GOP issues new fiscal cliff offer to Obama
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans put forth a $2.2 trillion "fiscal cliff" counteroffer to President Barack Obama on Monday, calling for raising the eligibility age for Medicare, lowering cost-of-living hikes for Social Security benefits and bringing in $800 billion in higher tax revenue - but not raising rates for the wealthy. The White House declared the Republicans still weren't ready to "get serious."
With the clock ticking toward the year-end deadline, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other Republicans said they were proposing a "reasonable solution" for negotiations that Boehner says have been going nowhere. Monday's proposal came in response to Obama's plan last week to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion over the coming decade but largely exempt Medicare and Social Security from budget cuts.
Though the GOP plan proposes to raise $800 billion in higher tax revenue over the same 10 years, it would keep the Bush-era tax cuts - including those for wealthier earners targeted by Obama - in place for now. Dismissing the idea of raising any tax rates, the Republicans said the new revenue would come from closing loopholes and deductions while lowering rates.
Boehner called that a "credible plan" and said he hoped the administration would "respond in a timely and responsible way." The offer came after the administration urged Republicans to detail their proposal to cut popular benefit programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.
The White House complained the latest offer was still short on details about what loopholes would be closed or deductions eliminated, and it insisted that any compromise include higher tax rates for upper-income earners.
"Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won't be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit our nation needs," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement.
Boehner saw the situation as just the reverse.
"After the election I offered to speed this up by putting revenue on the table and unfortunately the White House responded with their la-la land offer that couldn't pass the House, couldn't pass the Senate and it was basically the president's budget from last February," he said Monday.
The GOP proposal itself revives a host of ideas from failed talks with Obama in the summer of 2011. Then, Obama was willing to discuss politically risky ideas such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare, implementing a new inflation adjustment for Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and requiring wealthier Medicare recipients to pay more for their benefits.
Monday's Republican plan contains few specific and anticipates that myriad details will have to be filled in next year in legislation overhauling the tax code and curbing the growth of benefit programs.
Tine is growing shorter before the deadline to avert the fiscal cliff, which is a combination of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that are the result of prior failures of Congress and Obama to make a budget deal.
Many economists say such a one-two punch could send the fragile economy back into recession.
GOP aides said their plan is based on one presented by Erskine Bowles in testimony to a special deficit "supercommittee" last year - in effect a milder version of a 2010 Bowles proposal that caused both GOP and Democratic leaders in Congress to recoil.
Unlike Bowles' official 2010 plan, drafted with former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, the version released Monday drops the earlier endorsement of Obama's proposal to increase tax rates on family income exceeding $250,000 back to Clinton-era levels, with the top rate jumping from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.
Bowles, in a statement, said he was flattered but the GOP plan does not represent his proposal.
Still, he added, "Every offer put forward brings us closer to a deal, but to reach an agreement, it will be necessary for both sides to move beyond their opening positions."
By GOP math, their plan would produce $2.2 trillion in budget savings over the coming decade: $800 billion in higher taxes, $600 billion in savings from costly health care programs like Medicare, $300 billion from other proposals such as forcing federal workers to contribute more toward their pensions and $300 billion in additional savings from the Pentagon budget and domestic programs funded by Congress each year.
Boehner signaled in discussions with Obama in 2011 that he was willing to accept up to $800 billion in higher tax revenues, but his aides maintained that much of that money would have come from so-called dynamic scoring - a conservative approach in which economic growth would have accounted for much of the revenue. Now, Boehner is willing to accept the estimates of official scorekeepers like the Congressional Budget Office, whose models reject dynamic scoring.
Under the administration's math, GOP aides said, the plan represents $4.6 trillion in 10-year savings. That estimate accounts for earlier cuts enacted during last year's showdown over lifting the government's borrowing cap and also factors in war savings and lower interest payments on the $16.4 trillion national debt.
Last week, the White House delivered to Capitol Hill its opening proposal: $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade, a possible extension of the temporary Social Security payroll tax cut and heightened presidential power to raise the national debt limit.
