Lots of dicussion about the looming tax cuts… BMGers seem united with their hopes…
If Republicans insist on keeping all the “Bush” tax cuts, what should Democrats do?
* let the cuts expire – 30 votes (83.33%)
* run in circles, scream and shout – 4 votes (11.11%)
* extend the cuts for a year – 1 votes (2.78%)
* keep all the cuts – 1 votes (2.78%)
Question now is, what do you think will happen?
My guess is extend for everyone for a period and deal with it in the future.
A side question is almost “every” economist is saying you cannot raise taxes now in the worst economic period in modern history… and yet BMGers picked that option overwhelmingly. Are we wrong or the economists?
Please share widely!
bob-neer says
And helped drive our economy into the ground.
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p>Yet almost “every” Republican refuses to accept this reality.
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p>Are they willfully ignorant, or just misinformed?
johnd says
Let them expire and make it permanent. I suppose one of the tragedies is the Democrats did control all three houses and could have done whatever they wanted over the last 18 months concerning these tax cuts. It was no surprise and in fact I blogged over a year ago here about it.
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p>Why did the Democrats allow this issue to be ignored for so long? They could have proposed Obama’s plan, voted in both houses, signed the bill, BAM!
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p>I also don’t believe your premise that the tax cuts drove our economy into the ground. How about the cries from Democrats for all these years that it was the Iraqi War that created our massive deficits and helped drive our economy into the ground… Or the Democrats who blamed Wall St. deregulation for created our massive deficits and helped drive our economy into the ground… Or the greedy mortgage lenders who let housing collapse which drove it into the ground. Or the Republican Congress/unfunded Medicare… created our massive deficits and helped drive our economy into the ground..
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p>But because we are talking about the Bush Tax cuts, the hyperbole switches to the charge that now “Bush tax cuts created our massive deficits. And helped drive our economy into the ground.”
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p>What if 9/11 never happened, Homeland Security never existed, home mortgage crisis never occurred, stock market never blew up… we’ll never know.
christopher says
…is that the unprecedented combination of tax cuts AND war spending drove deficits way up. After all Clinton handed Bush the biggest surplusses we had run in years; Bush handed Obama the biggest deficits.
johnd says
hoyapaul says
and I can even precede it with a noun and a verb, just like Rudy Giuliani.
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p>But surely you’re not seriously suggesting that 9/11 is the reason for our massive deficits.
johnd says
What I’m suggesting is we had quite a few events happen to drive the economy into the ditch. Trying to point to one of them, like the tax cuts on almost all Americans, and singularly blame it is absurd.
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p>My point was 9/11 was a significant event, in and of itself to put a chink into our economy. Then the follow on, including the War, the other War, the increase in government costs associated with protecting our country (TSA, Homeland security…), then the sub-prime mortgages, the global economic collapse, typical and regular cycles of business ups/downs, the housing market bubble finally bursting, the huge wave of retiring Americans, Healthcare cost increases, low income job depletion from Illegal immigrants… Computer models don’t exist for this kind of cataclysmic combination.
jconway says
And Democrats are not pointing to one but many reasons. I would say Bush raised spending with bag programs that had some Democratic support like Part D and NCLB, he also cut taxes while raising spending, and then we had the war spending. So I think we can blame Bush first and foremost for fiscal ineptitude and bad fiscal leadership don’t you? And that is not a uniquely Democratic phenomenon since most of the Tea Party and GOP candidates this year ran against Bush style conservatism as much as they did against Obama style liberalism. What I find most disingenuous is that the right and the media has made fact the fictional narrative that the deficit is all Obamas fault, to believe that is to have been asleep the past eight years. Have his policies added and are some of them bad ideas? Sure. But to pin the blame on the donkeys when the elephants did most of the damage is just as dishonest.
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p>Also kudos to you John D, Porcupine, David Stockman, and George Will for being real conservatives and wanting all the cuts to expire. Shame on the Dems for ceding the ground to the right by defending 95% of the cuts, and shame on the rest of the so called conservatives for wanting to tax cut our way out of a deficit which is illogical and preposterous.
christopher says
Even if you accept the argument that such justified a war footing (which I did relative to Afghanistan) or that it required new government agencies (again maybe reasonable), there is nothing about 9/11 that required us to cut taxes.
answer-guy says
While there is a (somewhat attenuated) connection between the 9/11 attacks and Afghanistan, there is no such connection with regards to the larger and more expensive Iraq adventure.
