August 1, 2011

Yet Another Reason...

Hatched by Dafydd

Taxaholic President Barack H. Obama has been tireless in demanding that the federal government balance its books on the backs of hardworking taxpayers. His position appears to be a minimalist approach to spending cuts, coupled with a two-fisted clutch for all the extra taxes he can squeeze out of a battered and reeling population. And enough deficit spending to drown America in a sea of blood-red ink.

In his latest ultimatum to the American people, Obama swears that if the Republicans don't cave and give him the massive tax increase he demands, then he will refuse to renew the Bush tax cuts, saddling us with an automatic $800 billion in hikes:

After PresidentBarack Obama presented the outlines of a deficit-cutting deal on Sunday, White House officials stressed that he would veto any attempt to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans beyond next year unless other measures to reform the U.S. tax code were agreed....

Obama had pressed Republicans to agree to close some tax loopholes for corporations and raise taxes on the wealthy as part of a "grand bargain" deficit-cutting agreement. But Republicans balked, saying any tax hikes would hurt the economy, and that debate prevented a deal for weeks.

Now, if the deal passes, the issue of raising revenues will move to the new congressional committee. The White House said if tax reform does not succeed there, the tax cuts put forward by formerPresident George W. Bush will be history.

"The president has been clear that he's not going to sign an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. So absent any kind of comprehensive tax reform, you have $800 billion, roughly, of revenue that's going to be gained through the expiration of those tax cuts," a White House official said.

"That's something that is going to be, I think, a motivational thing for both parties, to kind of control the tax reform process as you can, as opposed to be victim to the expiration of those tax cuts."

The Obamunist, who has always longed to steal from the productive and give to the idle, sees himself in the catbird seat: The Democratic majority in the Senate will never allow Republicans to override the president's veto; so he imagines his tax attack is undefendable, forcing the GOP to cave. (We see it as indefensible.) His spokesmen typically revert to smirking, their natural style:

"The president has made clear that if we don't have comprehensive tax reform, he is not going to extend," one official said.

"And those in Congress will have to decide whether or not they will then allow the middle-class tax cuts to expire. Our sense is they probably won't. So, again, I think that's an incentive for everybody."

But Obama appears to have forgotten something important in his glee at being able to threaten the middle-income once more; he has forgotten the issue of timing. In fact, his plot has a gaping hole the GOP can hit with its eyes closed.

The Bush tax cuts are due to expire at the end of 2012... that is, on December 31st, 2012. My guess would be that Obama either pushed for or accepted that date because he didn't want to have to revisit it before the election. (Sound familiar?)

But the net effect is that the tax cuts don't expire until 55 days after the next elections -- and a scant three days before the 113th Congress convenes... and only twenty days before the president is sworn in, whether Obama or somebody new. And we'll know before the tax expires what the new Congress and (maybe) new White House will look like. More than likely, the incoming Congress will be significantly more Republican than the outgoing (112th); the GOP will probably control both chambers by strong margins.

Even if Obama is returned to la Casa Blanca, he will find himself a strangler in a strange land, whose only power is to throttle bills that don't have sufficiently widespread support among voters to encourage a few Democrats to join with all Republicans to overturn the Obamic veto, thus staving off a massive tax hike. I predict that to save his face, rather than suffer the humiliation of being overridden, Obama will cut a deal.

And of course, there is a very good chance that Obama himself will be a lame duck, solving the problem. Even if there are enough Democrats left in the Senate to filibuster the continuation of the tax cuts, the Republican majority could craft a new bill nearly identical to the old and send it through the un-filibusterable budget process.

Thus Obama's tax threat is completely empty: The "expiration" of the Bush tax cuts will be determined, not by Obama and the Senate Democratic majority, but by the Republican majority and perhaps a Republican president. The Bush tax cuts will almost certainly be either (a) extended another two years, if Obama manages to get reelected, or (b) made permanent if we have a new Republican president.

And of course, the crushing load of almost a trillion dollars in new taxes -- which looms over the American people, a Sword of Democratocles, so long as Obama occupies the White House -- gives voters yet another reason to vote the fellow out of office. Firing Obama is the swiftest and surest way to prevent the District of Columbia hoovering away even more of our own money.

Let him scurry off to New York to succeed U.N. Secretary General Nanki-Poo; that's more his style anyway, this "proud citizen of the world."

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 1, 2011, at the time of 3:38 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare

You are making the unwarranted assumption that the GOP won't cave during the Super Commission. It will be hard not to: if they keep tax rates as they are, it will be considered a multitrillion dollar cut and will trigger defense cuts. Which do you think the gutless turds in Congress will pick: throwing away the tax cuts (which won't be popular, anyway, due to the Democrats demagoguing the issue) or throwing away the military vote?

Basically, the GOP Congress just rescinded the Bush tax cuts. This will tank the economy and enable Obama to establish not "Obamunism," (stop being cute, Dafydd) but Stalin-type Communism, which will literally last until the sun goes into its red giant phase.