In exchange, the president would back $600 billion in spending cuts, including $350 billion from Medicare and other health programs. But he also wants $200 billion in new spending for jobless benefits, public works projects and aid for struggling homeowners. His proposal for raising the ceiling on government borrowing would make it virtually impossible for Congress to block him going forward.
Republicans said they responded in closed-door meetings with laughter and disbelief.
The GOP plan is certain to whip up opposition from Democrats opposed to any action now on Social Security, whose defenders say should not be part of any fiscal cliff deal. And Democrats also are deeply skeptical of raising the Medicare age.
Both ideas were part of negotiations between Boehner and Obama in the summer of last year.
In a letter to the president, Boehner and six other House Republicans insisted that the November election that returned Obama to the White House and the GOP to majority control in the House requires both parties to come together "on a fair middle ground."
"With the fiscal cliff nearing, our priority remains finding a reasonable solution that can pass both the House and Senate, and be signed into law in the next couple of weeks," Republicans wrote.
One of the few things the White House and Capitol Hill Republicans can agree to is a framework that would make a "down payment" on the deficit and extend all or most of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts but leave most of the legislative grunt work until next year.
Signing the letter was Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the unsuccessful GOP vice presidential candidate. Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican Conference chair, also signed the letter.
Earlier Monday, Obama answered questions on Twitter for an hour as the White House sought to keep up the pressure on the issue.
In response to a question about his insistence on higher tax rates for the wealthiest earners, Obama said that "high end tax cuts do (the) least for economic growth & cost almost $1T." By contrast, he said, "extending middle class cuts boosts consumer demand & growth."
Obama said he was open to "smart cuts" in spending, "but not in areas like R&D" and education, which "help growth & jobs." He also said he opposes spending cuts that would hurt the disabled or other vulnerable groups.
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed.
With the clock ticking toward the year-end deadline, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other Republicans said they were proposing a "reasonable solution" for negotiations that Boehner says have been going nowhere. Monday's proposal came in response to Obama's plan last week to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion over the coming decade but largely exempt Medicare and Social Security from budget cuts.
Though the GOP plan proposes to raise $800 billion in higher tax revenue over the same 10 years, it would keep the Bush-era tax cuts - including those for wealthier earners targeted by Obama - in place for now. Dismissing the idea of raising any tax rates, the Republicans said the new revenue would come from closing loopholes and deductions while lowering rates.
Boehner called that a "credible plan" and said he hoped the administration would "respond in a timely and responsible way." The offer came after the administration urged Republicans to detail their proposal to cut popular benefit programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.
The White House complained the latest offer was still short on details about what loopholes would be closed or deductions eliminated, and it insisted that any compromise include higher tax rates for upper-income earners.
"Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won't be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit our nation needs," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement.
Boehner saw the situation as just the reverse.
"After the election I offered to speed this up by putting revenue on the table and unfortunately the White House responded with their la-la land offer that couldn't pass the House, couldn't pass the Senate and it was basically the president's budget from last February," he said Monday.
The GOP proposal itself revives a host of ideas from failed talks with Obama in the summer of 2011. Then, Obama was willing to discuss politically risky ideas such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare, implementing a new inflation adjustment for Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and requiring wealthier Medicare recipients to pay more for their benefits.
Monday's Republican plan contains few specific and anticipates that myriad details will have to be filled in next year in legislation overhauling the tax code and curbing the growth of benefit programs.
Tine is growing shorter before the deadline to avert the fiscal cliff, which is a combination of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that are the result of prior failures of Congress and Obama to make a budget deal.
Many economists say such a one-two punch could send the fragile economy back into recession.
GOP aides said their plan is based on one presented by Erskine Bowles in testimony to a special deficit "supercommittee" last year - in effect a milder version of a 2010 Bowles proposal that caused both GOP and Democratic leaders in Congress to recoil.
Unlike Bowles' official 2010 plan, drafted with former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, the version released Monday drops the earlier endorsement of Obama's proposal to increase tax rates on family income exceeding $250,000 back to Clinton-era levels, with the top rate jumping from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.
Bowles, in a statement, said he was flattered but the GOP plan does not represent his proposal.