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p>That having been said…
1. Of course you’re going to have deficits if you insist on tax cuts during a time of war.
2. If tax cuts on the wealthy in particular were the answer to what ails us, then this recession which may or may not be over would never have happened in the first place. Taxes on the wealthy have not been this low since the 1920s.
mike-from-norwell says
NASDAQ peaked at 5,000 in March of 2000. Much of the Clinton era federal and state surpluses in the late 90s were the direct result of mythical capital gains revenue. When things collapsed I saw several clients’ accounts down 60-90% (depending on their level of hubris/greed on the way up). If you don’t acknowledge that in the discussion of surpluses and deficits, you’re not being honest.
amberpaw says
THEN the two parties, who are competing for “who is Tweedle Dee and WHO is Tweedle Dum” will take turns blaming each other while the demise of the unworkable and pandering-to-the-media/masses tax cuts passed under Bush die and the governments coffers fill up.
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p>Refilling those coffers is needed – either we collectively pay for our infrastructure or we become a third world haven for pot holes – and by creating gridlock, and blaming one another neither party is to blame for taxes relapsing into sanity…and both can blame each other and defer showing any backbone.
steve-stein says
They are neither.
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p>They are political opportunists who know they control what will be talked about in the national media. So when they are in power – tax cuts for the rich and no spending cuts, run up the debt and drive the economy into the ground. When they are out of power, complain about the debt and deficit, but thwart any attempts to tax the wealthy, because taxes are BAD.
kbusch says
I don’t know.
johnd says
What do you “think” will happen?
kbusch says
Neither. You’ve oversimplified the economists and overgeneralized about BMGers.
johnd says
The poll I cut and pasted said 83% of BMGers who voted said “let the cuts expire” and almost every economist (Democrat/Republican, even Robert Reich this evening on MSNBC…) I’ve heard said “we cannot withstand a tax hike now”.
johnk says
John, this is where you go astray with your argument. There is going to be a tax cut pursued, just not the same exact one that I think we all can agree didn’t stimulate the economy. What’s wrong with that?
johnd says
If Americans pay “X” in taxes and after they pass a bill Americans pay more than “X” in taxes, it is a TAX HIKE!
centralmassdad says
The same people who say that this isn’t a hike are the people who say a government program suffers “cuts” when its budget is increased by 3% instead of 5%.
kbusch says
First your poll didn’t offer too many choices. I know I didn’t answer it. What do those 30 votes represent? Beats me.
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p>Second your poll intentionally constrains things based on political assessment. What I think is right may not be possible.
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p>Finally, a tax policy is not like a light switch. It has more than one setting.
johnd says
Second it was not “my poll”.
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p>Lastly, why can’t you asnwer? Your comments so far are about what is wrong with my question. I won’t constrain you to a checkoff. What do you think they should do? Now if your answer is rewriting the entire tax code to fix it then I can see you not wanting (or being able) to write this down here.
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p>But in general summary format, what do you think (realistically) they should do about this situation?
kbusch says
I think the Republican position in Congress is all too clear. They are like pre-programmed robots in this respect.
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p>What’s less clear to me is what the Obama Administration will do and what the moderate (confused?) wing of the party will do in Congress. Without knowing that, I don’t know what good can be achieved — if any.
There are a number of factors I’d bake into a full consideration:
johnd says
I too believe continuing the tax cuts is wrong, but I can understand how economists are worried that taking money away from the people who spend it daily (unfortunately to pay for government) will contract the economy.
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p>I also think we have some very energized Republicans and many blue dogs like Manchin who may as well be DINOs. I will continue to say the Stimulus Bill was a disaster for the some reason so many other Obama initiatives were disaster, they were focused on social and ideological issues instead of jobs.
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p>I would be in favor of another Stimulus Bill but only if it was for real infrastructure work, people digging holes, pouring concrete… and maybe some energy programs which could put help us with energy conservation and manufacturing like boiler makers (the manufacturer, not the drink).
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p>I’m surprised you mention the debt since you have been a pretty strong Krugman supporter who has dismissed worries about the debt for the most part. Our debt interest payment will start to choke us soon too.
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p>Sorry you think the Republicans are robotic… don’t you think they are doing what the people elected them to do?
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p>Thanks for taking some time to comment.
kbusch says
One: I am not proposing anything.
