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You are here: Home / So Much Win

So Much Win

by John Cole|  November 10, 20108:10 pm| 72 Comments

This post is in: Bring on the Brawndo!

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I just got around to checking out the memo from Simpson and company, and I gotta say, I am impressed. I mean, why hasn’t anyone else suggested cutting tax rates to balance the budget (and spare me the “They’ll make it work by getting rid of deductions!”)? Look how well it worked the last decade!

The Chinese can’t take over soon enough.

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72Comments

  1. 1.

    bleh

    November 10, 2010 at 8:17 pm

    Don’t forget the intrinsic fairness of cutting the tax rate for the wealthy by a third while simultaneously squeezing a few more pennies from the poor by eliminating the EITC. Now that’s fair and balanced!

  2. 2.

    J.W. Hamner

    November 10, 2010 at 8:17 pm

    Wake me again for this nonsense when we actually have a debt crisis. Too much of any solution is completely politically toxic to ever happen when we don’t actually need it to.

  3. 3.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 10, 2010 at 8:17 pm

    Because it’s real and honest and vital? at least that’s what sully said.

  4. 4.

    General Stuck

    November 10, 2010 at 8:19 pm

    A Clinton dlc free trader and gold plated libertarian wingnut probly shouldn’t surprise us. It should be called The Monty Python Report, instead of Catfood Commission. giant pratfall.

  5. 5.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 8:21 pm

    The tax decrease thing is probably just a political tell. Start by lowering them, bargain your way to keeping them where they are?

    Please?

    Reads like a Republican wet dream to me for the most part. It’s simple, really, the very wealthy are generally the ones that got us into this mess, and they’ll be damned if they’re going to get us out, fiscally.

    Without them, after all, nobody would even be able to work, much less want to.

  6. 6.

    Derelict

    November 10, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    It’s a great proposal that gives my millionaire friends yet more of the tax cuts they need to continue not creating the jobs they haven’t created for the last 30 years. Meanwhile, it takes away the EITC, the food stamps, AND the only hope of retirement my working-poor friend has.

  7. 7.

    AT

    November 10, 2010 at 8:24 pm

    Well if the country is going down the sh!tter we need to make sure that the rich get to build up some reserve so they can go and buy their own islands when it all goes down.

    How can they save the cash needed the current rate? A smallish island for their immediate family and 10-15 servants just isn’t large enough, no one can be expected to survive on that, they need at least 30 servants, that requires tax cuts now!

  8. 8.

    MikeJ

    November 10, 2010 at 8:25 pm

    @John O: Without the rich why would anybody even *want* to build a guillotine? They keep the rest of us motivated.

  9. 9.

    JGabriel

    November 10, 2010 at 8:25 pm

    John Cole:

    I mean, why hasn’t anyone else suggested cutting tax rates to balance the budget…? Look how well it worked the last decade!

    The last three decades. That was St. Reagan’s platform too. Why anyone thought Alan Simpson would push any other platform is beyond me. Reagan was his hero, and those were Simpson’s glory years, when he was a fresh and virile young Senator, and his bald spot had yet to turn gray.

    .

  10. 10.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 8:26 pm

    On further reflection, I could live with those tax rates under the condition there was one more, at about 90%, on income above $1,000,000.

  11. 11.

    BGinCHI

    November 10, 2010 at 8:27 pm

    I’ll say what I said on an earlier thread, but with more analogy.

    You get two old rich assholes to lead a commission, and this is what you get. Repetition of the last rapacious go at the tax rates.

    It’s like hiring two tea baggers on scooters to cover a 50 Cent song.

  12. 12.

    Susan Ross

    November 10, 2010 at 8:28 pm

    I have simply accepted the fact that the United States of America is turning into a complete joke, and it’s probably time to make plans to seek your fortune elsewhere. We are rapidly becoming a failed state.

  13. 13.

    jl

    November 10, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    Now we know it is a fraudulent or foolish GOP plan (is there any other kind?): lower taxes and promise that this will help solve the deficit problem by a recommendation that loopholes be closed.

    Yeah, that will work.

    And a spending cap.

    Talkingpointsmemo says that both Obama and Conrad are distancing themselves from this piece of boring hashed over nonsense.

    These Very Serious People are like a sick dog that keeps throwing up the same dinner, looking around and lapping it up again, only to revomit it out a little bit later.

