Workers making $30,000 will take a bigger hit on their pay than those earning $500,000 under new fiscal deal
Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more - or an additional $2,711 - in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent - or up to $1,784 - the D.C.-based think tank reported.
Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.
'The economy needs a stimulus, but
under the agreement, taxes will go up in 2013 relative to 2012 - not
only on high-income households, as widely discussed, but also on every
working man and woman in the country, via the end of the payroll tax
cut,' said William G. Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center.
'For most households, the payroll tax takes a far bigger bite than the income tax does, and the payroll tax cut therefore - as [the Congressional Budget Office] and others have shown - was a more effective stimulus than income tax cuts were, because the payroll tax cuts hit lower in the income distribution and hence were more likely to be spent,' he added.
'For most households, the payroll tax takes a far bigger bite than the income tax does, and the payroll tax cut therefore - as [the Congressional Budget Office] and others have shown - was a more effective stimulus than income tax cuts were, because the payroll tax cuts hit lower in the income distribution and hence were more likely to be spent,' he added.
When the deal was passed by Congress
late Tuesday, President Obama said it prevented 'a middle class take
hike that could have sent the economy back into recession' and have a
'severe impact' on American families.
'Under this law, more than 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses will not see their income taxes go up,' he said.
To the contrary, the Tax Policy Center says roughly 70 percent of Americans will see their income taxes rise as a result of the deal. They won't rise as much as they would have if no deal had been reached and the fiscal cliff was triggered, but they will go up nonetheless.
The average increase in tax bills for all earners will be about $1,257.
While the lower brackets will take a bigger hit to their paychecks than those in the $200,000 to $500,000 bucket, their overall federal tax rate will remain smaller. And the biggest hit of all will still be felt by the nation's top income earners.
Obama made a tax hike on the nation's wealthiest central to his campaign for re-election.
Workers making more than $1 million will pay an average 7.8 percent more - or an additional $170,341 - under the new law.
The federal tax rate will be roughly 39 percent for that group, compared to 26 percent for those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 and 14 percent for those making between $40,000 and $50,000.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256972/Middle-earners-hit-hardest-revealed-workers-making-30-000-bigger-hit-earning-500-000-new-fiscal-deal.html
Evans read a statement from an “overseas analyst” who said that the “economy was recovering” and that he expected bond yields to increase in coming months.
The analyst said that the only obstacle he sees to the continued expansion of the U.S. economy were “lunatic Republicans” who may bring about an “insane technical default” when they attempt to negotiate spending cuts as part of a deal to increase the debt ceiling limit.
“That’s the worry here,” Evans concurred. “Will we have a self-inflicted wound – a gunshot to the head?”
“What about the lunatics that spent $16.4 trillion and want another check? Aren’t they the crazies, Kelly,” Santelli asked pointedly. “Why are the lunatics the people that say ‘overspending and creating too much debt’ are lunatics?’”
“If you think that we have a Congress that can’t get our house in order, do you think that we’re ever going to be able to worry about a long-term event and plan ahead,” Santelli asked.
“No one, Rick, to your point is making those long-term reforms,” Evans said in partial agreement.
“Childish,” Santelli replied. “We need to get serious about this debt and quit calling people ‘lunatics’ that acknowledge it.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rick-santelli-loses-it-over-lunatic-republicans-comment-what-about-lunatics-who-spent-16-4-trillion
Few items I have seen have offered the bitter satisfaction of this post on far-left Democratic Underground:
Yes, friend, welcome to Obama's America. That particular poster is complaining about the expiration of the temporary 2% payroll tax cut, but the sentiment is going to be echoed all across America pretty soon.
Don't forget that there will also be ObamaCare tax increases, a whole host of new regulations, and lots more intrusion from a newly-empowered nanny state for people to experience. Right now, it's easy for the GOP to feel as though maybe the country has changed in some fundamental way with the re-election of President Obama. But keep in mind that he managed to insulate people to some degree from the effects of his policies for the last four years; now, it's actually time to pay.
And now we'll really learn whether the country has changed so that people across the board are willing to subsidize the kind of government Obama wants to "give" us -- or whether it all sounded good when he offered the implicit, false promise that everyone could have more, with only the evil "rich" paying for it.
The White House’s Flickr account recently released a photo of President Barack Obama and his top advisers. The complete absence of women in the image is another reminder that females are underrepresented in Obama’s staff.
Additionally, the president still pays his female employees significantly less than their male counterparts.
The Obama White House in 2011 paid female staffers 18 percent less than their male colleagues:
http://freebeacon.com/white-house-war-on-women-escalates/
'Under this law, more than 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses will not see their income taxes go up,' he said.
To the contrary, the Tax Policy Center says roughly 70 percent of Americans will see their income taxes rise as a result of the deal. They won't rise as much as they would have if no deal had been reached and the fiscal cliff was triggered, but they will go up nonetheless.
The average increase in tax bills for all earners will be about $1,257.
While the lower brackets will take a bigger hit to their paychecks than those in the $200,000 to $500,000 bucket, their overall federal tax rate will remain smaller. And the biggest hit of all will still be felt by the nation's top income earners.
Obama made a tax hike on the nation's wealthiest central to his campaign for re-election.
Workers making more than $1 million will pay an average 7.8 percent more - or an additional $170,341 - under the new law.
The federal tax rate will be roughly 39 percent for that group, compared to 26 percent for those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 and 14 percent for those making between $40,000 and $50,000.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256972/Middle-earners-hit-hardest-revealed-workers-making-30-000-bigger-hit-earning-500-000-new-fiscal-deal.html
Rick Santelli Loses It Over ‘Lunatic Republicans’ Comment: ‘What About Lunatics Who Spent $16.4 Trillion?’