The above hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 1, 2011 7:14 PM

The following hissed in response by: LarryD

The end of the Bush tax cuts is already baked-into the scoring, the Commission doesn't get to count them against revenue. Thus the greatest pressure will be for spending cuts.

The above hissed in response by: LarryD [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 2, 2011 11:11 AM

The following hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare

So if it's "already baked-into the scoring," doesn't that mean it's inevitable? That if the GOP try to extend the cuts, they take a huge hit, and are forced to make cuts on a level they're not willing to make?

The above hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 2, 2011 12:37 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

You do realize that if you convince yourself that Republicans will always, inevitably do the worst possible thing, in every situation, no matter what -- then you may as well vote for Democrats. Why not? They can't possibly be worse than Republicans who always betray every principle, right?

I have a libertarian acquaintance who decided that the GOP would inevitably betray the economic principles that he shared with them. So in 2008, on the grounds that any chance was better than no chance, he voted for Barack H. Obama.

Does that seem like a good idea in retrospect?

When you live life in a perpetual state of despair, you lose the ability to make any sort of judgment -- and you become very susceptible to the "man on a white horse" syndrome.

If you truly believe that it's spiritually impossible for any Republican leader ever to do anything good, or at least measurably less bad than what Democrats do every day, then what's the use? Let's all just party like it's 1999 -- again.

But the reality is that even the 109th Congress, the last Republican Congress before the 2006 debacle, was hugely better than the Democrat Congress that followed -- and almost incalculably better than the 111th Congress (elected in 2008) coupled with the new president... elected in no small measure because conservatives refused to support John McCain on the grounds that it was "Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee."

Does anybody today believe that President McCain would have:

  • Rammed through ObamaCare
  • And a trillion-dollar "stimulus" bill
  • Implemented massive takeovers of banks, insurers, and other private corporations
  • Would have tried to "lead from behind" in a feckless and failing war with Libya
  • Practically doubled the deficit
  • Ruled by decree through various "czars," showing contempt for the very concept of governance "by the consent of the governed"
  • Utterly racialized the Department of Justice
  • Utterly politicized all the other departments
  • So corrupted the office of POTUS, with literal bribery, that its honor may be tainted for decades to come
  • Crawled on hands and knees to lick the boots of our worst enemies (while making our staunchest allies stay at Howard Johnson's when visiting D.C.)
  • Tried "outreach" to the Taliban and al-Qaeda
  • Kow-towed to Iran, China, and Russia

...and all the other things the current fellow has done in just two and a half years?

The idea that both major parties are "identical" is breathtakingly juvenile. It's just a shuck to avoid having to make sometimes hard choices between Bad and Infinitely Worse, while prodding Bad to become Better.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 2, 2011 1:38 PM

The following hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare

Put it another way: I don't object because I think the GOP is hopeless. I object because I've seen the great things the GOP can do: decrease taxes by over half during the Reagan years; reinvigorate the military, which had suffered post-Vietnam; bring down the USSR; push through welfare reform; defeat Clinton gun control and follow through to undo much pre-Clinton gun control (all right, that was more independent conservatives than the GOP, but you get my point), and push through the Bush tax cuts that partially undid the Clinton tax hike.

Now the last one of these, at least, is being undone by the current GOP. I don't object because the GOP is always wrong. I object because Boehner and McConnell are undoing a major accomplishment of my party.

The above hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 2, 2011 4:55 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dick E

Nanki-Poo, eh?

Well, I think our President resembles Pooh-Bah (Lord High Everything Else), who famously said, “I was born sneering.”

The above hissed in response by: Dick E [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 3, 2011 8:44 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

Dafydd,

I voted for McCain (Mostly due to Sarah Palin as Vice President) and I don't disagree that McCain would have made for a better President.

Here comes the but...

Sometimes in life, we need a good hard slap across the face. A bucket of cold water dumped over our heads. A wake up call.

For eight years we heard how Republicans are not different than Democrats. We heard how Republicans are big spenders and the Democrats got re-elected to a majority in both houses with Nancy Pelosi going on television saying she would get this crazy, out of control spending, under control.

We've now had our economic, Democrat induced, 9/11. And it's all thanks to Obama and the Democrats. Out of the ashes comes the Tea Party.

So, good things have come about even though McCain didn't get elected. No one can tell what "might have been" but i'd venture to guess that McCain, although better than Obama, wouldn't have been much better with a Democrat controlled house and senate. McCain loves to compromise. Things would have been better, but not be great amounts.

And the media would have continued to pour it on Mccain like they did Bush and in 2012, we'd get a huge Democrat controlled house and senate and an Obama.

Let's look at the bright side. Obama and the Democrats have brought as the possibility of a tremoundous 2012. The possibility of a large tea party caucus and president running the show come 2013.

If that becomes reality, it just might save our Republic.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 4, 2011 11:19 AM

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