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Do You Favor Or Oppose The Current Fiscal Compromise? (Original Post) DemocratSinceBirth Jan 2013 OP
I dont see the GOP House Passing It dballance Jan 2013 #1
It works for now IMHO, in the long run we just have to keep speaking out and hoping for the best Liberalynn Jan 2013 #2
I don't even pretend to understand it so I have no opinion Fumesucker Jan 2013 #3
Going off the so called cliff would've garnered a whole army behind the president to fight the GOP mother earth Jan 2013 #4
Can you explain what you would have liked to happen, and how you think it would play out? muriel_volestrangler Jan 2013 #9
Maybe this will explain better than I can: mother earth Jan 2013 #10
Interestingly, he says "I think a reasonable person can defend the bill on its own terms" muriel_volestrangler Jan 2013 #16
Oh, you don't "see" it. Same old, same old, giving it all away before any mother earth Jan 2013 #18
And for "how much evidence do I have" to think people would demand the GOP get off their collective mother earth Jan 2013 #13
Starvation, poverty, homelessness, despair, sickness... Chan790 Jan 2013 #14
It always was a "game" of chicken & completely reversible...days...we'll never know mother earth Jan 2013 #15
Slightly better than nothing. Prometheus_unbound Jan 2013 #5
We don't know what the deal is yet Yo_Mama Jan 2013 #6
It's better than I thought we would get, or at least this quickly. nt bemildred Jan 2013 #7
The GOPers seem to be hating it, so I guess it must be OK. The Velveteen Ocelot Jan 2013 #8
It is what it is. rucky Jan 2013 #11
In today's political climate this is a huge accomplishment madokie Jan 2013 #12
How do you 'fix' a fake crisis? leftstreet Jan 2013 #17
 

dballance

(5,756 posts)
1. I dont see the GOP House Passing It
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 11:42 AM
Jan 2013

I don't think they were cowed one bit by the fact they lost in the last election. I also don't understand their strategy.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the lower chamber (and I mean "lower" in every sense of the word) that is supposed initiate spending bills? Not just throw up their hands and abdicate their responsibilities by throwing it to the Senate.

 

Liberalynn

(7,549 posts)
2. It works for now IMHO, in the long run we just have to keep speaking out and hoping for the best
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 11:47 AM
Jan 2013

and I am really glad there is no Chained CPI included.

If they negotiate more revenue later then I can live with this. What I don't like is we have to through all this again in March, thanks to the Pukes. Couldn't they give us at least a year with a little certainty?

Fumesucker

(45,851 posts)
3. I don't even pretend to understand it so I have no opinion
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 11:50 AM
Jan 2013

We don't even know for certain about Congressional pay raises yet, there are conflicting reports up in GD right now.

mother earth

(6,002 posts)
4. Going off the so called cliff would've garnered a whole army behind the president to fight the GOP
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 11:54 AM
Jan 2013

stranglehold. I'm sorry, there comes a time when you simply must stand for something, the whole backbone of our party is calling victory? This so called chess game is a shameless excuse of same old shit, different day, kick the can down the road, yet again, & it's killing us. We are going down into a deep sinkhole. I see ineptitude, let the chips fall where they may & don't participate in this joke on the people...go off the cliff & fight, this could've been real strategy, instead the cave in came.

It's not enough, where's FDR? Instead we have republican-lite & we are supposed to embrace this as progressive? Hell no, we are getting to the GOP goals simply slower than if Rmoney were in the WH. Money rules this poor excuse for governance, it's not representative at all, unless you are Wall St., bankers or the wealthy.

There's no accountability & there's no democracy...so let's give them all a raise & wave the flag.

Am I missing something here? How Orwellian has the democratic party become, we are the new republicans...WTF?
No, not even, what the hell have we become? This is broken gov't, blame who you will...it takes two parties to continue this charade, no this is one party rule....the do nothing party & it's enabled by BOTH parties.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,153 posts)
9. Can you explain what you would have liked to happen, and how you think it would play out?
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 12:28 PM
Jan 2013

I really would like to understand those who think this is an awful deal, but most explanations have got sarcasm or rhetorical questions in that I really can't distinguish from actual wishes or predictions.

I've got your first part: Obama and Biden should have said "no deal", and then all the pre-arranged changes for Jan 1st start - income taxes back to 1990s levels for pretty much everyone, end of extended unemployment benefits, payroll taxes back up by 2 percentage points; various spending cuts, both military and non-military.

Economists think this would, if allowed to stand, cut GDP so that it shrinks about 0.5% in 2013, and increase unemployment by about 1 percentage point. You say most people would rally behind Obama, because this doesn't look good - and demand what? How much evidence do you have for what you think people would demand the GOP do at this point?

mother earth

(6,002 posts)
10. Maybe this will explain better than I can:
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 12:56 PM
Jan 2013
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/111521/the-cliff-compromise-bad-the-strategic-consequences-are-disastrous#

--My far bigger gripe with the whole fiscal-cliff exercise has always been the strategic dimension—how it affects the next showdown with the GOP, and the one after that. Coming into the negotiation, Obama had two big problems: First, no matter how tough he talked, Republicans always assumed he’d blink in the end, for the simple reason that he pretty much always had. (This is one of the major themes of my book about his first term.) Second, despite the results of the most recent election, in which Obama won a fairly commanding victory on a platform of raising taxes on wealthy people, the GOP continued to believe that public opinion was mostly on its side. House Republicans cited the preservation of their majority—never mind that their own candidates received fewer total votes than House Democratic candidates—and polls showing most Americans still think government is too big.