Still, he added, "Every offer put forward brings us closer to a deal, but to reach an agreement, it will be necessary for both sides to move beyond their opening positions."
By GOP math, their plan would produce $2.2 trillion in budget savings over the coming decade: $800 billion in higher taxes, $600 billion in savings from costly health care programs like Medicare, $300 billion from other proposals such as forcing federal workers to contribute more toward their pensions and $300 billion in additional savings from the Pentagon budget and domestic programs funded by Congress each year.
Boehner signaled in discussions with Obama in 2011 that he was willing to accept up to $800 billion in higher tax revenues, but his aides maintained that much of that money would have come from so-called dynamic scoring - a conservative approach in which economic growth would have accounted for much of the revenue. Now, Boehner is willing to accept the estimates of official scorekeepers like the Congressional Budget Office, whose models reject dynamic scoring.
Under the administration's math, GOP aides said, the plan represents $4.6 trillion in 10-year savings. That estimate accounts for earlier cuts enacted during last year's showdown over lifting the government's borrowing cap and also factors in war savings and lower interest payments on the $16.4 trillion national debt.
Last week, the White House delivered to Capitol Hill its opening proposal: $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade, a possible extension of the temporary Social Security payroll tax cut and heightened presidential power to raise the national debt limit.
In exchange, the president would back $600 billion in spending cuts, including $350 billion from Medicare and other health programs. But he also wants $200 billion in new spending for jobless benefits, public works projects and aid for struggling homeowners. His proposal for raising the ceiling on government borrowing would make it virtually impossible for Congress to block him going forward.
Republicans said they responded in closed-door meetings with laughter and disbelief.
The GOP plan is certain to whip up opposition from Democrats opposed to any action now on Social Security, whose defenders say should not be part of any fiscal cliff deal. And Democrats also are deeply skeptical of raising the Medicare age.
Both ideas were part of negotiations between Boehner and Obama in the summer of last year.
In a letter to the president, Boehner and six other House Republicans insisted that the November election that returned Obama to the White House and the GOP to majority control in the House requires both parties to come together "on a fair middle ground."
"With the fiscal cliff nearing, our priority remains finding a reasonable solution that can pass both the House and Senate, and be signed into law in the next couple of weeks," Republicans wrote.
One of the few things the White House and Capitol Hill Republicans can agree to is a framework that would make a "down payment" on the deficit and extend all or most of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts but leave most of the legislative grunt work until next year.
Signing the letter was Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the unsuccessful GOP vice presidential candidate. Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican Conference chair, also signed the letter.
Earlier Monday, Obama answered questions on Twitter for an hour as the White House sought to keep up the pressure on the issue.
In response to a question about his insistence on higher tax rates for the wealthiest earners, Obama said that "high end tax cuts do (the) least for economic growth & cost almost $1T." By contrast, he said, "extending middle class cuts boosts consumer demand & growth."
Obama said he was open to "smart cuts" in spending, "but not in areas like R&D" and education, which "help growth & jobs." He also said he opposes spending cuts that would hurt the disabled or other vulnerable groups.
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed.
Let's go over the cliff so both sides get what they want and everyone will be happy.
@ObsidianOne Agreed that we should "go over the cliff".  The cards will fall and we can begin to pick up the pieces - perhaps that is the only way for this dysfunctional congress to sort them out and restack them.
I still say that Boehner (in the photo) looks like he just ate something he found distasteful.
Â
Boehner and the GOP are offering nothing at all "new". They are simply rewording what they have been chaining themselves to all along: to put all the burden of Republican overspending since 2001 on two prolonged wars and unmerited tax "gifts" to some stinking-rich "buddies" - all squarely on the shoulders of the middle class and the working poor. The GOP seems just absolutely determined to create just two economic classes in America: those worth at least half a billion dollars - and the serfs who wipe their butts for them! And I am not buying that plan.
Â
Neither should you.
Last night I stood in line at Safeway behind a woman with three young children as she yelled at them in Spanish and paid with two different forms of welfare. We left and here she was loading her brand new mini van full of groceries and children.
