When the Bush tax cuts expire, it is actually Democrats raising taxes.
And does anyone doubt they will get away with this latest campaign? Can you see David Gregory correcting anyone when they say this?
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David in NY
Gregory stumped the Republicans last week by asking how they would cut the budget, so maybe he would correct them, or at least appear skeptical of their claims.
maya
Does this mean I can also return the expired milk that’s stinking up my refer to Safeway and pick up a new one?
El Cid
Republicans have invented Time Travel in order to demonstrate the excellent budget balancing prudence of the Bush Jr. administration.
The Krug-Man:
[Repeated from last thread as it fits better here.]
If you’re a right winger, don’t waste your time on little lies. Go big or go home.
jl
I do not put much faith in what Greenspan says, but it will be interesting to see how much notice this gets:
Greenspan Calls For Full Expiration Of The Bush Tax Cuts That He Helped Enact
ThinkProgress
Pat Garofalo on Jul 16th
excerpt:
WOODRUFF: On those tax cuts, they are due to expire at the end of this year. Should they be extended? What should Congress do?
GREENSPAN: I should say they should follow the law and let them lapse.
WOODRUFF: Meaning what happens?
GREENSPAN: Taxes go up….
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/16/greenspan-bush-expire
This is kind of a repeat of a comment I made on an open thread Friday evening, but seems relevant for this post.
Edit: IMO, probably good economic policy, and good politics, to keep lower middle and low income tax cuts in place for now. But if politically difficult to tinker with expiration, then best to let the whole thing expire, and introduce another lower middle and working class tax cut as stand alone bill.
PaulW
Just remember: The Republicans can never be held accountable for anything they do. Just blame the Democrats and let the Sunday talk shows do the rest.
Redshirt
I used to say to myself, “Self, there’s no way the Repugs could blame the economy on Obama, right? We all just witnessed what happened under Bush, right?”
And then the Repugs blamed the economy on Obama, circa 01/09.
A. Regular
If the Democrats had competent leadership in Congress, they’d put together the Pony-mother of all progressive tax reform bills, with a lowered bottom rate, an increased top rate, tax credits for gay abortions, and for material purchases to construct giant protest puppets, and then make the Republicans either block it or vote for it.
General Stuck
Gregory will bring it up once, sheepishly forming into a question, of, “but democrats say”. The wingers will mumble for a minute or two. Then repeat the canard and that will be that. It will be like watching mean little robots loop de looping the same bullshit sentence or two and nobody will be able to shut them up. Just like Iraq, and mushroom clouds, and Saddam violating UN sanctions, and aluminum tubes used for centrifuges. Occasionally, someone will say “but wait a minute” and will make no difference at all. The drone of the wurlitzer will drone on. It is kind of beautiful in it’s simplicity and mind numbing repetition ad nauseum. But it fucking works.
As far as I’m concerned, this is the pivotal moment in Obama’s presidency. Fuck all this borrowing money shit. It is put up or shut up for Obama and the American people on doing the responsible thing, regardless of wingnut chorus messaging from broken record hell. Either this country starts paying for it’s shit, or continue the rot of passing it all off to someone else to pay for.
ALL of the tax cuts need to expire, and maybe some more increases are necessary. This is so important, imo, it is worth a one term only Obama presidency.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Bush did this all the time. His went something along the lines of not receiving a tax cut is the same as having your taxes raised.
The place I went to lunch to day – my boss drove – had FOX on. In one story, Megyn complained that the state was imposing itself on people because Massachusetts had put a note on a girls report card saying that she was fat. In the next story, she was complaining because paramedics, on their coffee break, refused to help a pregnant woman. (In an act of karma, one of the paramedics was shot in an off-duty incident at another time.) Isn’t a good samaritan law an imposition by the state?
ETA: The reason for the rant is that you will never get consistency, even moral consistency, as a result of anything they say or do.
gene108
Do you really expect the press to call out Republicans for lying and / or have the comprehension of the English language required to explain why bills passed through reconciliation, which aren’t deficit neutral lapse after 10 years?