    I am really trying to be polite about what a piece of dreck this thing is. Well, it is only a draft, and I think it will make a lead balloon look like a soap bubble.

    The serious long term debt problems are 1) recent overly generous income tax cuts to wealthy, and 2) rapidly growing health care expenditures for primarily Medicare, and secondarily, Medicaid.

    The commission had some good ideas, but the good ideas are small potatoes compared to the big problems, and there is so much half baked garbage in it, I cannot take it seriously.

    Good riddance to these bothersome elderly out of it fools.

  14. 14.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Isn’t it more like hiring a dog to watch over your grilled steak?

  15. 15.

    beltane

    November 10, 2010 at 8:31 pm

    Yesterday, someone on DKos posted a clip of Vladimir Lenin giving a speech. He was saying some pretty crazy stuff, but still not as crazy as this. All I can say is “God help us”.

  16. 16.

    jl

    November 10, 2010 at 8:33 pm

    Well, time for some fun.

    Here is your next fun new cause alert: Barton wants to save The America We Knew and Loved from a sinister threat: the energy efficient light bulb. The good old incandescent light bulb must be saved.

    Traditional Light Bulb Values!
    David Kurtz
    November 10, 2010
    Talkingpointsmemo

    One of the legislative priorities for Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who’s vying to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee is defending the “traditional, incandescent light bulb” against government regulators who want to replace it with “the little, squiggly, pig-tailed ones.”


    http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/11/traditional_light_bulb_values.php?ref=fpblg

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    November 10, 2010 at 8:33 pm

    @jl:

    I am really trying to be polite about what a piece of dreck this thing is. Well, it is only a draft, and I think it will make a lead balloon look like a soap bubble.

    I’m still convinced that this was an attempt on Bowles’ and Simpson’s part to publicly pressure the other commission members into doing what they want.

    Given that at least two commission members (Durbin and Schakowsky) have already said “hell no!” today, I don’t think it’s going to work out the way B&S hoped.

  18. 18.

    Mark S.

    November 10, 2010 at 8:33 pm

    Couldn’t we have saved some money by just getting some libertarian college kids high in a dorm room? That’s probably what they would have come up with.

    Two of my favorites:

    It eliminates the employer-tax exclusion for health care and the mortgage-interest deduction, and does nothing in particular to deal with the resulting chaos in the employer-based health-insurance market or the housing market.

    We need a year long study to determine if the gays already serving in the military can come out, but proposals like these are like, “What the fuck? Let’s give it a try!” What would happen to the housing market (that’s already in the shitter) if the deduction was eliminated? And I don’t even want to think what would happen if the employer-tax exclusion for health care was taken away with nothing to replace it. I would imagine a shitload of people would wake up with no fucking healthcare.

  19. 19.

    beltane

    November 10, 2010 at 8:33 pm

    @jl: The Very Serious people are like a sick dog indeed. A dog so sick that its ideas need to be put down.

  20. 20.

    Citizen Alan

    November 10, 2010 at 8:35 pm

    And yet the Third Wayers love it to pieces! I am now of the opinion that every Republican in Washington and at least half the Democrats should die screaming in a fire.

  21. 21.

    beltane

    November 10, 2010 at 8:38 pm

    @jl: Wingnuts hate compact florescent lightbulbs. They seem to feel that high electric bills are a necessary component of freedom, similar to the way that being personally responsible the disposal of one’s household waste is the same thing as democracy.

  22. 22.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    November 10, 2010 at 8:38 pm

    and spare me the “They’ll make it work by getting rid of deductions!”

    Yes, it’s a clever ruse. Reduce and flatten the basic tax rates but don’t allow many deductions. Except what will immediately happen thereafter is that deductions favoring the elites will be slipped in one by one but with no accompanying rise in the basic rates. I’ve got to hand it to Simpson and Bowles, this will certainly appeal to the Gergen wing of CWmongers.

  23. 23.

    Crusty Dem

    November 10, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    From what I’ve read, it would be difficult to come up with a plan less likely to earn the support of democrats. They could’ve saved some time and paper and just printed “FUCK YOU!*” on a single 8×11″ sheet of paper. In tiny print underneath it would say:

    *except for you really rich people, you’re awesome and we’d like to lower you taxes by ~35%. Just act like this isn’t awesome for you and it’ll be fine, like it always is for us.

  24. 24.

