiger!
fergus markson
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Clarence, the article said Obama wanted $1,600 B in tax REVENUE, not tax cuts. He wants to raise $1,600 B through tax increases.
ThomasW
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 7:41 am
I am a veteran and also worked for contractors that fought in the middle east. As I read these things as a black man who support my country, I can see fear in people of color. We can be prosecuted at will and all kinds of unspeakable things if we make the wrong people mad. If they can do all these things to one of the smartest president we have ever had. What can they do to me. Its kinds of looking at the KKK in suits.
Gramiam
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 9:28 am
Thomas, relax a bit. We gave President Obama a mandate to get the people’s business done on November 6. The fact is, we gave him the leverage he needs because we trust him to use it wisely and to our benefit. I’m a white, 68 year old grandmother, and I voted for him a second time because I trust him. Not everybody sees him as “other” Mostly we see him as classy, intelligent, handsome and caring.
clarence swinney
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 7:50 am
How did we get from nearly $6 trillion projected surpluses in 2001 to $6 trillion in new debt?
As President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress square off on the debt-cutting measures that could send us over the fiscal cliff, “it’s crucial to remember the source of our deficit and debt. The Center for American Progress’ Michael Linden explains the laws passed during the Bush administration along with the wars and the bad economy over a decade made up 86 percent of the debt we’ve accumulated since 2001. President Obama’s budgets and the stimulus are responsible for only 14 percent.
Keep that in mind as Republicans demand concessions from the president and the middle class.
Tags: Bush Tax Cuts, debt, Deficit, fiscal cliff, surplus
Gramiam
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 9:34 am
Clarence, this video is the clearest and most succinct explanation about how the surplus became the deficit.
www.upworthy.com/the-comp...
Sugapea
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Excellent Link. Thanks, Gramiam!
Fox & Radio Friend devotees have never heard this truth!
“It’s all Obama’s doing”…says the Right Wing. We need to clear this lie up with real/honest facts!
Sugapea
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
YES, Clarence! We need Billboards along highways telling the American People the truth about this horrible Debt…where it came from and detailing who is most responsible for it! They have brainwashed so many into thinking Obama has created most of it.
One half of America has been filled with misinformation, lies and skewed facts!
I have an idea for Obama. Anyone know the link for me to reach The White House?
j
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 9:07 am
I know that this is a different subject, but when the republicans blocked the veterans cola increase I wrote and protested to my senator the useless Richard Burr who is on the veterans affairs committee, I received a letter from him, he told me that the information that the bill had been placed on ‘hold’ was false and an election year ploy, and he said that anyway it was Harry Reid’s fault for not bringing it up for a vote.
Today I read that the anonymous gop senator that had placed the hold had taken it off and the bill was now going to the senate and would then go for the president’s signature, so Burr lied to me – what a surprise!
ibwilliamsi
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 10:00 am
I’d be tempted to get that letter to a reputable journalist in NC to be sure that EVERYONE knows what kind of a representative Richard Burr is. I’m new here as of April, and so many people are new in NC with all the banking that has moved into the area. Although I voted the Democratic ticket, I have no clue who these people are or what there records are.
Shame that man! Shame him with his own words!
1voice1vote
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
“I’d be tempted to get that letter to a reputable journalist in NC”
Yes. Action. Speak up. Stand up. Call out lies.
Local blogs, newspaper letters to the editor, maybe Mr. Easley could start a wall of shame here on Politicususa for the responses we get from our legislators. Burr may be NC’s rep but his actions/votes/lies affect the entire nation.
K
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 10:52 am
Sarah,
Great article, again, however, you’re missing something here. The Grand Bargain does include very deep cuts in entitlement programs. This WILL happen, subsequently throwing the poor, elderly, veterans, disabled, working poor, under the bus. The tax cuts for the middle class are just that. Considering that there is quite a division now between the “middle class” and the working poor, and there is MORE of the working poor, the middle class if fine and WILL CONTINUE to be fine, in fact, even better.
Babies from middle class homes don’t starve Sarah.
But they do from working poor homes.
This is the part of the Grand Bargain that is rarely mentioned, but will occur.
It also has dire consequences because many of the working poor also use their “Entitlements” as consumers. We need to make education affordable, so that people can become skilled and work in jobs that take them above the poverty line. The reason people are on “food stamps” is because they can’t find work that makes a living wage. If they can find work at all.
It’s sad that the country has been brainwashed into the exploitation of those who need these programs. We wouldn’t, if jobs were aplenty and if the “job creators”, corporations who say they’d create jobs with tax cuts (Lies!) would actually do it. If they had in the first place, few would be without a job right now. Just sayin…
Jason Easley
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 11:17 am
Actually, your information is outdated and wrong. Social Security is off the table. The cuts in entitlements take place over a decade not all at once, and what the president is proposing is not benefits cuts. I think you need to update your information.
Tom
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 11:28 am
That info is in the documents listed from last year in the article. Maybe you didn’t read it all.
The President is playing a new game this year. I agree with Jason. I don’t think you should base your fears on last year.
FYI, I know plenty of “middle class” families who can’t survive without government assistance for their kids. Tough times.
GeneralLerong
Nov. 14th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
We all need to read Dean Baker’s latest about declining health care costs linked to deficit reduction:
Deficit Vanishes
“CBO and other budget forecasters can ignore economic reality for a period of time (they ignored the housing bubble until after its collapse wrecked the economy), but if it continues, at some point they will have to incorporate the trend of slower health care cost growth into their projections. When this happens, the really scary long-term deficit numbers will disappear.
A projection that assumes that health care costs will only rise as a result of the aging of the population, and otherwise move in step with per capita income, will lop tens of trillions of dollars off the most commonly cited long-term deficit projections. It would cost some deficit hawks, like National Public Radio, more than $100 trillion of their long-term deficit story. This would be a real disaster for the deficit hawk industry.”
Anne
Nov. 17th, 2012 at 11:27 am
The Congressional Republicans have expended their “political capital” from the 2010 elections simply being oppositional to the president. They are a bunch of partisan idiots that do not have our interests at heart, and they do not deserve to be offered another “grand bargain.”