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Score One for Obama: Boehner Caves on Tax Hikes

WASHINGTON – House Speaker John Boehner has proposed raising tax rates on people making more than $1 million, a source familiar with the talks told Fox News, in a development that could signal at least some movement toward a deal with President Obama.

According to the source, the latest offer is not being rejected, but there are still issues remaining and there is a serious effort to work out the difference.

At issue are expiring Bush-era tax cuts that would automatically vanish on Jan. 1 for virtually every income tax payer if Congress and the president don’t act. Steep budget cuts are also scheduled to kick in, unless Congress and Obama agree to forestall them with other deficit reduction measures.

Some have warned the economy’s nascent recovery would be reversed by the fiscal cliff. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said this week that the economy has already been affected by the uncertainty, and also warned that the Fed would not be able to offset the impact of the fiscal cliff.

Until now, Boehner had maintained his opposition to raising any rates. Instead, he had proposed to raise up to $800 billion in tax revenue over 10 years by limiting tax loopholes and deductions as part of a broad tax overhaul.

Read more from this story HERE.

Surrender: McConnell Prepares to Raise the White Flag on Taxes

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is privately signaling that Senate Republicans are open to a strategy that would effectively allow the Bush-era tax rates for high earners to expire in order to avert the year-end fiscal cliff.

At a dinner with lobbyists Thursday night, McConnell disclosed that Senate Republicans were eyeing a so-called “two-bill strategy” increasingly being pushed by lawmakers in both parties, according to multiple sources in the room.

The idea would be to advance two bills, giving each party an opportunity to vote on the approach they favored, but only one would be signed into law: The extension of the Bush-era rates for families who earn less than $250,000 annually.

But House Republicans haven’t bought into this scenario yet, the latest divide between the House and Senate GOP in the already tense negotiations.

Under one possible scenario, the House would take up a Senate-passed bill to extend the Bush-era rates for all but the top 2 percent of wage earners and increase taxes on capital gains and dividends from 15 percent to 20 percent, sending that to President Barack Obama’s desk on the backs of Democratic votes in the House.

Read more from this story HERE.

Let “Progressives” Own the Fiscal Cliff

photo credit: gage skidmore

The Federal Reserve plans to keep short-term interest rate near zero until unemployment drops below 6.5 percent and inflation reaches 2.5 percent. This means given the current equations used to calculate those numbers, Fed interest rates will remain at current lows until mid-2015 or beyond.

The Fed will also continue spending $85 billion a month on bond purchases to keep long-term borrowing costs low and to stimulate the U.S. economy. They will also spend $45 billion a month on long-term Treasury purchases and continue buying $40 billion a month in mortgage bonds.

Why are such moves deemed necessary by the Federal Reserve?

Why does the U.S. debt ceiling need to be raised every few years?

Why is America stressed about a “fiscal cliff?”

Because the United States of America spends entirely too much money.

To those who remember history, it is self-evident that politicians, elected or not, who subscribe to the “progressive” (read Marxist) philosophy have little to no interest in compromising with their political opposition. History informs that “progressives” in America are more inclined to attempt eliminating their Conservative political opposition than reaching any compromise. How else can it be explained why “progressives” continue to cling to their uncompromising position?

The so-called fiscal cliff negotiations going on in Washington DC is a clear example of their motives and tactics.

The “progressives” are intentionally holding to a position untenable to Conservatives in hopes of creating divides within the GOP and causing them to lose credibility by caving on their principle of not raising taxes.

The best case scenario for “progressives” is for the GOP to stick to their principles and refuse to raise taxes. Then “progressives” and their co-conspirators within the “mainstream media”, aka the “progressive” Party Pravda, can place the blame for the economic results of sequestration on Conservative Republicans while, solely for their own political aims, temporarily championing members of the GOP who appeared willing to “compromise.”

Trying to negotiate a “grand bargain” simply means Republicans are aiding and abetting “progressive” Democrats in their quest to commit the biggest swindle in American history.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has a better idea that is good strategy for countering “progressive” actions:

“I think if we go halfway, or we split the difference with him, then both parties have their hands on it. When we go into recession, it’ll be confusing.

I have yet another thought on how we can fix this. Why don’t we let the Democrats pass whatever they want? If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise them, let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes, let the president sign it and then make them own the tax increase. And when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes. Let’s don’t be the party of just almost as high taxes.

In the House, they have to because the Democrats don’t have the majority. In the Senate, I’m happy not to filibuster it, and I will announce tonight . . . that I will work with Harry Reid to let him pass his big old tax hike with a simple majority if that’s what Harry Reid wants, because then they will become the party of high taxes and they can own it.”

Conservatives can keep bashing Speaker of the House John Boehner and House leadership, perhaps Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell. But that does absolutely nothing to advance the Conservative position. Republicans made their bed a year and a half ago by agreeing to sequestration.