    Oscar Leroy

    November 10, 2010 at 8:40 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    “I don’t think it’s going to work out the way B&S hoped. ”

    Why are you talking about things that haven’t even happened yet?!?!?!?!?!?!?

  25. 25.

    Calouste

    November 10, 2010 at 8:40 pm

    @jl:

    You forgot:
    3) Defense spending

  26. 26.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 8:41 pm

    @Mark S.:

    Yeah, the health care deduction was another laugher. “Uhhh…you realize what will happen, right?”

    Well said.

    I don’t care if housing prices are driven down more though. It got out of hand and housing should be cheap because it’s such a big chunk of everyone’s standard of living.

  27. 27.

    NR

    November 10, 2010 at 8:44 pm

    My sneaking suspicion is that this is just an attempt to move the Overton window so that when the full commission’s recommendations come out that cut taxes for the rich, but not as much, and cut Social Security, but not as much, Obama can adopt that plan as a “reasonable” compromise.

    I guess we’ll find out.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    November 10, 2010 at 8:46 pm

    @Oscar Leroy:

    You mean Bowles and Simpson didn’t hold a press conference today?

    Weird, I could have sworn I saw stories all over the internet about it.

  29. 29.

    NR

    November 10, 2010 at 8:49 pm

    @jl:

    Talkingpointsmemo says that both Obama and Conrad are distancing themselves from this piece of boring hashed over nonsense.

    Well, not exactly:

    The White House held its fire. Said spokesman Bill Burton, “The president will wait until the bipartisan fiscal commission finishes its work before commenting.” He called the ideas “only a step in the process.”

  30. 30.

    Oscar Leroy

    November 10, 2010 at 8:51 pm

    Wingnuts hate compact florescent lightbulbs. They seem to feel that high electric bills are a necessary component of freedom, similar to the way that being personally responsible the disposal of one’s household waste is the same thing as democracy.

    Or maybe, just maybe, wingnuts care about the environment a great deal, and say things like that to get people to pay more attention to energy efficiency. It’s pretty brilliant, really: Spend years making themselves look like fools, then discredit foolish positions by advocating them.

    11-dimensional chess, people!

  31. 31.

    themann1086

    November 10, 2010 at 8:51 pm

    If this happened, or anything remotely approaching this happened, the Very Serious Persons would get to see some real class warfare. You know what happens in real class warfare against the rich? Hint: it involves being up against the wall.

    ETA: Sorry, I forgot in my rage to mention that increasing top marginal tax rates by 5% (or whatever) isn’t class warfare.

  32. 32.

    Oscar Leroy

    November 10, 2010 at 8:52 pm

    @NR:

    Firebagger! Go back to La-La Land, Dennis Kucinich, you Thompson’s gazelle!

  33. 33.

    62across

    November 10, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    @John O:

    What would a deficit reduction proposal have in it, if it were drafted by the commenters here at Balloon Juice? I’d sincerely like to know.

    Say the parameters would need to be that it would have broad appeal, so it would be supported by Democrats and Independents – screw the Republicans since they’ll never come along.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    November 10, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    @NR:

    I’m not really getting the contradiction there.

  35. 35.

    General Stuck

    November 10, 2010 at 8:55 pm

    @jl:

    jeebus christ, before long these morans will require everyone to have their own milk cow, like they used to do it. All the way back to The Garden, if they can pull it off.

  36. 36.

    Oscar Leroy

    November 10, 2010 at 8:56 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    There is a huge difference between “the White House distanced itself from the report” and “no comment.” “No comment”, by definition, does not equal “distancing itself from”.

  37. 37.

    BGinCHI

    November 10, 2010 at 8:56 pm

    @John O: Or hiring a grilled steak to watch over your dog.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    November 10, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    @Oscar Leroy:

    There is a huge difference between “the White House distanced itself from the report” and “no comment.” “No comment”, by definition, does not equal “distancing itself from”.

    You’re the guy who’s already forgotten that there was a press conference from Bowles and Simpson today, so, yeah, not really buying your “not commenting is actually support!” claim here.

  39. 39.

    uila

    November 10, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    America’s domestic policy is basically one big social experiment to see how much shit the lower and middle class will eat before they finally vomit.

    On a related note, every time I see the name Erskine Bowles, my brain registers “Irksome Bowels”. Whereas with Alan Simpson, it’s just “asshole”.

  40. 40.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 9:01 pm

    @62across:

    I would say $200 billion in defense cuts, eliminating completely the SS tax ceiling, and something like this for the tax code in general:

    The guiding principles that must be the foundation of a new tax system.