Â
How about implementing immigration reform and welfare restructuring, two year lifetime benefit limits, citizenship requirements and drug screening. THEN ask me to pay more in taxes.
@SoTweetie 80% of all the wealth in America is owned by 4% of the richest population...not some mexicans in a min-van. You are being conned if oyu think the Obama plan is to move the wealth to the middel class as opposed to simply stop the middle class from paying more of the frieght.
@SoTweetie i would like the tax credit for children GRADUALLY  phased out altogether. If someone cannot afford to feed, clothe and house their offspring, it should not fall to the taxpayer to do so. I raised the number of children i could afford to raise (adopted one of them) and frankly resent being financially responsible to those who breed irresponsibily.
 @SoTweetie Last week a third grader and I were discussing college (I was telling him why I didn't have a big screen TV as we were saving for college for my two children. He was shocked at how small my TV was. His was 60 inches), he informed me that he would "not have to pay for college, the government would". I pried a little deeper and he told me his mom had told him that because they don't really pay for anything anyway. I personally know we pay for his lunch, breakfast and child care. He informed me that his dad can't stay very long at his house or they don't get as much money. To him this was normal and there in lies much of the problem. This is repeated in every class, every school, every district and in every state. There is room for reform.
 @SoTweetie How about making idiots like you learn to speak Spanish maybe - and the basics of formal logic...?
 @JLS1950 I have a formal education in Logic and Reasoning as well as the Spanish language. All that is irrelevant to my comment. Ad hominem means to attack the person making a point rather than refute it, a common fallacy of logical reasoning.
 @SoTweetie  @JLS1950 " I have a formal education in Logic and Reasoning"
Rushrules, is that you?
 @JLS1950 Call me all the names you want . I didn't say the woman was illegal, I said if the gov wants more in taxes I want reform in specifics areas.
 @SoTweetie Assuming that someone who speaks Spanish (like you) is an illegal alien - or even an immigrant - is a non sequitur - and a bloody offensive racist one at that. And interpreting valid reproof as an ad hominem attack is evidence of a scornful attitude and spirit (Prov. 9:8).
Democrats are being stubborn and unreasonable. The Republicans are at least putting in effort. "Ignoring" the plan put in front of you is just irresponsible and makes a mockery of the way our government was designed to function. Re-electing these fools will prove to get us nowhere fast.
 @SoTweetie Thanks for the help with the like/unlike thing.
Â
However, in response to your blog, I must disagree. What the Republicans have brought forth is just a regurgitation of the some fiscal plan they have included in their agenda the last four years, just rearranged the wording a little bit so they could claim it is "new." But in reality the Republicans will stand firm against eliminating the Bush-era tax handouts for the wealthiest Americans, while trying to push deep cuts to what they call "entitlements" that benefit the majority of the American population.
Â
I had listened closely to Rep. Boehner when he was explaining the Republican proposal to the media, I was not impressed. He conveniently refused to talk any specifics regarding the Republican plan, especially when discussing taxes, but he was very clear when he was discussing benefit cuts. In my opinion that is not a plan, it is more a referendum from a group of angry white men that cannot accept defeat. The Democrats on the other hand have laid out a very specific plan that not only includes specific benefit (entitlement) cuts, but also indicates tax increases for individuals that make more than 250K annually starting with the elimination of the Bush-era tax handouts.
Â
Time to face reality, there are no job creators in the upper 2% of America's wealthiest, only angry white men that will destroy an American company, move it overseas to exploit cheap labor and collect huge annual bonuses that they present to each other for being such savvy businessmen.
 @left-center It is important that, like you, people listen to the speeches and opinions of politicians on either side of the isle so they know what they stand for and why. You know what you're talking about and not because of media propaganda.Â
Â
Â
The parties have fundamentally different opinions about entitlement programs and taxation, so we have got to find middle ground. These are representatives being paid to figure it out but instead they come to us whining about each other. Figuratively it is like the parents in a family complaining to the children about the budget. We can bicker among ourselves, but ultimately the parents (representatives) need to find a resolution.