I don’t.
For a bonus in disappointment, I also don’t expect them to point out the tax rates they are reverting to were passed by President Clinton, with VP Gore passing the tie breaking vote in the Senate, by reconciliation, without a single Republican vote in either chamber but will stay in effect because they reduced the deficit.
Of course it must be tough interviewing Republicans, because they lie so frequently, I bet it’s like, “do I call them on the first lie they said, second lie, third lie, fourth lie or screw it go to commercial, because who the hell watches these news shows anyway…it’s not like my rating’s will take a hit.”
Redshirt
@gene108: You can’t ask follow up questions, as you don’t want to risk access to your “Source”, do you?
Rick Massimo
Oh please, John. I heard Republicans saying this on C-SPAN in 2007 at the latest. This is “the biggest tax increase in history” according to RepubliFact.
And (ahem) SOME OF US were saying back in 2001 that they would say this.
timb
The writing for this is been on the wall since the 2008 campaign. Hannity’s been claiming that Obama would preside over ‘the biggest tax increase in history” and, when pressed, would say that letting the tax cuts sunset was actually a hike.
they are nothing if not opportunistic liars.
roshan
@El Cid:
One of the comments from the Krugman post
LOL.
I clicked recommend.
Another one:
LOL
gene108
What’ll be said is the Democrats, including Obama and Hillary in the Presidential primaries, were talking about letting the taxes lapse on people making more than $200,000 a year and continuing it for everyone else.
Republicans will block any attempt to raise taxes on the rich, so the law will lapse and we’ll all get a tax increase. They will quickly turn around and blame Democrats for raising taxes, because of their obstruction.
The media will quietly play stenographer to McConnell, Rove, Boner, et. al. and not point out Democrats tried to keep taxes down for 95% of Americans, but Republicans screwed it up by not wanting taxes raised on the top 5% and point out that if the rich have to pay a penny more in taxes, than Republicans need a pound of flesh from the rest of the country.
Jody
Everyone I knew that had half a brain was saying they were gonna say this back when they passed the damn cuts.
There’s literally nothing they won’t say or do, regardless of what actually transpired. They know the media will almost certainly not call them on it.
Rick Massimo
@roshan: I guess that’s true, although when I think “Wile E. Coyote effect,” I think of the fact that it doesn’t matter how many faceplants Republicans and conservatives do from 500 feet up and it doesn’t matter how many sticks of Acme dynamite blow up in their faces, they’re back for the next edition of Hardball or Meet the Press or Morning Joe with their new totally awesome idea that’s totally going to work.
Pangloss
Even as the GOP has the unmitigated gall to try to spruce up the economic disaster at the end of the Bush administration, they will also try to claim that Clinton’s good financial record was due entirely to the brave budget-cutting heroics of the Republican congress in the late 1990s.
BombIranForChrist
They will totally get away with this. Here is how it works.
1. Media parrots right wing talking point
2. Media parrots right wing talking point
3. Media parrots right wing talking point
4. Media accidentally posts a fact.
5. Kurtz uses #4 as proof that the media is not biased for next 350 news cycles
6. Media parrots ring wing talking point.
..
361. Media accidentally posts a fact.
etc.
some other guy
Who actually wrote the bill that included the expiration date, ie the “tax increase”? Republicans. Who signed this “tax increase” into law? George Bush, a Republican.
If Republicans thought these tax cuts should be permanent then they shouldn’t have put an expiration date on them. I suspect they only reason they did is because the long-term impact on the budget would’ve looked ridiculously bad (er, moreso) without it. They also passed a trillion dollar entitlement program (Medicare part D) without a funding mechanism… but now they’re pretending to care about the deficit and long-term debt. What kind of morons fall for this BS? Oh yeah, teabaggers.
timb
@Pangloss: I heard Limaugh the other day claim that the economy was bad under Clinton and any growth was the remnant of the tax cuts enacted by Renaldus Maximus. Counter-factual is too kind to that argument. They really do see the American people as dumbasses.