    Everyone should be able to figure out everyone else’s taxes. In other words, someone like me, who hates the American tax code to the core of my being, should be able to calculate what Bill Gates owes/paid.

    Any income category so defined by the Congress (I say only two are necessary: Earned and Unearned Income) has a 0% tax rate for those under $X dollars of said category.

    The top rate gets first dibs on all future tax cuts.

    A monument to Democratic machine political ineptitude is that they haven’t figured out that they can outflank the GOP on the right simply by performing one of those Capital-Steps PR events where, in this case, they just burn the Tax Code in effigy. They should, while they’re at it, invite every Republican they can talk into being there. They’ll get a few.

    The U.S. Tax Code is a monument to every governmental principle our Founding Fathers tried to anticipate and circumvent; it is far longer than The Bible, and even harder to interpret precisely. This is patently ridiculous, since ultimately we are simply exchanging cash for services.

    So, here’s where we start on the new tax code. Earned income is tax free for everyone up to $XX,000 (I say 36; $3K/month should provide for a decent set of choices on feeding, housing, and clothing your family). The 16 year old burger-flipper and Bill Gates both get this $36K ($XXK; the concept is far more important than the numbers, which should be debated vigorously).

    The next flat rate starts above $XXK and goes to $XXX,000 (I say $200K to start) and is say, 20% or, XX%, and is again applicable to everyone who is working for money.

    Above $XXX,000, the rate starts (year 1) at a percentage required to equal the prior year’s tax revenue figure. We could add higher rates, conceptually, using the same principles.

    This would sell because, if you’re poor, what’s not to like, and if you’re rich, you control American politics anyway so you suddenly have lots of incentive to make some wise and responsible budget decisions. Even the Red State voters get this simple fact.

    If you have to keep the Social Security tax, give up on the cap, for God’s sake. It’s the most regressive tax we have by a mile, since those with incomes unlikely to need SS are the ones who avoid lots of the taxes that fund it, year by year, as we go. Insane.

    Unearned income works the same way. Allow Mr. 0% tax bracket to invest like Mr. Big does, and give him $X00 (say, $100/month) of his unearned income tax free. This benefits everyone, since now Mr. Poor has incentive to stimulate the economy by investing.

    Again, trying to be simple and fair here, the next one up starts at X+1% (21% in this example–don’t we want more incentive to earn income than not earn income, collectively?) up to $XX,000. Above that, it gets taxed at a rate that combines with the top bracket of the earned incomer to be revenue neutral to the prior year, or whatever amount Congress and the POTUS can compromise on, budget wise.

    It should work the same way for business. Define small, medium and large businesses by number of employees (my preference) or gross revenue—again, completely and sensibly debatable—and give them their first X% of earned income, tax free. Have two other brackets in which the tax remains flat in each earned and unearned income level, one for the medium sized company and the highest for the biggest companies, however (SIMPLY!) a big company is defined. Once again, if there is budget room down the road, the biggest companies get the first break on the tax rate.

    No other deductions. It is the only fair way to do it. Every special and powerful interest group must hate it equally. This basis for debate is important.

    The speech on Capitol Hill should be read, probably, by Bill Clinton, though he and Hillary are slaves to the Code anyway, so it would never happen, but if it did, it should start as the Code catches fire, and it should go like this:

    “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens, we are here today to mark a historic event in American politics.”

    “Our current tax code, the one burning before you, is the Mount Rushmore of American special interest politics. You could spend you’re whole life trying to figure it out, and you would never finish your task.”

    “There is not one person in this country that doesn’t on some level understand that this monstrosity is most beneficial to the most privileged in our society, since they are the only ones who can afford to pay someone else to take advantage of it.”

    “Also, they are the ones who have written it.”

    FYWP.

  41. 41.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    November 10, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I think NR is trying to imply that their not outright saying that they don’t like it means that they’re not backing away from it.

  42. 42.

    BGinCHI

    November 10, 2010 at 9:03 pm

    @uila: Simpson’s middle name actually is Asshole. Seriously.

    OK, this is actually true: Erskine Bowles’ wife’s name is, wait for it, Crandall Close.

    It’s like a fucking cartoon.

