37% = FAIL. Let's face it, the "Fiscal Bluff" is the best deal we're going to get.

[grahamhgreen]

Last edited Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:37 PM - Edit history (1)

"The fiscal cliff deal comes clearer: a 37% top tax rate and a higher Medicare eligibility age"

- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/07/the-fiscal-cliff-deal-comes-clearer-a-37-top-tax-rate-and-a-higher-medicare-eligibility-age/

37% IS an extension of the Bush tax cuts!!!!

FAIL

Give me the Fiscal Bluff.

[Old Codger]

1. The fact is

That the only way it will ever get fixed is to stop playing with it and let it happen then get serious about really fixing it. I doubt that will happen, they will slap some temporary "fix" on it and play some more headlines, that seems to be the only way they can do things anymore.

[Marrah_G]

2. So once again the rich win and working people lose

.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. The $ the Rich get to keep = the money slashed from Medicare

Virtually exactly. The Bush tax cuts were unpopular at the time. Americans polled strongly against them. Al Gore won the popular vote. Dick Cheney cast the tie breaking vote in the Senate to make the Bush cuts law. By law they aere supposed to expire in 10 years.

So now, in 9rder to let the rich keep some of those boudget busting unpopular and temporary tax cuts, all Americans are being asked to delay receiving Medicare by 2 additional years.

A deal like that should be fought on the streets.

[grahamhgreen]

14. That's s great point and completely

unacceptable.

Why would we accept a deal that's actually worse than doing nothing?

[Aerows]

4. Don't fall off it

Jump.

Democrats will be heralded as staunch stalwarts if they do. If they cave, they can kiss a House majority goodbye in 2014. They got a mandate, and if they don't use it, they won't get another.

[ProSense]

5. Proof that post was nonsense

Here's Ezra pushing another idea, and still claiming to hate the previous one.

A better way to raise the eligibility age for retirement benefits.

Posted by Ezra Klein

Over the last few days, I’ve reported that raising the age for Medicare eligibility is very much on the table in the fiscal cliff talks. That has led some to believe that I support the ideas as part of a deal. I don’t.

I’ll be clear: Raising the Medicare eligibility age makes no sense. It cuts federal health-care spending but raises national health spending, which is what really matters. It doesn’t modernize the system or bend the cost curve. It doesn’t connect to any coherent theory of health reform, like increasing Medicare’s bargaining power, increasing competition in Medicare, ending fee-for-service medicine, or learning which treatments work and which don’t. I’m not opposed to cutting Medicare — quite the opposite, actually — but this is a particularly brain-dead way to do it.

Its importance in the negotiations is attributable to the fact that raising the age at which Americans can receive Medicare and Social Security has a weird, symbolic power in Washington. As House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi puts it, the eligibility age is “a trophy” that Republicans can bring back to their base. Though the policy is deeply unpopular with voters, it’s quite popular among Republican elites.

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/10/a-better-way-to-raise-the-eligibility-age-for-retirement-benefits/

It's a horrible idea that makes no sense, but here is a better way to screw over seniors to appease Republican elites?

Are talks between Obama and Boehner already breaking down?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021956768

[HiPointDem]

6. go over the cliff & let the republicans own it. then tar them with "won't compromise, killing

seniors, children & workers while giving entitlements to the rich"

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. I'm with you.

[Egalitarian Thug]

8. Fiscal Bluff, I like it. You are correct, the consequences of inaction are, or should be, the very

least we should accept. Maybe this time the Dems will understand who it is that gave them their jobs.
& R

[JaneyVee]

9. The OP's scenario IMHO would be considered a loss for our side. BIG time.

[gollygee]

10. Yeah I think we have to go over this so-called cliff

Which is a propaganda phrase anyway, but still we have to do it and call their bluff.

[forestpath]

11. If they do this my voting days are over.

[DemocracyInaction]

12. Are you surprised we are being played?

Obama wants to protect the rich while looking like he is our protector and wants to gut ss and Medicare as much as the rich do in order to "adjust" our lives as quickly as possible for their benefit. And we thought the Kochs lost....silly people. The repukes will be soon doing the Bohner "I got 95%" of what I wanted dance and we will be the fanatic "retards " a la Rahm again....and the repukes will be given a new birth of life so we can all raise a billion for the next election. Over the next few years we will be gutted even more.

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. The tax rates for the 1%, though important, are small potatoes & a distraction from the vital issues