Cue Mencken quote about going broke and the American people
Jim, Foolish Literalist
To be fair, from what I’ve been reading, Gregory smacked Pete Sessions and John Cornyn around pretty good yesterday on the GOP’s refusal to name spending cuts (Tweety is airing it now, and his hair is the color of lemonade)
Crashman
@some other guy: I think it had to have the 10 year expiration because it was passed through budget reconciliation, a parliamentary procedure that was of course condemned by Republicans mere months ago as a tyrannical trick used to ram government controlled health care down the throats of the American people.
General Stuck
@some other guy: Democrats filibustered them, so they had to go through reconciliation to win them by a simple majority. As part of getting through that process, they did not pass the Byrd Rule, that any legislation passed by reconciliation could not increase the national debt past 10 years. Hence the ten year sunset/
cat48
Well, if they wanted these tax cuts to be permanent; the repugs would have passed them the regular, LEGAL way. Instead, they went against the Murican people, used a trick way to pass them that isn’t even legal (say some people) so they could RAM THEM DOWN OUR THROATS with only 51 votes when it always takes 60 votes and a bipartisan consensus!
The Moar You Know
Somewhat OT: it’s open enrollment, we just got the first quote from one of our health insurers. Increase for the year: 20%. Remedies under “Obamacare” – or from anyplace else, for that matter – none.
What the fuck did we pass last year? How the hell am I supposed to keep my employees insured? Health insurance is already the largest single expense we have save for salaries – more than our building mortgage, more than our utilities, more than anything. What the fuck am I suppose to do?
Mark S.
@some other guy:
They had to put an expiration date so they could pass them thru reconciliation. But that takes longer than 5 seconds to explain so the media doesn’t bother.
some other guy
@Crashman:
@General Stuck:
@Mark S.:
Thanks for the clarification.
Mnemosyne
Even the liberal Atrios is now saying that things were objectively better under Bush.
I’m assuming he had a couple of beers before he posted that.
arguingwithsignposts
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sadly, the right wing puke funnel won’t see it as such. I am increasingly despondent about the state of my home country. sigh.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne: I want what he’s smoking.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s kind of like saying Britain had more peace under Chamberlain than it did under Churchill. Technically true, etc.
Svensker
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, we just got a 27% increase. Looking at the timeline at healthcare.gov, the only monetary help this year is the tax credit of up to 35% of employer contributions for small businesses Most of the the significant changes don’t kick in until 2014.
QuaintIrene
It’s only Monday and I’m already depressed. More political lies (see above), reading that most Tea party-ers, (see below) think of Glenn Beck as some kind of historical scholar. Add to that, day four of another f*cking heat wave that shows no sign of breaking anytime soon.
In other words, John, I need some more pet pictures. Pleeze.
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
@Mark S.:
I think he’s trying to go for Cassandra-like croaking — i.e. if the administration doesn’t get on the ball and start improving the economy, people really will start getting nostalgic for Bush — but it, um, didn’t exactly come across that way.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
Atrios may be suffering from Obot Derangement Syndrome
jurassicpork
And when we leave Iraq and Afghanistan in shame, it’ll be Obama’s fault for starting those wars, right? Because we all know American history starts with Obama.
Anyway, I wanted to thank anyone and everyone who stopped by my place to help our Mrs. JP and me during our most recent and alarming difficulty. We’re not out of the woods, yet, but we understand that many, many others are hurting and our heartfelt thanks especially go out to those who gave while smarting themselves.
bkny
tweety just gave several uninterrupted minutes to mike pence to spin away, including that very point.
no way did dana priest get the time allotment pence did.
GregB
If Republicans really believe that reducing taxes increases tax revenues then they should all support tax increases because that decreases tax revenues and leaves the citizens with more of their hard earned cash.
Corner Stone
@The Moar You Know:
Why do you hate Obama?
Lily Ledbetter. FinReg. Stimulus. HCR…oh wait.
D-Chance.
The Second Revolution is almost here… the “patriots” are just waiting for the right person to say the word.