CNBC host Rick Santelli became visibly frustrated after cohost Kelly Evans after she read a comment from an “overseas analyst” who said that the economy is recovering but “lunatic Republicans” negotiating over the debt ceiling limit could scuttle that recovery. He became agitated over the notion that the party focusing on the debt is called “lunatics” for acknowledging that a crisis is on the horizon.Evans read a statement from an “overseas analyst” who said that the “economy was recovering” and that he expected bond yields to increase in coming months.
The analyst said that the only obstacle he sees to the continued expansion of the U.S. economy were “lunatic Republicans” who may bring about an “insane technical default” when they attempt to negotiate spending cuts as part of a deal to increase the debt ceiling limit.
“That’s the worry here,” Evans concurred. “Will we have a self-inflicted wound – a gunshot to the head?”
“What about the lunatics that spent $16.4 trillion and want another check? Aren’t they the crazies, Kelly,” Santelli asked pointedly. “Why are the lunatics the people that say ‘overspending and creating too much debt’ are lunatics?’”
“If you think that we have a Congress that can’t get our house in order, do you think that we’re ever going to be able to worry about a long-term event and plan ahead,” Santelli asked.
“No one, Rick, to your point is making those long-term reforms,” Evans said in partial agreement.
“Childish,” Santelli replied. “We need to get serious about this debt and quit calling people ‘lunatics’ that acknowledge it.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rick-santelli-loses-it-over-lunatic-republicans-comment-what-about-lunatics-who-spent-16-4-trillion
And Now It's Actually Time to Pay . . .
Few items I have seen have offered the bitter satisfaction of this post on far-left Democratic Underground:
My paycheck just went down by an amount I don't feel comfortable with.
Yes, friend, welcome to Obama's America. That particular poster is complaining about the expiration of the temporary 2% payroll tax cut, but the sentiment is going to be echoed all across America pretty soon.
Don't forget that there will also be ObamaCare tax increases, a whole host of new regulations, and lots more intrusion from a newly-empowered nanny state for people to experience. Right now, it's easy for the GOP to feel as though maybe the country has changed in some fundamental way with the re-election of President Obama. But keep in mind that he managed to insulate people to some degree from the effects of his policies for the last four years; now, it's actually time to pay.
And now we'll really learn whether the country has changed so that people across the board are willing to subsidize the kind of government Obama wants to "give" us -- or whether it all sounded good when he offered the implicit, false promise that everyone could have more, with only the evil "rich" paying for it.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/carolplattliebau/2013/01/04/and-now-its-actually-time-to-pay-n1479002
White House War on Women Escalates
The White House’s Flickr account recently released a photo of President Barack Obama and his top advisers. The complete absence of women in the image is another reminder that females are underrepresented in Obama’s staff.
Additionally, the president still pays his female employees significantly less than their male counterparts.
The Obama White House in 2011 paid female staffers 18 percent less than their male colleagues:
According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).The Obama reelection campaign, though better, was also a bastion of inequality:
The Obama reelection campaign’s female employees earned an average of $6,872 during that period, compared with an average of $7,235 for male employees. That is a difference of $363, or 5.3 percent.It is unclear when Obama and the Democrats will call off the war on women.
The annualized pay difference is more than $2,100 per year.
http://freebeacon.com/white-house-war-on-women-escalates/
Obama unilaterally rewrites immigration law again
President Obama issued a rule yesterday through the Department of
Homeland Security to put illegal immigrants who have United States
citizens in their immediate families on the fast track to permanent
legal status.
“This final rule facilitates the legal immigration process and reduces the amount of time that U.S. citizens are separated from their immediate relatives who are in the process of obtaining an immigrant visa,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which Bill Clinton signed in 1996 in order to deter illegal immigration, requires illegal immigrants who have overstayed their visa to leave the country while applying for a new one. “Someone who has overstayed a visa for more than six months is barred from reentering the U.S. for three years; those who overstay more than a year are barred for 10 years,” the Los Angeles Times explained yesterday.
“The final rule establishes a process that allows certain individuals to apply for a provisional unlawful presence waiver before they depart the United States to attend immigrant visa interviews in their countries of origin,” DHS explained. This change would allow people to live in the United States while pursuing an immigrant visa, although they would still have to return to their original country to pick up that visa.
“The change will have a significant impact on American families by greatly reducing the time family members are separated from those they rely upon,” United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
Even if the policy could have bipartisan support, the unilateral nature of the maneuver could complicate negotiations over changing immigration law.
“If Obama continues to force his preferred policies on the country without discussion or legislation, and simply on the basis of his personal agenda, he is unlikely to find willing partners when it comes time for significant immigration action,” a Senate Republican aide told The Washington Examiner.
Last year, the president also announced that DHS would not enforce immigration laws for people who would have qualified for the DREAM Act if it had been passed by Congress.
When the rule was proposed last year, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, faulted Obama for unilaterally changing immigration policy without congressional approval.
“This final rule facilitates the legal immigration process and reduces the amount of time that U.S. citizens are separated from their immediate relatives who are in the process of obtaining an immigrant visa,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which Bill Clinton signed in 1996 in order to deter illegal immigration, requires illegal immigrants who have overstayed their visa to leave the country while applying for a new one. “Someone who has overstayed a visa for more than six months is barred from reentering the U.S. for three years; those who overstay more than a year are barred for 10 years,” the Los Angeles Times explained yesterday.