 @left-center I understand your sentiment, but respectfully disagree.Â
I am always amazed at just how little certain Congressional members know about the needs of the constituents they represent. One would have thought that the message the American people sent in November would have been enough to persuade some in Congress to change their attitude about what really needs to be fixed in order to put America back on the track.
Â
My best guess is that President Obama was re-elected primarily because the average American has grown tired of waiting for corporate America to engage the trickle-down theory and finally put the people back to work earning a livable wage rather than continue to work, if employed, and watch their wages decrease while the top tier rake in millions and billions. And I am equally surprised that the Republican Congressional members would trot out the same lame plan that cost them the November election in the first place and call it their new plan.
Â
Do Congressional Republicans not care that America is ready for a course change or are they just too beholden to the wealthy to turn against them now or are they just not savvy enough to understand who they should support? 2014 is beginning to look like Congress and the Senate will be a landslide victory for the Democrats.
Â
You know I am a Democrat; a proud liberal and progressive, but I do strongly believe in a two-plus party system especially in the Legislative branch of the US Government. But I cannot see how a house so divided will continue to make sense to the average American when that American has lost just about everything 'cept the clothes on his back; and that will soon include any faith he may have had in our current horribly dysfunctional democratic system.
I'm not a Democrat, but rather claim non- partisian. I lean more to the right of center, but can't get on board with Republican thinking. As Howard graciously points out, the rich don't feel as though they would be hurt by being taxed at a higher rate, and yet the Republicans in Congress won't give on this point, driving the middle class even further into oblivion. No division between the classes? BS. The rich keep getting richer while the middle class become the poor. Socialism doesn't work, and we are headed that way. Sorry Howard, but your wages are next to start failing. You're just not rich enough. Well, off to work I go.
 @SargeMcC Ha, you speak more of the truth than you realize! In inflation adjusted dollars I'm not making a penny more than I did in 2000, but I sure as heck work harder and with more responsibility by "title." Now one could look at that and scoff but consider this - many Americans are making less than they did in inflation adjusted dollars then they did in 2000. I'm one of the lucky ones treading water against CPI and non-CPI expenses, let alone education and health insurance.
Â
I have felt for the last decade that I have to fight hard to stay on the "correct" side of the equation, and sometimes it feels like a losing battle. At some point the soft pink flesh that carries around my brain is going to say "enough" to the stress, the lack of sleep, and the demands of corporate America, which is incredibly dysfunctional to begin with.
Â
I think everyone should pay federal income tax, even those who make say $5000 a year (I think you reach a point where processing the return and collecting the tax is not worth the effort for the amount collected). I do get the argument from the other side. This is where I think the left could give a little ground.
Â
But it always cracks me up when the political right trot out 47% of Americans don't pay ANY tax. Nope, they don't. Other than sales tax, meal tax, state income taxes in many cases, local, state and federal gasoline taxes, interstate telephone charge taxes, taxes on their cable bill, property taxes, license plate and auto registration fees, services taxes, sin taxes (alcohol, tobacco), motor carrier tax, airfare tax, federal TSA taxes...why heck, there is hardly a service or product out there not taxed.
Â
I mean, if being in the bottom 47% or an illegal alien gives you a, "you don't pay any tax to anyone" card - I WANT ONE!!!
 @left-center  @Howard Beale Once you 'Like' something then you have the option to 'Unlike' it. If it says Unlike then you have already 'Liked' the comment. :)
 @Howard Beale How do you get this bloody blog to give a like response? I touch like and it changes to unlike and puts my icon there next to it. I like your comment.
The drama....they spent more of our money on too big to fail then they've ever spent on SSI and were going to sit here and watch them negotiate away our SSI while the rich keep the rest. With these two parties, it wouldn't surprise me if they have SSI and Medicare privatized before April.
I haven't dove into the details. However slowly raising Medicare eligibility age (as long as there are over 65 insurance options available in the private sector) and changing how inflation adjustments are made to Social Security, giving the system a soft landing don't seem like poison pills to me. There are I'm sure devil in the details.