  43. 43.

    uila

    November 10, 2010 at 9:04 pm

    @62across: Considering that the US defense war budget is greater than all other nations combined, I’d say that would be a good place to start.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    November 10, 2010 at 9:07 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    And if you look at that single quote out of context, you might come to that conclusion. Unfortunately, this quote comes even earlier in the story:

    The White House responded coolly, some leading lawmakers less so to proposals that target government programs long considered all but sacred.

  45. 45.

    jl

    November 10, 2010 at 9:10 pm

    Looked into more details of the draft ‘BS plan’.

    I made a mistake, they do have some serious proposals for Medicare and Medicaid, but they want to start basically with benefit cuts to beneficiaries, then try to reduce payments to the providers (particularly doctors). And, if the insurance exchanges do not work, then they recommend a public option.

    So, there is more there than I thought, but still, their recommendations for immediate action is cuts in benefits to ordinary people and providers who are such chumps that they actually do useful work (ie, doctors). Some doctors probably need to get their pay cut, but a lot of primary care doctors are not making a lot of money, considering the amount of time they had to work at low pay as residents, and the burden of their medical education bills.

    The one piece I cannot believe, and think I must be misunderstanding, is the proposal to get rid of wage indexing for benefits. If they mean what I think they mean, their proposal is to basically phase out social security.

    As it is now, while you are paying in, the increase in your future benefits is indexed to wage growth. After you start receiving benefits, the payments are indexed to price inflation. Over the long run of a person’s whole career, 40 to 50 years, wage indexing is needed in order to keep the real value of the benefits up. If you use price inflation indexing over such a long time span, over several decades, the real value of the social security benefit will go to almost nothing.

    If I understand it correctly, the proposal to get rid of wage indexing for future beneficiaries is equivalent to a proposal to gradually phase out the program.

    I cannot believe they would propose this, but that is how it looks. Maybe I misunderstand it, maybe they are incompetent, maybe they think we are stupid, or the economists like Krugman, Stiglitz and Galbraith who will oppose it are stupid. I don’t know.

    Anyway, Galbraith is right, stuff like long term fixes to social security (which is recognized as a part of unified budget by Very Serious People only so long as they can steal the money from its surplus) and proposals for federal budget caps seem beyond the commission’s mandate. So, Obama has an excuse to fire their asses for not doing what they were tasked to do.

  46. 46.

    62across

    November 10, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    @John O:

    Thanks.

    I really like your tax code proposal, especially the idea of leading the way on simplification. I’ll light the match.

    Also, I wholeheartedly endorse the defense cuts, though as uila gets at, we could go further. I’d also go heavy at corporate subsidies.

    Any thoughts on an alleged Democratic “sacred cow” to sacrifice in order to take the wind out of the inevitable Democratic wet dream labeling?

  47. 47.

    themann1086

    November 10, 2010 at 9:16 pm

    @62across: Removing the cap on income eligible for the SS tax would be a huge start and (iirc from the SS wars of 2005) close the projected SS shortfall that occurs in 2045 or whatever. Return Clinton-era tax rates, add a new higher tax bracket ($1 million+) with higher rates, withdraw fully from Iraq, begin withdraw of Afghanistan, cut defense budget by 10%… once the economy picks up again, revenues will increase. That might, might cover the entirety of the deficit. I’d need to do math, though, and I’m feeling lazy.

  48. 48.

    uila

    November 10, 2010 at 9:17 pm

    @John O: Nicely done! That one comment is roughly 1000x better than the Simpering Bowels memo, and they didn’t even have to contend with WordPress. Sign me up.

    I still want that 90% marginal rate on all dollars over a million though.

  49. 49.

    uila

    November 10, 2010 at 9:19 pm

    @BGinCHI: The best name I’ve seen recently was highlighted by James Fallows:

    “We really look forward to working with our governor on increasing the resiliency of our federal forests,” said Ann Forest Burns, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council.

  50. 50.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    @62across:

    Well, I don’t think anything I’ve proposed is particularly partisan, but thank you. I’ve never really talked to anyone on either side of the aisle who wouldn’t discuss it rationally.

    Politically speaking, I get what you’re saying. Means testing for SS, Medicare and Medicaid is fine by me, as long as only people with serious means (net worth $2M or higher?) are the limit.

  51. 51.

    NR

    November 10, 2010 at 9:22 pm

    @Mnemosyne: What you quoted is nothing more than the writer of the story editorializing. The actual quote from the White House spokesman is what matters here.