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p>Two: My comments on the debt totally align with Krugman.
liveandletlive says
a financial death by taxes than allow the wealthy to hold onto the tax cuts that destroyed our collective prosperity.
johnd says
Is that like “I don’t like paying taxes so I’ll quit my job, that’ll fix’m”.
liveandletlive says
Our entire country is being held hostage by these damn
money buckets. If I have to cut off my nose to save my life, I’ll do it.
liveandletlive says
we either let the tax cuts on the top 2% expire or the entire thing should be let to expire. Of course, that will pull a huge chunk of money out of middle class pockets and the economy will fall even deeper, but to continue the tax cuts for the wealthy will only increase regressive state and local taxes anyway. So I can lose this way or I can lose that way. Hmmmm, which should I choose?
johnd says
Maybe they will extend the middle income permanently while putting a 2-3 year extension on the over $250K. Or maybe they’ll raise the threshold of “rich” to $500K or $1M. If they raise state and local taxes, the rich will have to pay as well.
christopher says
At least temporarily since that will be the result of no action and no action will be the result of neither side budging.
johnd says
christopher says
The President has issued a statement knocking down rumors he was about to cave.
johnd says
Axlerod let the cat out of the bag. Obama’s clarification simply said he needed to meet with Republican and Democratic leaders before he decided on anything.
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p>There is no way the result is going to be extension of Middle class cuts and nothing for the over $250K group, no way!
christopher says
EVERYONE is going to get their taxes reduced on their first 250K. I guess it depends on who wants their way more. Personally, I’d say, “Fine, if you insist we’ll just let them all expire – better for the deficit anyway.” Otherwise hammer them on the deficit they claim to be so concerned about and ask how they can advocate both continued tax cuts for the rich and getting the deficit under control.
sabutai says
…that Reagan-level tax rates for the rich will continue to be regarded as thoroughly unacceptable by Republicans.
somervilletom says
I think the lame-duck Congress should force the Democrat plan towards a vote — extend the middle-class tax cuts, and return to the higher rate for married taxpayers reporting more than $250K in income. I think the Republicans will fight it tooth and nail, and will attempt to filibuster it in the Senate (after it passes the House).
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p>I think President Obama and the Democrats should LOUDLY point out to the American public that the extension is on the table and that the GOP is blocking it. President Obama and the Democrats should fight as hard as they can — knowing full well they will fail.
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p>When the Democratic proposal ultimately fails to pass the Senate (and it will), President Obama should give a prime-time Oval Office address explaining to the American public that he and the Democrats did everything possible to solve the problem, and were again blocked by a GOP that places taking down President Obama above every other priority.
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p>Then, after the tax cuts expire and the new Congress takes office, the now-minority Democrats should resubmit the Democratic middle-class tax cuts at every opportunity. They should attempt to add them as amendments to every spending bill. They should force the GOP to block the needed middle class tax cuts over and over.
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p>If President Obama plays this correctly (and I think he will), then the deficit will improve (because of the increased tax revenue) and the GOP pandering to their high-income constituency will be front and center for the next two years.
christopher says
Unfortunately it looks like you have more faith in the President to point fingers than I do.
kbusch says
The Democratic caucus in the Senate seems incapable of playing such hardball
christopher says
I’m glad he won his own seat back, but he hasn’t been the most effective leader IMO.
kbusch says
He shows the symptoms of the problem but that’s because his job is to keep the Caucus together. I’m glad I don’t have to work with Senators Lincoln, Nelson, and Lieberman.
christopher says
…I would have told the Senators you mention to support the Dems on cloture motions. Once that was handled I’d let them vote against final passage since we had the votes to spare.
sabutai says
He was pretty good in opposition, and it was a great stunt he pulled to bring Jim Jeffords into the Dem. caucus. However, the only reason Lincoln, Nelson, and Lieberman are relevant is his refusal to bring up the filibuster for any sort of reform or challenge. I think that one mistake outweighs other good he’s done.
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p>I’d be happy turning pretty much the policy and political leadership of Senate Democrats over to Chuck Schumer.
kbusch says
It’s always possible that he didn’t bring up the filibuster precisely because Lincoln, Nelson, Pryor, or Lieberman might have threatened to bolt the Caucus or become uncooperative in other ways if he did.
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p>The robo-Republicans have few such problems.
johnd says
kbusch says
The question I’m raising is this: Reid’s tactics seem insufficiently aggressive. On the face of it, that could be because Reid himself is insufficiently aggressive. I’m suggesting that it could be the difficulty of holding the caucus together. That difficulty constrains him and undercuts aggressive action.
