Boehner To Obama: No, You Tell Dems To Pass Our Tax Bill
Source: TPM
SAHIL KAPUR 5:52 PM EST, WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2012
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) stonewalled President Obama's call Wednesday to extend the middle income tax rates set to expire in January, and hinted that the two will remain at a dead stop at least until they meet Friday.
"Well, I think instead of the House moving on the Senate bill, the Senate ought to move on the House bill," he told reporters during a late afternoon briefing in the Capitol.
A reporter pressed him on why he won't, as Obama suggested, vote to extend the middle income tax cuts both sides agree on the need to extend. "We are not going to hurt our economy and make job creation more difficult, which is exactly what that plan will do," he said. "It's not the direction we want to go because it's going to hurt job creators in America."
Boehner dodged again when asked about Obama's clear refusal to extend the lower tax rates for the top bracket.
"I look forward to my conversation beginning with the president on Friday," he said.
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Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/boehner-to-obama-no-you-tell-dems-to
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100% agree with you!!! "50%, take it or leave it. Just know, before you make your decision, that each time you refuse, the rate goes up 10%. Comprende? Got it?... and if you don't make your mind up by the recess, then buckle down, buddy, we're going to take a little ride over your cliff. kapiche? So what say you, Mr Speaker?" No more Mr nice guy, Mr President. 
You had me literally laughing out loud behind my monitor! I didn't expect that!
Never say never. When we win back the majority in 2014, WE will get to do some gerrymandering, right? And my suggestion, after we gain the majority again, is slice the USA up fair and square into sensible, non-salamander-like, districts and cast the old gerrymandering system in the history bin. Abolish it, period. Anyway, that's my idea, and I'm stickin' to it. 
but I don't think there is any redistricting allowed. I could be wrong. I HOPE I'm wrong cuz it would be wonderful to win back the seats in the House and kick those lazy-ass Republicans back into the minority where they belong. 
....that redistricting was done if you're the majority party, and now I do remember something about the Census having something to do with it too. Well, I say if it's good enough for CA, it's good enough for everyone. I look at CA as the laboratory for democracy. .
Redistricting, in most states occurs following the results of the decennial census (10 year) have been calculated, as that is how the number of House reps are determined... by population density. It is normally the majority party of the state legislature who draws the district maps. In those states where the Voting Rights Act is in effect (those who have a history of discrimination tactics in the voting process) have to have those district boundaries approved (precleared) by the DoJ via a DC district court panel.
Consequently, during this current session of the SCOTUS, Justice Roberts has decided that they will hear arguments and revisit Sec. 5 of the VRA to determine if it has outlived its usefulness... based on the premise that we now have a black president, I think it was??? 
Which is ludicrous given the fiasco that was Oh, FL, and still is AZ in this last election cycle. If they determine that it can be left behind and no longer applies, you KNOW they are bought and paid for shills of the neocons and will surely hand hamRove and his crime syndicate carte blanche in the next election... that being 2014 when we have our next chance to do some more House cleaning.
.... a democracy. When does that case come up in the SC? At the end of this term, like springish? If "Sec. 5 of the VRA has outlived it's usefulness since we have a black president." Do you think Roberts knows how absurd that sounds? There are a thousand threats on the life of the black President each and every day? That's like something you would hear out of the mouth of Lewis Black (my favorite comedian since the passing of George Carlin.) It's a right wing court, alright. Just because Roberts let Obama's ACA stand does not change the fact that it is a right wing court.
So, the state's re-juggle the districts as per the Census and whichever party has the majority in that state?
I never watched that though I saw it somewhere recently... dang. He's going to wish he'd been less foolish by the time he's 40.
Let's go with the Republican solution. 
That's been sooooo debunked but Boehner's still trying to get this past us??
Unbelievable. 
His picture is next to the word in the dictionary.
I was under the impression that we had won the election? And by a wide margin. Am I wrong? 
Who the hell is Boner to be telling us what to pass? I hope Mr. Tan Man loses in the next election and we're finally done with him.
is to continue to attempt to make this a one term president. I don't think cheetoman's sobered up enough to realize the election's over and he lost.
Aside from this being a slope rather than a cliff, I think it's only a cliff for those suicide bomber teabaggers, all those components don't HAVE to go into effect immediately on 1/1/13. And if we let sequestration go forth, the DoD will have to go through financial review, which will defund the damned wars and a more sane budget can be worked out for the DoD including more accountability from that end of DC. It doesn't have to hurt the social safety net either as the president also holds the power of executive order to tidy up any messes until the nest Congress can work this stuff out.
If we don't buy their bull and let the sequestration go forth, it will hang the baggers out to dry and we can castrate those weenie wavers with a machete... which is what I'm hoping for. There are so many details to be worked out here that I think it would be unwise to make a deal with this Congress and best to wait until the recently elected and more sane representatives reconfigure our tax structure and budget accountability requirements.
You represent a gerrymandate! 