  52. 52.

    jl

    November 10, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    @John O: I disagree about means testing for either Social Security or Medicare. Any means testing that will save money must start at lower incomes than the very wealthy. I think any means testing, especially for social security, will leak down into middle class.

    In the end Social Security will be seen as a poor persons’ program. If means testing for middle class produces tax breaks for supplementary private pension insurance, or maybe some BS matching program to make up shortfalls in expected savings for middle class people, then there will be a rich person’s retirement system and poor person’s retirement system (social security), and social security will become vulnerable.

    Social security should be considered an retirement insurance and savings program from the perspective of a person beginning their career, when we cannot tell who is going to be a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, and who will be a bum. The price is that Bill Gates gets a stinky little social security check in the mail, and that is a trivial price.

  53. 53.

    Citizen Alan

    November 10, 2010 at 9:34 pm

    @NR:

    Yeah, this. My prediction is that the actual committee report will be only 2/3 as evil as what Simpson and that fucking pig Bowles proposed today. And it will pass Congress and get signed by our beloved President. Why do you think he appointed all these assholes to the “Presidential Commission”?

  54. 54.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 9:38 pm

    @jl:

    Any means testing that will save money must start at lower incomes than the very wealthy.

    I dunno about that. The rich receive proportionately larger SS benefits, just like they get the biggest piece of the pie everywhere else. Sources?

  55. 55.

    62across

    November 10, 2010 at 9:40 pm

    @jl:

    Is there no way to design means testing so that it saves money and can’t leak into the middle class?

    SS being seen as a poor persons’ program is a real threat, so I get your point. I guess I don’t see a slippery slope as inevitable.

  56. 56.

    Mark S.

    November 10, 2010 at 9:48 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    I doubt they’ll end up agreeing on a report.

    I’m not worried about any of this dogshit ever passing. What I find incredibly depressing is that you can propose something that will force everyone to tighten their belts except the rich who will get a huge tax cut and the Serious People will all lap it up. I’m beginning to understand why they’re Serious People: they know they live in a plutocracy and they suck up accordingly.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    November 10, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    @NR:

    What you quoted is nothing more than the writer of the story editorializing. The actual quote from the White House spokesman is what matters here.

    And that quote sounds distinctly unenthusiastic to me, especially since it came from a junior spokesperson (the deputy press secretary) who basically poo-pooed the whole presentation from Bowles & Simpson and said it was not worth commenting on.

    Tomatoe, tomahto, I suppose.

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    November 10, 2010 at 9:56 pm

    @Citizen Alan: My prediction is that fourteen votes can’t be found for any set of recommendations, and, therefore, the commission issues several fragmentary minority reports. None of these will be an official report and, after a short period of squabbling over the corpse, the whole thing goes away for a while again.

  59. 59.

    John O

    November 10, 2010 at 10:00 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s a good prediction.

  60. 60.

    themann1086

    November 10, 2010 at 10:05 pm

    @John O: OK, yours is better than mine.

  61. 61.

    jwb

    November 10, 2010 at 10:11 pm

    @jl: Personally, I think they killed it with their obscene overreach on the tax cuts. The only people who cared about this commission were those who really care about the deficit, and those who care about the deficit are not generally impressed by the logic that tax cuts lower the deficit. So with this proposal they’ve lost the very crowd that might have championed a proposal with brutal spending cuts and tax increases weighted toward regressive schemes (like a VAT). In any case, this looks DOA.

  62. 62.

    Calouste

    November 10, 2010 at 10:16 pm

    @62across:

    Cut out all the defense contractors and at least half the new weapons systems. Any plans for what you want to do with the surplus?

  63. 63.

    WereBear (itouch)

    November 10, 2010 at 10:29 pm

    Sounds like that tax plan is spreadsheetable. I’m in.

  64. 64.

    NR

    November 10, 2010 at 11:45 pm

    @Mark S.:

    I doubt they’ll end up agreeing on a report.

    I wouldn’t be so sure. I think what you’re going to see is this report being set as the baseline. Then you’ll see a “moderate” faction emerge consisting of Baucus, Conrad, Spratt, Rivlin, Cote, Fudge, and Bowles. They will negotiate directly with the Republicans and there’s your 14 votes. They may scale back the tax cuts for the rich and the Social Security cuts somewhat, but we’ll still end up with a “compromise” plan that greatly favors the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle-class. Obama will then endorse this plan as a reasonable, bipartisan compromise solution to the Very Serious Problem of the deficit.