Give “progressive” Democrats what they want and let them own it. When average everyday Americans who happen to be Democrats or Independents start feeling the economic pain, let “progressives” explain a failure that is covered with their fingerprints and nobody else’s.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

What Soaking the Rich Gets Us: Deficits Forever

Last week, the progressive think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) released their tax reform plan [pdf], supported by prominent left-wing budgeters and economists like Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. The net effect of this tax reform plan is a massive tax hike on “the rich” in order to fall far, far short of the revenue necessary to eliminate America’s deficit.

The CAP plan would eliminate deductions, close loopholes raise rates, implement new taxes, increase sales taxes, create new taxes… basically every form of a tax hike you can think of, all implemented on households with income above $250,000 per year.

What this gets, according to the Center for American Progress, is a tax system that barely raises Clinton-era levels of tax revenue, while the spending side of the ledger still projects to explode. CAP’s plan gets tax revenue of 20.3% of GDP, below the Clinton years’ high of 20.6% of GDP, with government spending projected to be significantly higher even under the most optimistic of situations. And by the 2030s, government spending is still projected to be over 25% of GDP in the most optimistic of scenarios. (You do not want to know what the pessimistic scenarios are. Something along the lines of an apocalypse.)

Read more from this story HERE.

Despite Tax Increase, California State Revenues in Freefall

California State Controller John Chiang has announced that total state revenue for the month of November 2012 fell $806.8 million, or 10.8%, below budget.

Democrats thought they could hammer “the rich” by convincing voters to pass Proposition 30 to create the highest state income tax in the nation. But it now appears that high income earners have already “voted with their feet” by moving themselves and their businesses out of state, resulting in over $1 billion shortfall in corporate and income taxes last month and the beginning of a new financial crisis.

Passage of Proposition 30 set off euphoria and expectations of higher spending for public employees. The California Teachers’ Association (CTA) trumpeted: “California students and working families won a clear victory today as voters clearly demonstrated their willingness to invest in our public schools and colleges and also rejected a deceptive ballot measure aimed at silencing educators, other workers and their unions.”

State bureaucrats immediately ramped up deficit spending far beyond the state’s $6 billion annual tax increase, with the Departments of Health Services and Developmental Services increasing this month’s spending by over $1 billion versus last year. The lower tax collection and higher spending drove the State’s deficit after the tax increase to $2.7 billion for the first 5 months of this fiscal year.

Read more from this story HERE.

Conservative Activist Threatens to Steer Donors From RNC if GOP Raises Taxes

photo credit: gage skidmore

Brent Bozell, a prominent conservative activist and fundraiser, is threatening to steer donors away from the Republican Party if GOP lawmakers sign a deal to raise taxes.

Bozell sent a letter to Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday pledging to make it his mission to counsel conservative donors to shun the party if its leaders in Congress agree to raise taxes.

Bozell, the chairman of ForAmerica Inc., has been active in conservative political circles for three decades and estimates he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for “an alphabet soup of conservative causes.”

“Reince, it pains me to say this, but if the Republican Party breaks its word to the American people and goes along with President Obama with tax increases, it will have betrayed conservatives for the final time,” Bozell wrote.

“I will make it my mission to ensure that every conservative donor to the Republican Party that I have worked with for the last three decades — and there are many and they have given tens of millions to Republican causes — gives not one penny more to the Republican Party or any member of Congress that votes for tax increases,” he warned.

Read more from this story HERE.

UK Millionaires Flee Country Over Tax Hikes, British Treasury Loses Billions

Shortly after the United Kingdom’s latest big tax hike, Great Britain’s millionaires started voting with their feet. And the result hasn’t been pretty for the British treasury.

Raising the country’s top income tax rate to 50 percent has cost the UK 7 billion pounds — about $11.2 billion — since 2010, according to London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, as wealthy taxpayers have intentionally worked less, deferred income to future years, moved their earnings overseas or left the country entirely.

Whatever the reason, the British treasury has been the big loser.

“Tax paid by the top earners fell from 13.4 billion pounds before the top tax rate came in to 6.5 billion pounds in 2010/11,” The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown pushed the tax increase through Parliament before the 2010 elections swept his liberal Labour Party from power. During the 2009-2010 tax year, more than 16,000 Britons claimed annual incomes of more than 1 million pounds. After the tax increase, that number plunged to just 6,000.

Read more from this story HERE.

Norquist: Pledge Wavering Republicans Are Democratic Pawns

The leader of Americans for Tax Reform told Human Events that Republicans should be ashamed to be part of the Democratic media campaign to raise taxes.

“They should be embarrassed,” said Grover G. Norquist, the founder and president of the Washington-based ATR.

The narrative was part of the Nov. 27 remarks on the Senate floor by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“For nearly three decades, a right-wing Washington lobbyist has exerted a stranglehold on mainstream Republicans over the issue of taxes, threatening political retaliation against any lawmaker who dared vote for any fiscal solution that asked the wealthy to pay their fair share,” Schumer said.

“Both sides are still far apart, and the discussions over the next few weeks will be difficult, but with each new Republican disavowing Grover Norquist, the chances of a deal rise sharply,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.