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p>Are you saying that my suggestion is correct? Have you any direct evidence for it?
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p>I know I don’t.
johnd says
We all know these people don’t bring up votes unless they know they are going to win… or want to publicize the people who are voting against an issue.
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p>I think Reid is a horrible leader and has not shown any power in that position. He had a long honeymoon period when President Obama was sworn in to get through many issues and then when the going got tough, he was virtually powerless.
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p>My comment above was saying that the list of conservatives he has to work with on the Democratic side goes beyond the four you mentioned. He will have great difficulty holding his group together with many elected or reelected Senators feeling the pressure from an angry mob of voters to change direction, be it right or wrong.
sabutai says
There were two ways to do it — hold a new organizing resolution (which would take 50 senators in favor), or rule the filibuster out of order (which would take a declaration by Senate President Joe Biden). The Republicans mooted doing something similar in 2007.
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p>I don’t know if Senate reform could have gotten 50 votes, but it would have been close. Now, there’s no way it hits 50.
kbusch says
The Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut reports
It might be true that Democrats are looking for progress and not gridlock, but Republicans just want to stop Obama. Gridlock works for them.
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p>Someday, perhaps, the Obama Administration will learn how to deal with Actual Republicans rather than Fantasy Republicans.
johnd says
will be happy with gridlock? The “party of NO” can only survive and strive when they are stopping policies which their supporters don’t like. They did it, people liked it and they elected them. That “bit” worked to get them there but if they continue then people (like me) will be pissed.
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p>I want them to fix things and not just stop things from happening. I think it’s a great opportunity for Republicans to take some chances and try to win people’s support vs simply getting a vote because we were “someone else”. We all know the support for Republicans is in the dumps with support for Democrats.
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p>I want Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan to stand up and say we need to cut defense, cut the entire budget back to 2008 levels of spending. I want a true reform of Medicare and healthcare (not healthcare insurance companies).
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p>Obama needs to sit down with Republicans and not blow them off as he’s done the last two years. Let’s stop with all the posturing and finger pointing. I’m not in favor of Mitch’s remarks about “defeating Obama as his #1 goal”. I know what he means by it, but that is not the kind of narrative which is productive. Jobs has to be everyone’s #1 goal, debt reduction before the bond market collapses has to be everyone #1 goal, restoring a stable housing market and easing credit has to be everyone #1 goal (ok, so we have several #1 goals…).
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p>I may be dreaming but that is what we need and I’m confident we can go that way.
christopher says
You mean like when he proposed a health care plan with many ideas crafted by the Heritage Foundation?
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p>Or when he agreed to a smaller stimulus in a vain effort to get a few more GOP votes?
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p>Or when he watered down financial reform?
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p>I WISH he had done more blowing off. We had the House, the Senate, and the White House. If this were the UK, for example, the majority party would just push things through on the strength of their own votes and the minority party’s only option would be to win the next election.
kbusch says
We might compare, for example, how the previous Administration treated the “Democrat Party”.
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p>What I think is more interesting though comes from the recent Pew Research Poll Charles Blow quoted this Saturday in the New York Times.
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p>People were asked, “Do you admire political leaders who compromise or stick to their positions?” Well, Republicans like people who stick to their positions 55% to 33%. Democrats aren’t sure. They prefer compromisers 46% to 45%.
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p>Underlining how unliberal the Democratic Party is, when asked what direction their party should move, Democrats preferred a moderate to a liberal direction by 54% to 34%. Republicans, by contrast, wanted a more conservative direction 56% to 38%.
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p>So we’re a party of compromisers facing a party that doesn’t like compromise so much.
christopher says
The tax cuts that are about to expire I believe had some co-operation with President Bush on our part even though there were questions has to the legitimacy of his election. Ditto No Child Left Behind.
johnd says
He must have taken a class in management where he would actively ask the workers under him for input on projects, we ll on everything. But he would then come up with excuses why none of the suggestions would work and he would go with his original plan. After a while, we got sick of the lip service he was paying us and nobody bothered to speak to him or give him ideas. He actually complained that he made all the decisions because nobody gave him feedback. DA!
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p>President Obama gave Republicans lip service. He had n intention of listening to anything they said. He needs to be inviting Republicans over to the White House and talking.