    And if this happens, the plan will sail through the House without amendment (there are more than enough Blue Dogs to see to that), and so the only way to stop it will be with a filibuster in the Senate. And I’m not at all convinced that the Dems will be able to hold the line on that. And if they don’t…. Well, you can basically kiss the party goodbye at that point.

  65. 65.

    General Stuck

    November 11, 2010 at 12:02 am

    @NR:

    Doesn’t it embarrass you in the least, pumping out this swill? You must have the self esteem of a shithouse rat.

  66. 66.

    Sly

    November 11, 2010 at 12:18 am

    The elimination of the EITC is the most glaring and galling proposal. It’s arguably one of the most successful poverty-fighting policies that this country has ever adopted. No one has ever been this brazen in their desire to completely fuck over the poor. Even Ronald Reagan expanded the EITC.

    Yes, they’re cutting the bottom rate substantially. But all the deductions and credits they’re eliminating does not make up for the rate cut. Especially the EITC. They’re patting people on the head with one hand and shoving a spiked mace up their ass with the other.

    @NR: There is no way on God’s puke-colored Earth that Kent Conrad will ever sign off on cuts to agribusinesses subsidies. Period.

  67. 67.

    Nick

    November 11, 2010 at 12:23 am

    at least they’re calling for a public option

  68. 68.

    Kryptik

    November 11, 2010 at 12:39 am

    You gotta love it. “The Solution Is Painful”. Yes, except for the folks whose taxes you’re thinking about drastically cutting and giving plum deals, which is fine apparently because you’re making drastic spending cuts elsewhere!…just not for programs that would directly affect those folks whose taxes you’re slashing.

    What I find remarkable is how much fucking gall there is involving this whole bullshit about the deficit, budget, and the continued sacrosanctity of tax cuts. Just like the ‘OMG YOU CAN’T LET THE TAXCUTS EXPIRE, BUSINESSES WON’T HAVE MONEY TO HIRE!!” They have fucking money now, and they’re still not hiring. Extending the tax cuts to current level doesn’t exactly seem like it’s going to make them jump to hire again, unless the business owners are being partisan hacks in withholding employment for political points (which is an entirely likely situation in and of itself).

    We are so goddamn fucked for the next two years at the least.

  69. 69.

    El Cid

    November 11, 2010 at 4:36 am

    @NR: At present, I see this as the most likely process and result. I certainly wouldn’t say that I can predict it absolutely based on each official’s particular comment, but it seems to be based on what our political system is and what the most powerful in and outside it appear to want.

  70. 70.

    El Cid

    November 11, 2010 at 4:39 am

    @Kryptik: Businesses are most likely not investing and not hiring and sitting on reserves and cash because people aren’t buying enough that would merit it.

    The right really does reject the idea that a lack of customers buying stuff (i.e., demand) is preventing all this spending and investment and hiring by business.

    The businesses I work with are following that rule quite closely, they are planning their spending and hiring and hours and such upon sales and indicators of sales. Now, the head honchos will say all the conservative supply side spin on this (i.e., nobody’s hiring because they’re unsure of the taxes and regulations), but, of course, they assure me that their situation is different, and they have to be determined by actual purchasing, because, they just are different.

  71. 71.

    El Cid

    November 11, 2010 at 4:49 am

    The Onion, on-topic actually:

    Social Security Scam Robs Elderly By Convincing Them They Are Dead

  72. 72.

    El Cid

    November 11, 2010 at 4:53 am

    The New York Times editorial on the sort of draft thing from the ‘deficit commision’ on the section re. Social Security.

    SOCIAL SECURITY To ensure the system’s solvency over 75 years, the proposal would reduce benefits to most future retirees. It would also subject higher levels of income to the payroll taxes that support the program, while building in safeguards for both low-income and long-lived beneficiaries.
    __
    The cuts to middle-class benefits are too large — a function of the fact that the proposal tilts too heavily toward cuts in benefits rather than increases in revenue.
    __
    What is important is that the proposal preserves the system’s basic character and successful design: the young support the old via payroll taxes and the rich help the poor via a benefits formula that favors the neediest.

    It’s odd, but I guess it’s significant that some thrown together lot of right wing pricks and other politically admired advisers didn’t sit around their tables and dinner meetings and decide to recommend that we totally rework the Social Security system which has functioned successfully for about 70 years.

    I guess we have to be thankful for so many of the simple things.

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