“The final rule establishes a process that allows certain individuals to apply for a provisional unlawful presence waiver before they depart the United States to attend immigrant visa interviews in their countries of origin,” DHS explained. This change would allow people to live in the United States while pursuing an immigrant visa, although they would still have to return to their original country to pick up that visa.
“The change will have a significant impact on American families by greatly reducing the time family members are separated from those they rely upon,” United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
Even if the policy could have bipartisan support, the unilateral nature of the maneuver could complicate negotiations over changing immigration law.
“If Obama continues to force his preferred policies on the country without discussion or legislation, and simply on the basis of his personal agenda, he is unlikely to find willing partners when it comes time for significant immigration action,” a Senate Republican aide told The Washington Examiner.
Last year, the president also announced that DHS would not enforce immigration laws for people who would have qualified for the DREAM Act if it had been passed by Congress.
When the rule was proposed last year, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, faulted Obama for unilaterally changing immigration policy without congressional approval.
“This proposal from the Obama administration comes with no surprise
considering their abuse of administrative powers,” Smith, the House
Judiciary Committee chairman in the 112th Congress, said in a January
statement. “President Obama has already granted backdoor amnesty to
potentially millions of illegal immigrants without a vote of Congress.
It seems President Obama plays by his own rules to push unpopular
policies on the American people.”
Smith acknowledged that such waivers have always been obtainable, but the waiver was not designed to be used on a large scale. The Los Angeles Times says this new rule could affect up to 1 million people, adding that “sources said that the administration might expand the changes to include relatives of lawful permanent residents.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-unilaterally-rewrites-immigration-law-again/article/2517460#.UObxrqxBWSo
PK's NOTE: They even lie in photos. You can't trust a damn thing out of there.
"The group photo showed four House members who arrived too late to pose on the Capitol steps. A computer program was used to add them to the image later posted on Flickr," reports the AP.
But Pelosi maintains the picture is still an accurate historical representation. "Pelosi told a news conference Friday the picture was an accurate historical record of the female lawmakers from her party. She also said it was freezing outside, and that the members were entertaining guests on the day they were sworn in for the 113th Congress," the AP reports.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pelsoi-photoshops-women-photo_693697.html
From The Heritage Foundation:
Smith acknowledged that such waivers have always been obtainable, but the waiver was not designed to be used on a large scale. The Los Angeles Times says this new rule could affect up to 1 million people, adding that “sources said that the administration might expand the changes to include relatives of lawful permanent residents.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-unilaterally-rewrites-immigration-law-again/article/2517460#.UObxrqxBWSo
PK's NOTE: They even lie in photos. You can't trust a damn thing out of there.
Pelosi Photoshops Women into Photo
Nancy Pelosi's office photoshopped four faces into this photo, which now, after the alteration, includes all the Democratic women now in the House of Representatives:"The group photo showed four House members who arrived too late to pose on the Capitol steps. A computer program was used to add them to the image later posted on Flickr," reports the AP.
But Pelosi maintains the picture is still an accurate historical representation. "Pelosi told a news conference Friday the picture was an accurate historical record of the female lawmakers from her party. She also said it was freezing outside, and that the members were entertaining guests on the day they were sworn in for the 113th Congress," the AP reports.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pelsoi-photoshops-women-photo_693697.html
From The Heritage Foundation:
Life is good when
you’re in the majority—and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) seems to
believe he’ll be there forever.
Reid has already effectively shut down the opportunity for minority Senators to offer amendments to bills. Now he is angling to change the Senate’s rules so that minority members cannot filibuster a bill.
The way the Senate is set up, every Senator has the ability to debate legislation. But as Heritage senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky notes, “If members lose these abilities, the majority party will have the unchecked capability to shut off debate and pass legislation without opposition.”
The filibuster—famously depicted in the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—actually doesn’t happen that often. As Senator Jim DeMint wrote for Heritage in November, “The last person to engage in a genuine filibuster was the ultraliberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In 2010, He spoke on the Senate floor for eight hours straight in an attempt to defeat legislation to extend tax rates.”
In recent years, Republicans have not filibustered legislation, despite Reid’s current crusade. DeMint notes that “filibusters have not prevented the Democrat-led Senate from passing a budget over the past three years, preventing the so-called ‘fiscal cliff,’ or taking steps to reduce our $16 trillion and rising debt. Harry Reid has.”
To shut down debate takes a vote of three-fifths of the Senate. But Reid wants to change longstanding Senate rules so that a simple majority of 51 Senators could end any debate. This has been called the “nuclear option.”
There is a community of opinion amongst modern progressives. They are both fractured souls who believe that discontinuity is superior to tradition. They want to create the world anew every day, as if free-floating values are superior to the ballast of the past. Their ideas of a brave new world without precedent represent the cowardice of minds that can't integrate various traditions and values because they are interested more in short-term hedonism than in long-term sustainability.
The Constitution and modern ideas are like a marriage. Modern ideas without marriage are like cuckolding a spouse; there is no loyalty, no depth, no consistency. On the other hand, the Constitution without modern ideas is like the impotency of old age. We need a relationship between the past and the present.
Progressive secularists respect only the present and lose the footing of the past. Thinking only of progress leads to the regress of uprooted values. Failure is the distinction of uprooting an apple tree, killing its roots, and yet still trying to grow apples.
Without a constitution, we open ourselves up to dictatorship. Our president can do whatever he wants, not being grounded by the past. When the German economy fell apart, economic chaos led to a strongman -- Hitler. Obama prances around as a bully. He is a dangerous weakling.
You'd have to be a fool to live in the present while disregarding the meanings of yesterday. You'd be subject to the whims of unhinged ideas. The president could execute his enemies at will and enslave whomever he wanted. We need both a constitution and respect for it. Tradition is our best insurance against the atheistic killings of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Religion is the fantastic antidote to valueless murder.