But, I’m sure this is just one lone nut… same as the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one…
General Stuck
@The Moar You Know: Even if the Health Care bill, that was passed this year btw, had all the ponies including a PO, there still would big increases till it kicked in, in 2014. The subsidies and expansion of medicare that did get passed, I think kicks in before then. I was reading today where you are not alone and many small businesses have just recently dropped coverage. I blame the greedy HC insurers for their last gulp of profiteering and punch in the gut to America. But that’s just me.
James Hare
@Svensker:
Problem one of gaming policy that needs to be done for meaningless CBO estimates. By the time some of the stuff in the bill gets implemented we may have President Palin implementing it.
If that happens I’ll be in our neighbor to the north. Their summers are more livable anyways.
Nick
@Mnemosyne: Sure, and things were much more peaceful under Buchanan than under Lincoln.
D-Chance.
Beck is going blind… so we now have a Wingnut Trio of Beck, Limbaugh, and Palin in the respective roles of being blind, deaf, and dumb. I see a cartoon of three monkeys somewhere yet to be drawn by a far better artist than myself.
Nick
@The Moar You Know:
we passed HCR this year and it doesn’t fully kick in for a few years.
some other guy
@The Moar You Know:
The company I work for stopped giving raises about 5 years ago and doesn’t bother to replace any employees who leave the company (through retirement or changing jobs voluntarily, there have been no layoffs).
So while the company’s insurance rates go up by double digits every year, percentage-wise, I figure that we’ve downsized away at least 1/3 of the positions in the company since I’ve started and revenues have (thankfully) remained relatively stable.
We’ve also increased lead times, raised prices, discontinued low-volume / high-overhead product lines, redesigned our remaining products to use as many common parts as possible to lower costs, reduced the quality of our product literature, cut our advertising budget, cut our training budget, cut our travel budget…
The company has stayed profitable, and the remaining employees have remained insured, even if we are more than a little bitter about not seeing our take-home pay keep pace with inflation. Right now I’m just happy to have a job, and insurance is a big plus.
The Moar You Know
@General Stuck: Stuck, I blame them as well, but blame doesn’t do me any fucking good here. I can’t drop coverage, what we do involves exceptionally skilled workers who can and do demand benefits. I lose my workers and I’m out of business. I get increases like this and I’ll be out of business, just more slowly.
If this keeps going until 2014, I will be out of business and there will be a bunch more folks on the unemployment rolls.
I’m pissed because I just realized I’ve been sold the proverbial “bill of goods” with this health reform bullshit, and that nobody on either side of the aisle has the slightest interest in helping me, or my employees.
I can’t remember the character’s name in The Grapes of Wrath, but he goes down to the bank to shoot the people who are taking his property. It is explained to him that it’s not a person, it’s “the system”. Not getting it, all he can ask is “who do I shoot?”
Who do I shoot? It’s a rhetorical question, of course, I’m not about to shoot anybody, but damn, what do you do when the system no longer allows you to exist?
some other guy
@D-Chance.:
I wonder if it has any thing to do with the stuff he rubs in his eyes to make himself cry.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: It’s not wrong that the economy was better for most people under most of the Bush Jr. presidency. (No matter how much gasoline was spilling into the basement.) In fact, that’s the entire notion of a crash into the George W. Bush Jr. / Reagan II Great Recession.
Likewise my quality of life would be much better if I spent $100K with credit cards and 2nd / 3rd mortgages for a few months, and then that would eventually no longer be good.
I just don’t think the GOS diary Atrios is using the comment for has anything to do with the context he suggests.
When Republicans say they would like to return to the Bush Jr. economic policies, they don’t mean traveling back in time so as to enjoy the pre-crash years again, but to reanimate those policies as if those horrible policies were the cause of the pre-crash better economy.
General Stuck
@The Moar You Know: Like I said, it seems this is happening nationwide, and therefore means a potential political problem for dems and Obama. So try and hold on, is all I can say, there can be fixes, so maybe there will be for small businesses getting squeezed to death before this bill kicks in.
D-Chance.
@D-Chance.: I haz no skillz whatsoever…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@BombIranForChrist:
Fixt, ’cause you left out a few steps.