Â
On the other hand, and because I continue to stand in the middle of this issues, a 3% increase in taxes on those making over $250K isn't going to destroy those taxpayers, nor the economy. Shoot, even the "rich" are saying it isn't a big deal.
Â
I see pieces of both if BOTH PARTIES would give some ground in a deal that pulls us back from the edge.
This photo of Boehner looks like he's just been told by his doctor that his gluttony is killing him and he absolutely MUST go on a severely restricted diet or DIE: he seems to be contemplating a life of salads, whole grains and yogurt with extreme disdain.
Â
Sorry, John, but the Porterhouse days are OVER!
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Â
Thomas Jefferson
 @thebigteacher To be accurate, female Preying Mantis devour their mates, as do many spiders. That said, the comparison of the rich to spiders does seem to reflect the reality of the relationship.
How about letting president food-stamp have Clinton era taxation if he gives us Clinton era Federal spending levels?
When all the posts I see show, (for the most part), intelligence and no illusion as to where we really are, why is it that our 'Representatives' can't figure out that the will of the people is not being done. Back to our story; 'Fiscal Cliff'. Why can't we take an approach that IS bi-partisan, and say, "Yes, the rich should pay the same percentage of their income as the middle class." Â Why should the middle class pay so much of what they can't afford, while the rich can continue to rat-hole away millions off shore and take nice vacations? I haven't had a real vacation in three years. That set me back about $3,000. And I know there are plenty of people who have never had a 'vacation'.
This comment has been deleted
 @the unvarnished truth  @SargeMcCÂ
Â
This is what I know. I'm a top 10% wage earner. I pay on average 19% to 21% in taxes each year since working my butt off to earn the living I make.
Â
Mitt Romney makes MILLIONS mores a year than I do and pays about 14% in taxes.
Â
Now you cry all you want about the poor overtaxed riched - it's a load of crap. Why am I taxed at 19% to 21% and Mitt is taxed at 14% while making exponentially more money than me?
Â
Yes - I have deductions, kids, head of household, real estate, etc. etc. Yes I use tax reduction vehicles like 401K contributions, HCSA, DCA, etc. etc. etc. If I didn't have those - I would pay even more.
Â
The system is broken and no reasonable tax paying citizens that makes more than $50K a year can look at how they are taxed, and how the rich are taxed and go, "oh ya golly gee, that's fair."
Â
 @the unvarnished truth  @Howard  @SargeMcCÂ
Â
Please provide the name and phone number of your tax professional, broker, and financial planner so I can use them oh wise one with the tax shelters.
Â
I mean I would set up an account in the Cayman's too and live off of Capital Gains at 13% if I had a few million lying around doing nothing too. Wage earners get it up the arse.
Â
I figure there are two possibilities. You can provide information for us "average Joes" who fall in the 51% to 98% wage earning brackets on great tax shelters and write offs. Or your answer was pure snark because you've got nothing to come back on when assessing how much the top 2% actually pay in taxes compared to say the top 10%. Not in terms of TOTAL dollars, but in terms of percentage of income.
Â
If I can cut my tax bill in half, that would be another $15,000 a year I could put into the US economy. Sadly folks like you think that my $30,000 a year isn't enough and I should pay more - because, ahem, I'm not rich - just well paid.
@the unvarnished truth You need a better brain.
Actually, a Berkeley study showed that the top 1% make 93% of the income (realized capital gains are included in the study showing true income) while an IRS report shows the top 1% pay less than 40% of the the Federal Income Tax. That leaves 3% of the income earned paying 60% of the Federal Income Tax.
 @the unvarnished truth Actually, the top 5% receive 95% of the income but pay far less than 50% of the taxes, federal and state.
Â
But keep sucking there, fella: they're bound to pass SOMETHING that can be digested again... eventually!
 @the unvarnished truth Add up the income of every person living in, say, Washington State - workers, farmers, retirees, housewives, homeless people, welfare recipients, disabled vets, children from birth through age 18... everybody... and divide by the count. of said same.
 @the unvarnished truth  @SargeMcC "top 5% make 40% of the money but pay over 70% of the income taxes."