Obama pretends that he is a modern man who is looking to give us our fair share, but he is a wannabe tyrant looking to uncheck his own ideas without balance and to parcel out our determined share according to his will. Fools believe that Obama is a kind man who wants to expand our rights and lives. He is closer to a dictator who wants to ordain our lives according to his whim.
Obama doesn't care about the Constitution because he doesn't care about us. Our groupies love him like a rock star while he beats us over the head with his guitar and chokes us in the strings of his thoughtless progressivism. Saying "progress" doesn't make it is so. In fact, most of Obama's rhetoric doesn't make it so. Obama promises us placebos, but we receive negative referendums and failed fiscal and moral policies.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/abandon_the_constitution.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/2012_gm_auto_sales_worse_than_any_bush_year.html
PK'S NOTE: This is really good. Read the whole thing.
Along with Obama's victories, what was also revealed was how a wily leader could turn neighbor against neighbor, American against American.
On New Year's Eve, Mr. Obama addressed the nation from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, complete with a cheering section made up of middle-class supporters. The meeting was a rally/gloating session for a man clearly pleased that he had successfully forced his political adversaries to compromise on raising taxes. As an added bonus, at the event Obama managed to further malign the affluent.
Barack 'Braggadocio' Obama pointed out that the "fiscal cliff" crisis placed him on the brink of a huge political victory by forcing the GOP against their will to accept higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. Reveling in his conquest, the president pointed out to spectators that "Just last month, Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise rates."
Well, that was then and this is now. Once again, by nurturing a Cloward-Piven-style crisis Obama managed to push the Republicans so close to the edge of the economic precipice that they were willing to agree to raise taxes to avoid being shoved into the abyss.
Yet, despite the immature nature of the whole event, what was appalling was not so much Barack Obama's predictable approach or his orchestrating what John McCain called "a cheerleading rally," but the willingness of the audience to cheer when the President announced that the rich would be shouldering more of the nation's tax burden.
For four years, Barack Obama has worked diligently to disparage success. He has insidiously cultivated class envy and fueled it with ignorance using the false premise that the wealthy destroyed the nation and are deserving of monetary castigation.
Clearly, Mr. Obama's persistence has worked, because the type of wicked satisfaction displayed in response to a sophomoric president boasting that the rich would be overtaxed reeked of a mob mentality reminiscent of a coliseum full of bloodthirsty spectators.
Americans applauding the fact that other Americans are to be punished by a leader for fabricated offenses helps one understand atrocities like the Romans cheering while their Christian neighbors were thrown to the lions merely for being Christian.
It was a well known fact that Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also known as the Roman Emperor Nero, considered Rome "ugly and squalid." In A.D. 64 there was a devastating fire that nearly destroyed Rome. As a result, rumors circulated that the emperor started the fire so that he could, for all intents and purposes, "fundamentally transform" the city into Neropolis.
Nero purposely starting a fire to create a crisis in order to bypass a disagreeable Senate and make Romans more amenable to his rebuilding the city is merely an ancient version of basic Cloward-Piven strategy. With Nero's rule in jeopardy, and G.W. Bush's birth not due for another 2000 years or so, the evil emperor needed someone to blame for the destruction. Nero chose Christians who were already believed by the Romans to be "antisocial, unpatriotic and uncooperative." And the commoners bought it.
Antiquity tells us that:
To
convince the Romans that Christians were guilty, Nero persuaded the
Romans that this obscure sect, much like modern-day rich people,
"hat[ed] the human race." And so, with the public's approval, Nero fed
the innocent to wild beasts, and had others "burned alive as living
torches to light garden [parties] at his Golden House."
Nero was so skilled at art of persuasion that slaying Christians for sport was cheered in a manner eerily similar to the way Obama's New Year's Eve supporters cheered taxing the prosperous.
According to Roman historian Tacitus, eventually Christian persecution became so brutal that "[a] feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers." Finally, astute Romans realized that Christians were "not [being] cut off for the public good, but were victims of the ferocity of one man."
Fast-forwarding 2000 years, although the "wealthiest among us" are not being literally crucified, a leader who is purposely burning the country down in order to rebuild it his way is unfairly punishing the innocent. In the process, he's managed to sway the envious that the wealthy are deserving of being monetarily penalized.
On New Year's Eve Obama wallowed in the fact that the burden for a fiscal fire he exacerbated would be officially laid on the backs of those he clearly loathes. Moreover, he did nothing to dissuade his audience from cheering the news that the well off would be thrown to the tax lions.
Therefore, Emperor Barack Obama passing the blame and admonishing the guiltless certainly smacks of ancient tyranny. Nonetheless, let's hope that eventually 'civilized' people will stop applauding long enough to recognize that well-to-do Americans are "not [being] cut off for the public good," but are modern day "victims of the ferocity of one man."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/throwing_the_rich_to_the_lions.html
We're all talking about Republicans on the Hill and their manifold failures. So here are some things President Obama didn't do during the fiscal cliff impasse and some conjecture as to why.
He won but he did not triumph. His victory didn't resolve or ease anything and heralds nothing but more congressional war to come.
He did not unveil, argue for or put on the table the outlines of a grand bargain. That is, he put no force behind solutions to the actual crisis facing our country, which is the hemorrhagic spending that threatens our future. Progress there—even just a little—would have heartened almost everyone. The president won on tax hikes, but that was an emotional, symbolic and ideological victory, not a substantive one. The higher rates will do almost nothing to ease the debt or deficits.