It works sort of like a reverse Hawking Radiation, in which the black hole keeps getting bigger in mass.
Steaming Pile
@jl: And do it this year. Call it the 2011 Tax Reform Act of 2010. Whereas, the Tax Reform Act of 2001 will be deemed to have lapsed, and the following new tax rates will be in effect on January 1st, 2011… Something like that. In fact, don’t even discuss the 2001 tax cuts at all, and when the GOPers try to bring up the subject, just say “it’s dead, Jim.” Only discuss what we’re doing going forward as if no one from the other side had even opened his piehole – that’s all.
Then really reform the estate tax, excluding those types of assets the right loves to cry about, like family-owned real-estate and “small” businesses valued up to some ridiculous number, like 20 million dollars, as determined by some pre-determined independent authority. Watch them sputter and spit and holler about how we shouldn’t even have an estate tax at all. Ignore all the sputtering and spitting. Mention the number of G-20 nations that have no estate tax.
Then really reform Social Security, adjusting tax rates and ceilings in such as way as to make it unnecessary to monkey with the retirement age. Watch the sputtering and spitting that ensues even as they see just how small these adjustments are.
And do it all in the month of October. Of course, this won’t happen, but I can dream.
b-psycho
@The Moar You Know:
…dismantle it?
Yes, I know, obviously it’s complicated. But if the alternative is death, I fail to see how there’s a choice.
Steaming Pile
@roshan:
It wouldn’t bother me. I’d reply with something like, yeah, the people I have to live with are real morons. I can attest to that. The only people who would be bothered by something like that would be those who would say it just to put you on the offensive. Just like SUV drivers who say they drive them because they actually need them for whatever reason and get all offended when you talk about suburbanites who drive them to look “cool.”
You gotta call these people on their BS.
Comrade Dread
Used to be a rule of thumb that any tax increase was permanent regardless of its stated duration or purpose.
I think it’s time to ditch that rule and assume that any tax cut will be treated as permanent instead, regardless of whatever bull the GOP luminaries of they day try and peddle.
Ailuridae
@The Moar You Know:
Largely they passed reforms to the individual market.
@General Stuck:
No offense but the primary driver of health care costs has little to do with insurers and everything to do with the outrageous amounts of compensation to providers, particularly specialists, and hospitals.
Ailuridae
@The Moar You Know:
Who do I shoot? It’s a rhetorical question, of course, I’m not about to shoot anybody, but damn, what do you do when the system no longer allows you to exist?
I am just furthering your analogy and not advocating actual violence but if you are “looking for who to shoot” the answer to that has been the same for a long time: doctors. Its an uncomfortable truth that most people won’t utter but health care costs are swallowing a huge portion of the US economy while delivering below average care and the primary driver for medical inflation is not insurance company profits but doctors’ compensation and large health care provider (hospitals, etc) profits.
Gregory
@timb:
Fine. Then it’s a “hike” passed by Republicans and signed into law by George W. Bush.
They can have it.
(But since Democratic message discipline sucks, they won’t have to.)
ETA: Or, what some other guy @#20 said.
General Stuck
@Ailuridae: ok, I am corrected.
maya
@D-Chance.: Then that old masturbation caveat is true afterall.
Nick
@Ailuridae:
YES!!! and there really isn’t any way to solve this problem outside of, for example, limiting doctor pay or rationing tests, etc.
And that’s never gonna be popular.
Nick
@The Moar You Know: There’s $40 billion in government subsidies in the HCR bill aimed at small businesses who provide healthcare to their employees, just FYI
TenguPhule
I call bullshit.
Half of the problem is that doctors have to literally jump through hoops to get the damn insurers to actually pay them.
Insurers fuck us coming and going, they raise rates and drop coverage whenever possible while at the same time denying payment whenever they can because the longer they can hold onto the money, the more they can make off the investment its in.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Are you sure that the employer credits for health care purchases don’t apply to you? The credit kicks in in 2011, but you might be able to take advantage of some of the provisions now.