If any member of the top 2% is paying more than 15% on their income, they need to fire their tax accountant...any person who makes enough to be in the top bracket is a fool for putting their money in anything that doesn't generate capital gains.
As we saw with Romney, they have to cheat on what they declare to pay more than 14%...and he's probably amended the return - again - to recover that deduction.
Unless you can show figures from the IRS proving the rich pay more, they aren't...you don't have access to their returns, and they aren't publishing them.
 @the unvarnished truth  @OrcasThunder  @SargeMcC "Romney cheated on his taxes?"
Yep.
He admitted that in his 14% return he did not declare some deductions he was "entitled" to, because he didn't want to show the true 9% figure. In my view, since it was done for blatant political reasons, he was cheating in order to look "more like the ordinary guy"...given that Romney has no concept of what it is like to be an "ordinary guy" - beyond stopping at a McD's for a Big Mac BEFORE going to lunch with the President - he was actually being the fool, once again...
 @the unvarnished truth  @SargeMcC They pay less as a percentage of their income.
The top 5% pay a lower percentage of their wage to taxes than the middle class, ($50,000 to $60,000 a year). If you say it's because they are creating jobs, re-examine the job growth scale versus job loss and under- enployment rate. There is a great disparity between the working class, who make the world go round, and the rich, who play while the world goes round. The rich are not creating jobs, they are cutting them. Check Eddie Lampertes approach. Cut floor employees, so that top level CE's get more bonuses. Sears and K-Mart are done. Top level CEO's killed them.
So it is save the tax cuts for the rich and lets kill big bird. Follow the money, all of those rotten political advertisement paid for by pac's have strings attached.
?????????? Well that's not working......WTF???Â
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
--Abraham Lincoln
@Crimsonkid "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool ALL of the people ALL of the time." Supposedly attributed to Lincoln. ummmmâ¦.. You arenât doing very well there kid.
 @Crimsonkid Lincoln was a socialistic liberal who waged an illegal war of aggression driven by bleeding heart liberals in Boston - and yet you're quoting him.
Â
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! The irony is not lost on me.
 @Crimsonkid These words are often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but according to the book: :They Never Said it: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions", they are not from Lincoln. The quotes were published in 1942 by William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister. He released a pamphlet titled Lincoln On Limitations, which did include a Lincoln quote, but also added 10 statements written by Boetcker himself.
Â
Now what do you say?
 @thebigteacher Typical of right-wingers to attribute their own whacko words to someone else smarter and more sensible than they, just to get an air of "legitimacy".
 @Crimsonkid
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Â
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Â
Thomas Jefferson
@Crimsonkid Sorry Kid, But Abraham Lincoln nver said anything CLOSE to that. It was actually published by a RWNJ Presbyterian minister.
Â
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln/prosperity.asp
Â
But like any good Republican, you didnt do your research and belive what Faux anf Friendfs feed you.
Â
FORWARD!
Sorry for the bad typing. How I WISH there was an "edit" button again!
 @tufa23 More like a demon tale: Republicans treat doctrines of demons as Gospel.
 @EMDF9A his post was a fairy tale no matter how you typed
 @Crimsonkid That's what I love about your republicans.... you love to hold on to things from a time long gone by while rejecting things current....
Â
If nothing else, at least you are consistent in that regard...
 @sunnysandiego  @Crimsonkid Yeah. They love to hold onto old things like THE CONSTITUTION.
 @Gino  @sunnysandiego  @CrimsonkidÂ
Â
They do?
Â
Patriot Act?
Â
Patriot Act II?
Â
Room 264A?
Â
You think the GOP is the champion savior of the Bill of Rights???
Â
Is it April Fools Day?
 @Gino They'd throw that under the bus in a heartbeat if they felt at all threatened by the "rabble". Go look at the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, which included provisions allowing George W. Bush to suspend habeas corpus, the courts and the power of Congress, and declare himself "benevolent dictator of the United States of America". Republicans HATE the Constitution except when they can quote it to get their own way somehow.
 @Gino  @sunnysandiego  @Crimsonkid well, the 2nd amendment anyway. to heck with the rest of it...