He didn't try to exercise dominance over his party. This is a largely forgotten part of past presidential negotiations: You not only have to bring in the idiots on the other side, you have to corral and control your own idiots.
He didn't deepen any relationships or begin any potential alliances with Republicans, who still, actually, hold the House. The old animosity was aggravated. Some Republicans were mildly hopeful a second term might moderate those presidential attitudes that didn't quite work the first time, such as holding himself aloof from the position and predicaments of those who oppose him, while betraying an air of disdain for their arguments. He is not quick to assume good faith. Some thought his election victory might liberate him, make his approach more expansive. That didn't happen.
The president didn't allow his victory to go unsullied. Right up to the end he taunted the Republicans in Congress: They have a problem saying yes to him, normal folks try to sit down and work it out, not everyone gets everything they want. But he got what he wanted, as surely he knew he would, and Republicans got almost nothing they wanted, which was also in the cards. At Mr. Obama's campfire, he gets to sing "Kumbaya" solo while others nod to the beat.
Serious men don't taunt. And they don't farm the job of negotiating out to the vice president because no one can get anything done with the president. Some Republican said, "He couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag." But—isn't this clear by now?—not negotiating is his way of negotiating. And it kind of worked. So expect more.
Mr. Obama's supporters always give him an out by saying, "But the president can't work with them, they made it clear from the beginning their agenda was to do him in." That's true enough. But it's true with every American president now—the other side is always trying to do him in, or at least the other side's big mouths are always braying they'll take him down. They tried to capsize Bill Clinton, they tried to do in Reagan, they called him an amiable dunce and vowed to defeat his wicked ideology.
We live in a polarized age. We have for a while. One of the odd things about the Obama White House is that they are traumatized by the normal.
A lot of the president's staffers were new to national politics when they came in, and they seem to have concluded that the partisan bitterness they faced was unique to him, and uniquely sinister. It's just politics, or the ugly way we do politics now.
After the past week it seems clear Mr Obama doesn't really want to work well with the other side. He doesn't want big bipartisan victories that let everyone crow a little and move forward and make progress. He wants his opponents in disarray, fighting without and within. He wants them incapable. He wants them confused.
I worried the other day that amid all the rancor the president would poison his future relations with Congress, which in turn would poison the chances of progress in, say, immigration reform. But I doubt now he has any intention of working with them on big reforms, of battling out a compromise at a conference table, of having long walks and long talks and making offers that are serious, that won't be changed overnight to something else. The president intends to consistently beat his opponents and leave them looking bad, or, failing that, to lose to them sometimes and then make them look bad. That's how he does politics.
Why?
Here's my conjecture: In part it's because he seems to like the tension. He likes cliffs, which is why it's always a cliff with him and never a deal. He likes the high-stakes, tottering air of crisis. Maybe it makes him feel his mastery and reminds him how cool he is, unrattled while he rattles others. He can take it. Can they?
He is a uniquely polarizing figure. A moderate U.S. senator said the other day: "One thing not said enough is he is the most divisive president in modern history. He doesn't just divide the Congress, he divides the country." The senator thinks Mr. Obama has "two whisperers in his head." "The political whisperer says 'Don't compromise a bit, make Republicans look weak and bad.' Another whisperer is not political, it's, 'Let's do the right thing, work together and begin to right the ship.'" The president doesn't listen much to the second whisperer.
Maybe he thinks bipartisan progress raises the Republicans almost to his level, and he doesn't want to do that. They're partisan hacks, they're not big like him. Let them flail.
This, however, is true: The great presidents are always in the end uniters, not dividers. They keep it together and keep it going. And people remember them fondly for that.
In the short term, Mr. Obama has won. The Republicans look bad. John Boehner looks bad, though to many in Washington he's a sympathetic figure because they know how much he wanted a historic agreement on the great issue of his time. Some say he would have been happy to crown his career with it, and if that meant losing a job, well, a short-term loss is worth a long-term crown. Mr. Obama couldn't even make a deal with a man like that, even when it would have made the president look good.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578219860235756952.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
Also Reads:
Maxine Waters Post Obama Tax Hikes: The Rich Must Be Taxed More
"Rep. Maxine Waters, who is now the second most powerful member on the House Banking Committee, is following in Obama's footsteps by calling for further soaking of the rich through taxes on Ed Schultz's radio show. Laughably, Waters also suggests the massive cost of Social Security and Medicare can be offset by taxing the rich, even though confiscating 100 percent of what they own wouldn't even begin to solve the problem."
In the 1930s, when the National Socialist German Worker's Party, aka the Nazi Party, was consolidating its power in Germany, its storm troopers regularly terrorized its opponents: showing up when they spoke to shout them down and intimidate them, vandalizing their messages, and sometimes attacking them outright. We are rapidly approaching the same situation in America today, as the Left's demonization of its opponents descends to this menacing new level.
...And the next step after that will be even worse: it is only going to get more dangerous -- physically and in other ways as well -- to oppose the policies of those who style themselves our moral superiors. With four more years of Obama coming, there is no stopping them now."
Reid has already effectively shut down the opportunity for minority Senators to offer amendments to bills. Now he is angling to change the Senate’s rules so that minority members cannot filibuster a bill.
The way the Senate is set up, every Senator has the ability to debate legislation. But as Heritage senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky notes, “If members lose these abilities, the majority party will have the unchecked capability to shut off debate and pass legislation without opposition.”
The filibuster—famously depicted in the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—actually doesn’t happen that often. As Senator Jim DeMint wrote for Heritage in November, “The last person to engage in a genuine filibuster was the ultraliberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In 2010, He spoke on the Senate floor for eight hours straight in an attempt to defeat legislation to extend tax rates.”