Fortunately, the fiscal cliff offered Obama a chance to solve both these problems. He could afford to be unyielding because the economic consequences of going over the cliff for a few days or weeks would be relatively minimal and almost entirely reversible. And doing so would immediately demonstrate to the GOP that public opinion was emphatically not on its side—polls showed that the public reaction to going over the cliff would be both intense and heavily trained on Republicans. Throw in Obama’s post-election bump in approval ratings, and there was never a better time to hold out.

Instead, the emerging deal will reinforce the convictions that have made the GOP such a toxic presence in Washington. If Obama will cave even when he’s got all the leverage, when won’t he cave? Never, the Republicans will assume. If Obama’s too scared to stop bargaining and let the public decide who’s right in this instance, when the polls appear to back him, then he must think our position is more popular than he lets on. Suffice it to say, these are not sentiments you want at the front of Republicans’ mind as they prepare to shake him down over the debt limit in another two months. The White House continues to maintain that it simply won't negotiate over the limit. After this deal, why would any Republican ever believe this? I certainly don’t, and I desperately want to.

As in previous rounds of Obama-GOP negotiations, a lot of liberals are surely hoping that the lunacy of the House Republicans will save us from Obama’s overly generous offers. And, it’s true, House Republicans can normally be relied upon to reject a deal that’s absurdly generous by any objective measure but falls short of their virtue-police standard of purity. They may well do so again tonight, inshallah. But that doesn’t solve the broader strategic problem. Obama has already shown his cards on the parameters that will define his negotiations with Republicans throughout his second term. And there’s no one to save us from that.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,153 posts)
16. Interestingly, he says "I think a reasonable person can defend the bill on its own terms"
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 01:50 PM
Jan 2013

and seems, rather, to object to Obama (and Biden) getting there by negotiation, rather than waiting for public opinion to manifest itself, somehow (petitions? Calls to representatives? Demonstrations in the street? Opinion polls?), in a way that opens Republicans' eyes, nearly 2 years before their next re-election, and gets them change their own negotiating style. I just can't see that 'public opinion' is going to shame the Republicans into trying to help govern responsibly in just a month or two. And it would have to happen that quickly to stop the new recession and unemployment.

Still, I can't see an argument in the article for the way you denounced Obama in #4.

mother earth

(6,002 posts)
18. Oh, you don't "see" it. Same old, same old, giving it all away before any
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 02:18 PM
Jan 2013

real demonstration of political strategy. You don't "see" what might have been if he had used the strength laid before him? Big picture type of thing...cake vs. crumbs. Then, sadly, we shall agree to disagree.



mother earth

(6,002 posts)
13. And for "how much evidence do I have" to think people would demand the GOP get off their collective
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 01:02 PM
Jan 2013

ass? We won the friggin election, we have a consensus to DO SOMETHING! No more slow death!!! When do realize the GOP is dead? We have given them new ammunition & life, by not using what we had, & what would have certainly amounted to CHANGE and probably more along the way...it's time to stop playing it safe & GO FOR IT.

This is WHY people are fed up...nothing changes, we go along our way, happy for a crumb.

 

Chan790

(20,176 posts)
14. Starvation, poverty, homelessness, despair, sickness...
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 01:04 PM
Jan 2013

that's what 3M Americans face immediately if we go off the cliff. No thank you.

mother earth

(6,002 posts)
15. It always was a "game" of chicken & completely reversible...days...we'll never know
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 01:09 PM
Jan 2013

the harm we caused by caving...or, I fear, we will know all too well if recent history gives us any indication.

Hey, we've been giving away the farm, why stop now? Nothing ventured, nothing gained...status quo lives on.
We must love status quo & crumbs...we celebrate it.

5. Slightly better than nothing.
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 11:58 AM
Jan 2013

I'd have liked the tax cut extensions to focus on the lower rather than the higher income brackets, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.

Yo_Mama

(8,303 posts)
6. We don't know what the deal is yet
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 12:01 PM
Jan 2013

Sure, we know what is in the bill passed in the Senate, but there's a whole lot of details still to be ironed out by March, so we don't know what the real deal is.

As for what we know now, there are some good points and some bad points. What the Senate passed was a bill that raised federal taxes by approximately 180 billion this year in comparison to last year, of which about 120 billion came out out of earned wages $113,700 and lower. Maybe that's off - we'll get the CBO scoring when they have a chance. But the FICA tax increase is going to be in the range of 117 billion to 126 billion this year. The annual increase in income/estate taxes is being talked about as about 60 billion.

Unemployment benefits were extended. That is good. A whole bunch of lower-income and middle-income tax cuts were extended, and I am certainly in favor of continuing the child tax credit and the EITC expansion.

But we know nothing about what else will be done this year to deal with our fiscal problems, which are dire. So how can anyone judge this at this time?

Under the bill passed by the Senate, sequestration begins March 27th. Now sequestration this year was always a minor part of the fiscal cliff - it's less than the FICA tax increase. But on the other hand, this bill passed by the Senate does not have any compensations, so there are either going to be more spending cuts down the line or more future cuts in entitlements or more tax increases.

The Velveteen Ocelot

(115,276 posts)
8. The GOPers seem to be hating it, so I guess it must be OK.
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 12:15 PM
Jan 2013

I'm not clear on the details, so I can't form much of an opinion, but if they hate it there must be something good about it.

madokie

(51,076 posts)
12. In today's political climate this is a huge accomplishment
Tue Jan 1, 2013, 01:00 PM
Jan 2013

My hat is off to the President/Vice President Team

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