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p>Stop blaming Republicans Christopher, your guys had it all and didn’t use it right. Blame them!
kbusch says
johnd says
because we felt all our ideas were falling on deaf (albeit listening) ears. He got very defensive and perturbed our relationship.
christopher says
..but the President offered more than lip service. I gave just a few concrete examples of when he moved their direction only to have them make more demands. For me two things that really made me see the light regarding current Republicans is when they did not applaud tax cuts for businesses when the President mentioned them in a State of the Union and when some of them sponsored a bill to create a deficit commission only to reneg once the President announced his support. While the President was trying to govern the GOP put up every roadblock, facts and consistency be damned. Here’s hoping they’ll remember they must share responsibility for governing now that they have the House majority.
johnd says
kbusch says
I’m reminded of the frequent reports from Bush Administration insiders that the Bush White House had an excellent political apparatus but no policy apparatus. Everything was decided on its political merits.
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p>On the political merits, cutting defense spending never ever appeals to the Republican base. So there’s not going to be a Republican measure to cut back on defense.
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p>In other ways, the incoming Republicans resemble the Bush White House: Paul Ryan’s budget proposals don’t even add up and he’s their star theoretician. So while I find your hopes admirable, these guys haven’t even tried to be coherent on a policy level.
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p>They excel at coherence on the narrative level.
johnd says
On a number of occasions I said, time will tell, which it did. Concerning the Republicans who will be taking over the House, I do have hope. Time will tell very soon whether my hope is sophomoric foolishness or whether they actually accomplish something.
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p>I’m not in denial about the Bush years, but I do think the continual reminiscing of those years does not add anything to today’s equation. These are not the same people and they have not been elected with the same directives.
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p>What were the Obama’s administration’s failing? Was it their narrative or their policies? What do they have to do to fix it? Will he moderate to the right?
kbusch says
I’ve been pretty negative about the Obama Administration and you can read my ranty comment about it on an all-liberal’s thread. Short story: they’ve messed up both policy and politics. Nor do I know what bickering you’re referring to. I’ve been negative about Democratic prospects for most of this year and, in some comments, I’ve suggested that Democrats were over-estimating the existence of an anti-Tea Party backlash. You may be reading things into my objection to taunting when discussion is more interesting.
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p>Above, I’m not writing about the Bush Administration so much as comparing the current crop of Republican officeholders to it. With the Bush Administration, the image was striking.
christopher says
When polsters bothered to ask substantive questions rather than approval of handling questions, Americans often did side with the President, who was after all undisputably elected by them.
johnd says
I certainly have a view of what November’s election meant and you and others have their view. But somewhere mixed in there is the truth.
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p>Are the American people in favor of repealing the healthcare bill? Do they wants parts of it repealed? Do they want is replaced by a better bill? Do they want the public option? I could answer all these questions for you based on what I hear and how I read polls, but you will probably disagree. I find it amusing how polls which people don’t like, were asked the wrong question while poll results they do like were asked “substantive questions”.
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p>The American people gave a very strong message in the elections, which caused the Democrats to lose more seats in Congress than almost any other time in history. Anyone who believes the Dems had a communication problem is clearly in denial. A continuance of the same policies will yield an even bigger result in 2012.
jconway says
What should happen is letting the tax cuts expire and restoring 50% of our fiscal house instantly through the new revenue. Any serious fiscal conservative would do that first before we start cutting.
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p>Moving on. What will happen is that the Democrats, foolishly trying to be moderate and reasonable on this issue, one of the few where they should be dogmatic liberals, ceded 95% of the ground to the GOP. The GOP will then demand 100% and the Democrats will then give them 98% and call it a compromise when in reality Elliot and Stabler should be called up because someone just got raped really bad.
steve-stein says
Someone should ask those economists how the economy boomed even when Clinton raised taxes in ’93.
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p>Or how the economy could possibly have been strong in the 50s when marginal tax rates were more than double what they are now.
steve-stein says
I am pessimistic. The Democrats will cave, and Obama will sign on. No one on the Sunday shows will ask Republicans about the long-term debt implications of extending the tax cuts, and Obama will be blamed for the huge deficits in ’12.
steve-stein says
Having posted the poll in question, I have misgivings about polls attached to posts. Has there ever been an article with a strong point of view and a poll attached where the poll results didn’t agree with the point of view of the article? I haven’t seen one.
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p>So I mistrust these poll results. If the article had expressed a different point of view, the poll would have supported THAT. (I think.)