In recent years, Republicans have not filibustered legislation, despite Reid’s current crusade. DeMint notes that “filibusters have not prevented the Democrat-led Senate from passing a budget over the past three years, preventing the so-called ‘fiscal cliff,’ or taking steps to reduce our $16 trillion and rising debt. Harry Reid has.”
To shut down debate takes a vote of three-fifths of the Senate. But Reid wants to change longstanding Senate rules so that a simple majority of 51 Senators could end any debate. This has been called the “nuclear option.”
Abandon the Constitution?
Professor Louis Michael Seidman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times stating that we should give up the Constitution. What he writes, Obama intends.There is a community of opinion amongst modern progressives. They are both fractured souls who believe that discontinuity is superior to tradition. They want to create the world anew every day, as if free-floating values are superior to the ballast of the past. Their ideas of a brave new world without precedent represent the cowardice of minds that can't integrate various traditions and values because they are interested more in short-term hedonism than in long-term sustainability.
The Constitution and modern ideas are like a marriage. Modern ideas without marriage are like cuckolding a spouse; there is no loyalty, no depth, no consistency. On the other hand, the Constitution without modern ideas is like the impotency of old age. We need a relationship between the past and the present.
Progressive secularists respect only the present and lose the footing of the past. Thinking only of progress leads to the regress of uprooted values. Failure is the distinction of uprooting an apple tree, killing its roots, and yet still trying to grow apples.
Without a constitution, we open ourselves up to dictatorship. Our president can do whatever he wants, not being grounded by the past. When the German economy fell apart, economic chaos led to a strongman -- Hitler. Obama prances around as a bully. He is a dangerous weakling.
You'd have to be a fool to live in the present while disregarding the meanings of yesterday. You'd be subject to the whims of unhinged ideas. The president could execute his enemies at will and enslave whomever he wanted. We need both a constitution and respect for it. Tradition is our best insurance against the atheistic killings of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Religion is the fantastic antidote to valueless murder.
Obama pretends that he is a modern man who is looking to give us our fair share, but he is a wannabe tyrant looking to uncheck his own ideas without balance and to parcel out our determined share according to his will. Fools believe that Obama is a kind man who wants to expand our rights and lives. He is closer to a dictator who wants to ordain our lives according to his whim.
Obama doesn't care about the Constitution because he doesn't care about us. Our groupies love him like a rock star while he beats us over the head with his guitar and chokes us in the strings of his thoughtless progressivism. Saying "progress" doesn't make it is so. In fact, most of Obama's rhetoric doesn't make it so. Obama promises us placebos, but we receive negative referendums and failed fiscal and moral policies.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/abandon_the_constitution.html
2012 GM Auto Sales Worse Than Any Bush Year
I
know, I know. The bailout worked and all headlines today present GM as
having its best year since this and that. But here is raw data that you
won't see in many places:
● GM sold 2,595,717 units in the Unites States during 2012; this is an 11% drop of the almost 3,000,000 units GM in 2008.
● GM U.S. sales in 2012 is lower and worse than any of the eight years Bush was in office.
● In December 2008, when the world was collapsing, when we were at the boiling point of the crisis, when we needed to save GM no questions asked, GM sold 221,983 units. How bad was it? Well, in 2012 in the midst of the great recovery, when "the bailout worked" as per Obama ads, GM sold only 245,733 units. Yes, that's correct: the difference between the worse times for GM vs "its best months in five years," is a mere 23,750 sales!
● If you replicate this 23,750 difference for a whole year, it still does not give GM enough sales to catch up to their 2008 level.
● Total 2012 sales of vehicles in the Unites States from all firms combined were 14.5 million units. Indeed, this is better than the 13.3M units sold in 2008, but the 2012 sales are worse than all other Bush years.
● These numbers will make your liberal friends go totally crazy: Total U.S. 2012 Auto Sales (all firms combined) are up 9% from 2008, but GM is down 11% in the same period. In plain Yiddish this means the firm that got most of the auto bailout, went the other direction from the industry overall. While the industry as a whole under Obama had one year better than Bush (2012 vs 2008), GM's best year under Obama is worse than the worst year under Bush.
Perhaps now more people will take note that the bailout was about saving over-contracted unions who ran GM finances, not the firm itself, into the ground.
● GM sold 2,595,717 units in the Unites States during 2012; this is an 11% drop of the almost 3,000,000 units GM in 2008.
● GM U.S. sales in 2012 is lower and worse than any of the eight years Bush was in office.
● In December 2008, when the world was collapsing, when we were at the boiling point of the crisis, when we needed to save GM no questions asked, GM sold 221,983 units. How bad was it? Well, in 2012 in the midst of the great recovery, when "the bailout worked" as per Obama ads, GM sold only 245,733 units. Yes, that's correct: the difference between the worse times for GM vs "its best months in five years," is a mere 23,750 sales!
● If you replicate this 23,750 difference for a whole year, it still does not give GM enough sales to catch up to their 2008 level.
● Total 2012 sales of vehicles in the Unites States from all firms combined were 14.5 million units. Indeed, this is better than the 13.3M units sold in 2008, but the 2012 sales are worse than all other Bush years.
● These numbers will make your liberal friends go totally crazy: Total U.S. 2012 Auto Sales (all firms combined) are up 9% from 2008, but GM is down 11% in the same period. In plain Yiddish this means the firm that got most of the auto bailout, went the other direction from the industry overall. While the industry as a whole under Obama had one year better than Bush (2012 vs 2008), GM's best year under Obama is worse than the worst year under Bush.