House Speaker John Boehner recently stated that “According to Ernst & Young, raising the top rates would destroy nearly 700,000 jobs in our country.” In doing so, John Boehner was implicitly representing to the American people and to his colleagues in Congress that the report's methodologies were credible and its conclusions were worthy of belief. With this understanding, let's take a look at what the report actually had to say. (http://www.nfib.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=OMV7uZczVaM%3d&tabid=1083)
First, the Ernst & Young study was based on a very "long term" macroeconomic model which the authors of the Ernst & Young study described as follows: “For models of this type, roughly two-third to three-quarters of the long-run effect is reached within a decade.” (see footnote 22) Because the context in which House Speaker Boehner cited these job-losses implied that they would be a short-term impact of President Obama's tax policy, the Washington Post assigned Three Pinocchios to Boehner statement (calling his claim "simply absurd" .
Since the immediate economic prescriptions needed to help accelerate our anemic recovery must focus on the short-term, it is important to understand that the Ernst & Young study may be understood to actually support the opposite of Boehner's tax policy. In assessing the potential short-run effects, the Ernst & Young ("EY" study stated the following:
"While the EY GE model is used to estimate economic impacts in the long-run, the higher tax rates can be expected to have a short-run impact as well, although through a different channel. During periods when the economy is performing below full employment, changes in fiscal policy can be expected to have significant effects on economic performance. During such periods, there is often a strong case for fiscal stimulus provided other avenues for stimulating the economy, such as monetary policy, are not available or have been exhausted" (EY, page 12)
Did you catch that? The authors of the Ernst & Young study acknowledged the roll of simulative economic policies when an economy is weak - like it is today. The Ernst & Young study went on to endorse the predictions of the Congressional Budget Office ("CBO" on both the short-term effects should Congress allow our economy to fall off the fiscal cliff and the effects of postponing this economic disruption for another year:
"... CBO projects that under current law policies, the economy will contract by 1.3% in the first half of 2013 before growing by 2.3% in the second half of 2013, meeting the standard textbook definition of a recession of two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. The CBO also projects that employment would increase by 2 million more jobs under the scenario where the budget deficit is not reduced." (EY, page 12)
Prior to the election House Speaker John Boehner and the Congressional Republicans categorically rejected any tax increase to the wealthy (including contributors to the Republican PACs who tried to buy the election) and his deceitful 700,000 job-loss claim was a shameless and "absurd" scare tactic to further that agenda. This assessment of Boehner's dishonesty can be implicitly underlined when the above quotes from Ernest & Young report and the following quotation are combined:
"While CBO did not separately analyze the near-term effects of the provisions affecting high-income taxpayers, the deficit impact of the higher tax rates is nearly $70 billion or 10% of the total fiscal cliff in calendar year 2013, and totals nearly $1.1 trillion over the ten year budget window. Although a disproportionate share of the tax change is likely to be channeled through savings for taxpayers facing the top tax rates as compared to other taxpayers, these policies can still be expected to have significant effects on output and employment in the near term." (EY, page 12)
Therefore, based on the Ernst & Young report, the following may be concluded:
1. There appears to be some value in the government providing continued support for the demand side of our economy through a stimulus spending. In this regard, because there is near universal agreement that the United States is in need of infrastructure repairs and improvements and because we now have historic low interest rates for the Government's long-term borrowing, it would seem appropriate for Congress to support new investments in America's infrastructure to help jump-start our economy.
2. Since the present "fiscal cliff" law will, according to the Ernst & Young study, cause conditions that meets "the standard textbook definition of a recession", I believe most Americans will be unforgiving if Congress were to allow its propensity for acrimonious debate to further damage the economy. Also, because any delay in passing this legislation will, in itself, cause damage, including reducing the accumulated wealth of everyone with stock and similar investments, it would seem appropriate for Congress to act quickly by supporting President Obama's tax plan, which, in essence, will lower taxes for everyone -- except the very wealthy, from their scheduled January 1, 2013 levels.
3. As to Boehner's insistence that the rich also receive tax reductions, the Ernst & Young report correctly states that a "disproportionate share of the tax change is likely to be channeled through savings for taxpayers facing the top tax rates as compared to other taxpayers". This implies that the short term needs of our economy would be best served by allowing the tax cuts for the rich to expire, as the present law requires, and to use the resulting revenues to stimulate the economy as the Ernst & Young study appears to recommend.
As to the long-term effects of adopting President's Obama's tax plan, it is important to note that the relevant finding of the Nonpartisan Congressional Research Service were as follows:
"The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.
However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities."
SOURCE: Congressional Research Service, Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945, September 14, 2012 (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf)
This finding calls into serious question the central tenet of Boehner's economic theory. Also, when coupled with the finding that Boehner's 700,000 job-loss claim was "simply absurd", there should be no rational reason (other than self interest) for a majority in the House of Representative to oppose President Obama's plan. It was clear that President Obama's plan to lower taxes for everyone -- other than the wealthy, was the will of the people on election day and, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, 57% of Americans support it today. It is important that we write our Congressmen today to inform them of our displeasure should they permit November to end without the looming budget crisis having been resolved.