Perhaps now more people will take note that the bailout was about saving over-contracted unions who ran GM finances, not the firm itself, into the ground.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/2012_gm_auto_sales_worse_than_any_bush_year.html
PK'S NOTE: This is really good. Read the whole thing.
Throwing the Rich to the Lions
The New Year has started well for Barack Obama. The president took a step forward in the ongoing process of "fundamentally transforming" America. As 2013 dawned, Obama accomplished a formidable set of goals: higher taxes for the majority, class warfare further exacerbated, and a public lashing of the prosperous for being prosperous.Along with Obama's victories, what was also revealed was how a wily leader could turn neighbor against neighbor, American against American.
On New Year's Eve, Mr. Obama addressed the nation from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, complete with a cheering section made up of middle-class supporters. The meeting was a rally/gloating session for a man clearly pleased that he had successfully forced his political adversaries to compromise on raising taxes. As an added bonus, at the event Obama managed to further malign the affluent.
Barack 'Braggadocio' Obama pointed out that the "fiscal cliff" crisis placed him on the brink of a huge political victory by forcing the GOP against their will to accept higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. Reveling in his conquest, the president pointed out to spectators that "Just last month, Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise rates."
Well, that was then and this is now. Once again, by nurturing a Cloward-Piven-style crisis Obama managed to push the Republicans so close to the edge of the economic precipice that they were willing to agree to raise taxes to avoid being shoved into the abyss.
Yet, despite the immature nature of the whole event, what was appalling was not so much Barack Obama's predictable approach or his orchestrating what John McCain called "a cheerleading rally," but the willingness of the audience to cheer when the President announced that the rich would be shouldering more of the nation's tax burden.
For four years, Barack Obama has worked diligently to disparage success. He has insidiously cultivated class envy and fueled it with ignorance using the false premise that the wealthy destroyed the nation and are deserving of monetary castigation.
Clearly, Mr. Obama's persistence has worked, because the type of wicked satisfaction displayed in response to a sophomoric president boasting that the rich would be overtaxed reeked of a mob mentality reminiscent of a coliseum full of bloodthirsty spectators.
Americans applauding the fact that other Americans are to be punished by a leader for fabricated offenses helps one understand atrocities like the Romans cheering while their Christian neighbors were thrown to the lions merely for being Christian.
It was a well known fact that Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also known as the Roman Emperor Nero, considered Rome "ugly and squalid." In A.D. 64 there was a devastating fire that nearly destroyed Rome. As a result, rumors circulated that the emperor started the fire so that he could, for all intents and purposes, "fundamentally transform" the city into Neropolis.
Nero purposely starting a fire to create a crisis in order to bypass a disagreeable Senate and make Romans more amenable to his rebuilding the city is merely an ancient version of basic Cloward-Piven strategy. With Nero's rule in jeopardy, and G.W. Bush's birth not due for another 2000 years or so, the evil emperor needed someone to blame for the destruction. Nero chose Christians who were already believed by the Romans to be "antisocial, unpatriotic and uncooperative." And the commoners bought it.
Antiquity tells us that:
To
stop the rumor [that he had set Rome on fire], he [Emperor Nero]
falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most fearful tortures,
the persons commonly called Christians, who were [generally] hated for
their enormities. Accordingly first those were arrested
who confessed they were Christians; next on their information, a vast
multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city,
as of 'hating the human race.'
Nero was so skilled at art of persuasion that slaying Christians for sport was cheered in a manner eerily similar to the way Obama's New Year's Eve supporters cheered taxing the prosperous.
According to Roman historian Tacitus, eventually Christian persecution became so brutal that "[a] feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers." Finally, astute Romans realized that Christians were "not [being] cut off for the public good, but were victims of the ferocity of one man."
Fast-forwarding 2000 years, although the "wealthiest among us" are not being literally crucified, a leader who is purposely burning the country down in order to rebuild it his way is unfairly punishing the innocent. In the process, he's managed to sway the envious that the wealthy are deserving of being monetarily penalized.
On New Year's Eve Obama wallowed in the fact that the burden for a fiscal fire he exacerbated would be officially laid on the backs of those he clearly loathes. Moreover, he did nothing to dissuade his audience from cheering the news that the well off would be thrown to the tax lions.
Therefore, Emperor Barack Obama passing the blame and admonishing the guiltless certainly smacks of ancient tyranny. Nonetheless, let's hope that eventually 'civilized' people will stop applauding long enough to recognize that well-to-do Americans are "not [being] cut off for the public good," but are modern day "victims of the ferocity of one man."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/throwing_the_rich_to_the_lions.html
There's No 'I' in 'Kumbaya'
By Peggy NoonanWe're all talking about Republicans on the Hill and their manifold failures. So here are some things President Obama didn't do during the fiscal cliff impasse and some conjecture as to why.
He won but he did not triumph. His victory didn't resolve or ease anything and heralds nothing but more congressional war to come.
He did not unveil, argue for or put on the table the outlines of a grand bargain. That is, he put no force behind solutions to the actual crisis facing our country, which is the hemorrhagic spending that threatens our future. Progress there—even just a little—would have heartened almost everyone. The president won on tax hikes, but that was an emotional, symbolic and ideological victory, not a substantive one. The higher rates will do almost nothing to ease the debt or deficits.
He didn't try to exercise dominance over his party. This is a largely forgotten part of past presidential negotiations: You not only have to bring in the idiots on the other side, you have to corral and control your own idiots.
He didn't deepen any relationships or begin any potential alliances with Republicans, who still, actually, hold the House. The old animosity was aggravated. Some Republicans were mildly hopeful a second term might moderate those presidential attitudes that didn't quite work the first time, such as holding himself aloof from the position and predicaments of those who oppose him, while betraying an air of disdain for their arguments. He is not quick to assume good faith. Some thought his election victory might liberate him, make his approach more expansive. That didn't happen.
The president didn't allow his victory to go unsullied. Right up to the end he taunted the Republicans in Congress: They have a problem saying yes to him, normal folks try to sit down and work it out, not everyone gets everything they want. But he got what he wanted, as surely he knew he would, and Republicans got almost nothing they wanted, which was also in the cards. At Mr. Obama's campfire, he gets to sing "Kumbaya" solo while others nod to the beat.
Serious men don't taunt. And they don't farm the job of negotiating out to the vice president because no one can get anything done with the president. Some Republican said, "He couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag." But—isn't this clear by now?—not negotiating is his way of negotiating. And it kind of worked. So expect more.
Mr. Obama's supporters always give him an out by saying, "But the president can't work with them, they made it clear from the beginning their agenda was to do him in." That's true enough. But it's true with every American president now—the other side is always trying to do him in, or at least the other side's big mouths are always braying they'll take him down. They tried to capsize Bill Clinton, they tried to do in Reagan, they called him an amiable dunce and vowed to defeat his wicked ideology.
We live in a polarized age. We have for a while. One of the odd things about the Obama White House is that they are traumatized by the normal.
A lot of the president's staffers were new to national politics when they came in, and they seem to have concluded that the partisan bitterness they faced was unique to him, and uniquely sinister. It's just politics, or the ugly way we do politics now.
After the past week it seems clear Mr Obama doesn't really want to work well with the other side. He doesn't want big bipartisan victories that let everyone crow a little and move forward and make progress. He wants his opponents in disarray, fighting without and within. He wants them incapable. He wants them confused.
I worried the other day that amid all the rancor the president would poison his future relations with Congress, which in turn would poison the chances of progress in, say, immigration reform. But I doubt now he has any intention of working with them on big reforms, of battling out a compromise at a conference table, of having long walks and long talks and making offers that are serious, that won't be changed overnight to something else. The president intends to consistently beat his opponents and leave them looking bad, or, failing that, to lose to them sometimes and then make them look bad. That's how he does politics.
Why?
Here's my conjecture: In part it's because he seems to like the tension. He likes cliffs, which is why it's always a cliff with him and never a deal. He likes the high-stakes, tottering air of crisis. Maybe it makes him feel his mastery and reminds him how cool he is, unrattled while he rattles others. He can take it. Can they?
He is a uniquely polarizing figure. A moderate U.S. senator said the other day: "One thing not said enough is he is the most divisive president in modern history. He doesn't just divide the Congress, he divides the country." The senator thinks Mr. Obama has "two whisperers in his head." "The political whisperer says 'Don't compromise a bit, make Republicans look weak and bad.' Another whisperer is not political, it's, 'Let's do the right thing, work together and begin to right the ship.'" The president doesn't listen much to the second whisperer.
Maybe he thinks bipartisan progress raises the Republicans almost to his level, and he doesn't want to do that. They're partisan hacks, they're not big like him. Let them flail.
This, however, is true: The great presidents are always in the end uniters, not dividers. They keep it together and keep it going. And people remember them fondly for that.
In the short term, Mr. Obama has won. The Republicans look bad. John Boehner looks bad, though to many in Washington he's a sympathetic figure because they know how much he wanted a historic agreement on the great issue of his time. Some say he would have been happy to crown his career with it, and if that meant losing a job, well, a short-term loss is worth a long-term crown. Mr. Obama couldn't even make a deal with a man like that, even when it would have made the president look good.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578219860235756952.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
Also Reads:
Maxine Waters Post Obama Tax Hikes: The Rich Must Be Taxed More
"Rep. Maxine Waters, who is now the second most powerful member on the House Banking Committee, is following in Obama's footsteps by calling for further soaking of the rich through taxes on Ed Schultz's radio show. Laughably, Waters also suggests the massive cost of Social Security and Medicare can be offset by taxing the rich, even though confiscating 100 percent of what they own wouldn't even begin to solve the problem."
Outing the Gun Owners and the Left's New Savagery
"The American Left, which thoroughly dominates the mainstream media, no longer believes, if it ever did, in the concept of reasonable and respectable people disagreeing in good faith on core issues; it increasingly demonstrates that it believes all opposition to its own outlook and policies must never be tolerated, but only eradicated. Its opposition is never to be engaged on the level of ideas, but only ridiculed and held up as evil. The Left has done nothing but demonize its opposition for years. Organizations like Media Matters routinely repeat remarks made by conservative politicians and commentators as if they were obviously risible and/or morally offensive, without ever bothering to explain why or to offer a substantive refutation of any kind. They and others like them never debate or discuss issues, but only deal with their opposition with endless games of "gotcha" and searches for "gaffes." After the Left has played such games for so long, this new level of savagery was perhaps inevitable.In the 1930s, when the National Socialist German Worker's Party, aka the Nazi Party, was consolidating its power in Germany, its storm troopers regularly terrorized its opponents: showing up when they spoke to shout them down and intimidate them, vandalizing their messages, and sometimes attacking them outright. We are rapidly approaching the same situation in America today, as the Left's demonization of its opponents descends to this menacing new level.
...And the next step after that will be even worse: it is only going to get more dangerous -- physically and in other ways as well -- to oppose the policies of those who style themselves our moral superiors. With four more years of Obama coming, there is no stopping them now."
No comments:
Post a Comment